:00:08. > :00:12.Yesterday the new boss of Royal Bank of Scotland fell on his sword
:00:12. > :00:17.and refused his bonus, tonight his predecessor, the man who broke the
:00:17. > :00:24.bank, had his Knighthood removed. Services to banking indeed. But in
:00:24. > :00:27.truth, is Fred Goodwin any worse than many another beneficiary of
:00:27. > :00:34.Britain's quaint honours' system. Are both he and Stephen Hester
:00:34. > :00:39.victims of a new mood in the land, where the rich are loathed, and the
:00:39. > :00:42.mob reaches for pitch forks. Russia says President Assad must be
:00:42. > :00:45.allowed to try to assert his authority in Syria, because without
:00:45. > :00:52.him, there will be civil war, could they be right?
:00:52. > :00:55.Syria has always had a very diverse society, where religious and ethnic
:00:55. > :00:59.minorities have felt comparatively safe, now many members of those
:00:59. > :01:02.minorities are worried about what will happen to them if the regime
:01:02. > :01:07.falls. Thousands of skills learned in
:01:07. > :01:16.schools will no longer be counted as GCSEs, why this bias against
:01:16. > :01:24.learning something useful. How can Facebook be worth tens of,
:01:24. > :01:28.perhaps $100 billion. What exactly is for sale?
:01:28. > :01:32.So farewell then Sir Fred Goodwin, it is not as if there will be many
:01:32. > :01:36.people mourning the fact that the man who wrecked a bank and did so
:01:36. > :01:40.much to bankrupt the country, has been striped of his Knighthood. The
:01:40. > :01:45.hardly heard of honours forfeiture committee, came to an a decision
:01:45. > :01:49.and shifted him into a much more exclusive group of people, Robert
:01:49. > :01:54.Mugabe, Nicolae Ceausescu and Mussolini, to name but three, who
:01:54. > :01:59.have had their knighthoods removed. Is being popular the same as being
:01:59. > :02:04.right? He's probably always been plain old
:02:04. > :02:08.Fred to his family, now he's plain old Fred to everyone else again too.
:02:08. > :02:13.Those three little letters, and long been a cause of anger for the
:02:13. > :02:20.public, and the politicians. We have a special case here of the
:02:20. > :02:23.Royal Bank of Scotland symbolising everything that went wrong in the
:02:23. > :02:27.British economy over the last decade. It is appropriate that Fred
:02:27. > :02:32.Goodwin loses his Knighthood. The focus of the current Government is
:02:32. > :02:42.to make sure we get back all the tax-payers' money that was put into
:02:42. > :03:01.
:03:01. > :03:05.the RBS to save it. A statement The decision to give Fred Goodwin
:03:05. > :03:09.his Knighthood in the first place was a source of some embarrassment
:03:09. > :03:14.for Labour, the party even tried to spin the reasons they had given it
:03:14. > :03:22.to him. I think that Sir Fred was nominated for a Knighthood, because
:03:23. > :03:28.of his services for the Prince's Trust, I understand that it was not
:03:28. > :03:35.in recognition of his services to banking.
:03:35. > :03:38.That was not true. Fred Goodwin was knighted in June 2004 in the
:03:38. > :03:42.Queen's birthday Honours List, for services to banking. No-one now, of
:03:42. > :03:46.course, will own up to coming up with the idea, but it was
:03:46. > :03:53.reportedly on the advice of Gordon Brown himself. And came just months
:03:53. > :03:57.after Sir Fred led RBS to record annual profits of �6.2 billion.
:03:58. > :04:01.Most people will welcome the fact that Sir Fred Goodwin lost his
:04:01. > :04:06.Knighthood, isn't it embarrassing for you, as your side gave it to
:04:06. > :04:10.him? It is right Fred Goodwin lost his Knighthood, but it is only the
:04:10. > :04:13.start of what needs to happen in boardrooms, we need to change the
:04:13. > :04:16.bonus culture and have responsibility across the board.
:04:16. > :04:23.That is what the public want, and it is what Government, working with
:04:23. > :04:33.the private sector, needs to deliver. Fred Goodwin sank RBS in
:04:33. > :04:33.
:04:34. > :04:40.2007, with his disastrous takeover of the bank ABM, he played a
:04:40. > :04:45.disastrous price where assets were worth less, less than a year later
:04:45. > :04:49.they were begging for a bailout. The complete collapse of the entire
:04:49. > :04:55.banking system could have occurred. Fred is a man of incredible
:04:55. > :04:59.arrogance, who totally believes in his own power, merit and ambition.
:04:59. > :05:02.He's somebody that put the fear of God into everybody around him,
:05:02. > :05:07.somebody that would never be stopped in any ambition that he
:05:07. > :05:11.pursued, and that, of course, was part of his success when he was
:05:11. > :05:16.successful, and his total and utter collapse when he failed at the end
:05:16. > :05:20.of his career. Is there something rather unsavoury in this rush to
:05:20. > :05:23.de-gong Mr Goodwin on the left, he was a welcome visitor once. The
:05:23. > :05:31.politicians only too happy to bask in the wealth and taxes they
:05:31. > :05:35.thought he was bringing. The ABM Amro deal was waved through by all
:05:35. > :05:40.the authorities. The Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, wrote to Mr
:05:40. > :05:43.Goodwin, signing the letter, "your's for Scotland", saying he
:05:43. > :05:47.would do anything to help the deal through. I don't turn my back on
:05:47. > :05:53.friends, and Fred is a friend. The Financial Services Authority did
:05:53. > :05:57.not object to the Amro deal being done. The then Prime Minister,
:05:57. > :06:03.Gordon Brown, supported the deal. The Bank of England did not object
:06:03. > :06:06.to the Amro deal going through. And the Treasury, that's Her Majesty's
:06:06. > :06:11.Government did not object to the deal going through. Are they all
:06:11. > :06:16.going to lose their honours and their positions of power? I just do
:06:16. > :06:21.not see that this precedent is a good one to have made. Some
:06:22. > :06:25.suggestion, then, this Knighthood is a proxy for the �700,000 pension
:06:25. > :06:33.that Fred Goodwin refused to relinquish. His eventual decision
:06:33. > :06:38.to hand back half of it did nothing to as sage public anger. Now, --
:06:38. > :06:41.assuage public anger. Now there is one title he would like to be
:06:41. > :06:48.striped of, but would probably have to his grave.
:06:48. > :06:55.With us now to discuss this are the journalist Toby Young, and Will
:06:55. > :07:03.Hutton. Toby Young, what does this decision tell us? It tells us that
:07:03. > :07:07.the Government are willing to sacrifice someone like this in
:07:07. > :07:12.order to secure short-term political gain. It looks as though
:07:12. > :07:17.the tentacles of Number Ten have extended into the Forfeiture
:07:17. > :07:21.Committee. Let there's just no question that he's being
:07:21. > :07:23.scapegoated. Why him and why not the chairman, as the report stated,
:07:23. > :07:30.the chairman of the Financial Services Authority who nodded
:07:30. > :07:35.through the AMro deal, why him and not the chairman of RBS, both of
:07:35. > :07:42.whom have Knighthoods. It is freighted with hypocrisy? I don't
:07:42. > :07:47.think so, it has come late. He was endorsed by every single politician
:07:47. > :07:50.in this country? Honours matter, and I think it is enormously
:07:50. > :07:55.symbolic. I think that people at the top of banking and business
:07:55. > :08:00.generally care about being honoured. And actually, it sends an
:08:00. > :08:04.extraordinary signal. Four years after the event? It would have been
:08:04. > :08:09.better, obviously, for it to have happened earlier, but to happen now
:08:09. > :08:15.and not at all. How long will honours continue to matter if they
:08:15. > :08:19.are politic sized to this extent? - - politicised to this extent?
:08:19. > :08:24.Sometimes honours are given for political reasons, the honours
:08:24. > :08:30.system has always been partly politicised. But this is overt. The
:08:30. > :08:34.forfeiture committee is supposed to consider only those who have, to
:08:34. > :08:38.strip people of their honours, if they have been convicted of a
:08:38. > :08:43.criminal offence, or censureed by a regulatory or professional body.
:08:43. > :08:48.Neither of those things have happened in this case. It is
:08:48. > :08:55.blatantly political. It has cost the country �45 billion? We are
:08:55. > :09:03.living through a once in 80 year event. The scale of which is only
:09:03. > :09:07.becoming obvious to everybody. It is going to take years more more
:09:07. > :09:12.balance sheets to return to normal in banks, and debt levels to return
:09:12. > :09:16.to normal. Years of austerity. This bank would have been bust without
:09:16. > :09:20.�45.5 billion of tax-payers' money going into it. It is in profound
:09:20. > :09:26.trouble. What you are doing with this, and what happened with
:09:26. > :09:31.Stephen Hester's bonus and not accepting T it is a landmark moment.
:09:31. > :09:35.Within 48 hours the country, civil society, the business community,
:09:35. > :09:39.and actually the Forfeiture Committee, are all signalling that
:09:39. > :09:44.the parallel universe in which banking has lived, over the last
:09:44. > :09:49.three years, since 2008, has to come to answered. You can argue it
:09:49. > :09:53.should happen earlier, but thank God it has happened. He wasn't the
:09:53. > :09:56.only chief executive of a bank to make a reckless decision, and to be
:09:56. > :09:59.in some way responsible for the credit crunch. The reason we
:09:59. > :10:02.gambled and were as reckless as they were, is because they needed
:10:02. > :10:06.to be in order to compete. The reason they were able to do that,
:10:06. > :10:11.the reason they were in this framework in which gambling and
:10:11. > :10:16.recklessness was acceptable is the failure of financial regulation.
:10:16. > :10:19.course you can't have capitalism without risk. As a matter of fact,
:10:19. > :10:23.HSBC got through this without Government assistance, although all
:10:23. > :10:28.the banks needed, in the end, part of that enormous cheque that was
:10:28. > :10:33.written, that is true. But the epicentre of this was Edinburgh.
:10:33. > :10:35.The epicentre of what was happening in Edinburgh was the Royal Bank of
:10:35. > :10:39.Scotland. That is why Scottish politicians like Gordon Brown and
:10:39. > :10:44.Alex Salmond, were so keen to advance the case of RBS, and to
:10:44. > :10:48.honour the guy who ran it. When the whole thing went pear-shaped, and
:10:48. > :10:53.it has brought the British economy down, you go for the epicentre.
:10:53. > :10:56.There were other people at the crime, I admit that. Doesn't it
:10:56. > :11:00.stink of hypocrisy, for Ed Milliband, the leader of the Labour
:11:00. > :11:05.Party, to be celebrating the fact that this guy is publicly
:11:05. > :11:10.humiliated, when it was the lack of public regulation that led to these
:11:10. > :11:12.mistakes being made, which the last Government were responsible for?
:11:12. > :11:16.Gordon Brown and the Labour Government, and the light-touch
:11:16. > :11:20.regulation, and by the way, at the time, there weren't very many
:11:20. > :11:23.critics on the right about that. also reflects a change in the
:11:23. > :11:27.public mood, that is the other interesting thing. When you think
:11:27. > :11:34.back to previous times, when you think of the era of the movie Wall
:11:34. > :11:38.Street, for example, when there was a -- an awe at the way capitalism
:11:38. > :11:43.operated at that sort of level, now there is loathing? That is true,
:11:43. > :11:47.people think, rightly, that reward should be related to contribution.
:11:47. > :11:52.Actually, you know, David Cameron has said it, Ed Milliband has said
:11:52. > :11:57.it, and Nick Clegg has said it. used to think that? That was not
:11:57. > :12:00.said in the years since 2008. It is now said. This is part of the story.
:12:00. > :12:05.What is curious about it is, you would have expected the public mood
:12:05. > :12:11.to change in response to the credit crunch. The current financial
:12:11. > :12:17.crisis, while partly blowback from the credit crunch, is also caused
:12:17. > :12:22.by the financial profligacy of various states, particularly states
:12:22. > :12:24.within the eurozone. If anything, you would have thought that the
:12:24. > :12:29.eurozone crisis would have brought about a shift to the right rather
:12:29. > :12:32.than the left. It was the banking crisis, which politically seemed to
:12:32. > :12:36.mean that various centre left Governments were kicked out to be
:12:36. > :12:44.replaceed by centre right Governments. Now we have another
:12:44. > :12:47.crisis with the opposite effect. There is a desire to inspire moral
:12:47. > :12:52.capitalism, and it is welcomed. President Assad of Syria has to go
:12:52. > :12:55.for the sake of the people of his country. That's the burden of the
:12:55. > :13:00.resolution that western and Arab states are trying to get agreed by
:13:00. > :13:04.the UN Security Council. Mr Assad's friends in Moscow, though, are
:13:04. > :13:09.expected to try to knock the thing on the head when it comes to a vote,
:13:09. > :13:11.perhaps the day after tomorrow. Mark Urban has been watching
:13:11. > :13:16.proceedings at the United Nations in New York, which are still going
:13:16. > :13:20.on right now. So where are we at the UN? They are
:13:20. > :13:24.talking away, debating this Moroccan sponsored resolution, they
:13:24. > :13:29.have done this on behalf of the Arab League. It is a cut and paste
:13:29. > :13:35.of something the Arab League agreed nine days ago. As you mentioned in
:13:35. > :13:41.the introduction, the key provisions of which are regime
:13:41. > :13:46.change. Asking President Assad to step aside for his deputy, and
:13:46. > :13:50.talking about a transfer to a different system. This is the first
:13:50. > :13:53.serious attempt to grip this in the UN Security Council, when the
:13:53. > :13:57.threat of veto before was enough to stop it. Many think the same could
:13:57. > :14:03.happen again now. The Russians are batting away for Assad, aren't
:14:03. > :14:08.they? The key thing here, I think, is both Russia and China have a
:14:08. > :14:13.sense of deja vu about this. The resolution in 1973, that came
:14:13. > :14:19.through last March, to enable the Libyan intervention started in a
:14:19. > :14:23.similar way, with the Arab League as the point men. They say it then
:14:23. > :14:26.turned into, despite all the evenhanded language, humanitarian
:14:26. > :14:29.language, a vehicle for western military intervention to top a lead
:14:30. > :14:35.they are didn't like. They say it is all very similar. Speaking
:14:35. > :14:41.before they came on air, Hillary Clinton tackled that head-on.
:14:41. > :14:48.know that some members here may be concerned that the Security Council
:14:48. > :14:54.could be headed towards another Libya. That is a false analogy.
:14:54. > :14:59.Syria is a unique situation that requires its own approach, tailored
:14:59. > :15:05.to the specific circumstances occurring there. That is exactly
:15:05. > :15:14.what the Arab League has proposed. A path for a political transition
:15:14. > :15:23.that would preserve Syria's unity and institutions. Of course Russia
:15:23. > :15:26.doesn't want Syrian intervention but intervention, but they are
:15:26. > :15:29.worried that this resolution would leave no-one in charge, and the
:15:29. > :15:33.opposition forces would get involved in a serious struggle. The
:15:33. > :15:40.debate will go on for days, potentially, it is not through the
:15:40. > :15:47.resolution will go through. -- it is not clear if the
:15:48. > :15:53.resolution will go through. If the regime fall it is will
:15:53. > :15:58.trigger civil war is the concern. But increasingly it looks like it
:15:58. > :16:06.will happen. Syria has some of the smallest minute religious
:16:06. > :16:13.minorities in the world. Some claim their future would be perilous.
:16:13. > :16:17.We have this report. In the language Jesus spoke, in the
:16:17. > :16:27.country where St Paul saw the light, Syrian Christians celebrate their
:16:27. > :16:27.
:16:27. > :16:34.faith as they have for nearly two millennia.
:16:34. > :16:41.The tightness of the aremaic liturgy, veils are a sudden sense
:16:41. > :16:45.of danger. Among the worshippers, refugees from neighbouring Iraq.
:16:45. > :16:50.Much of its ancient Christian minority has fled under Islamic
:16:50. > :16:55.intolerance. Now, beyond the walls of this
:16:55. > :17:00.monastery, a haven of calm on the road to Damascus, Syria too is
:17:00. > :17:04.dissolving into civil strive. Syria's always had a very diverse
:17:04. > :17:08.society, where religious and ethnic minorities have felt comparatively
:17:08. > :17:15.safe. Now, many members of those minorities are worried about what
:17:15. > :17:18.will happen to them if the regime falls.
:17:18. > :17:23.In these uncertain times, in a country where Christians make up
:17:23. > :17:27.nearly 10% of the population, the Archbishop of Damascus knows better
:17:27. > :17:32.than to become a Government whose days may be numbered. But nor will
:17:32. > :17:37.he back a revolution, morally encouraged by the west, whose
:17:37. > :17:45.consequences could be perilous. hearing from the western countries
:17:45. > :17:50.that they are pushing on revolution, and I'm hearing that some parties
:17:50. > :18:00.are helping arm the group. This is not helping the stability, it is
:18:00. > :18:08.not resolving any problems. In towns gripped by revolution, the
:18:08. > :18:13.Islamic of a firmation of faith, "God is most great", is it, as
:18:13. > :18:16.protestors say, just a traditional rallying call in a country which is
:18:16. > :18:21.at least three quarters Sunni Muslims. The expression of
:18:21. > :18:25.willingness to die for a cause, or is it, as the regime maintains, a
:18:25. > :18:31.sign that Syria's secular system could be destroyed by religious
:18:31. > :18:36.sectarianism. These are Government supporters,
:18:36. > :18:40.chanting for Syrians to remain united. They are mainly Alawites,
:18:40. > :18:44.members of a Shi'ite sect, that includes more than one in ten
:18:44. > :18:50.Syrians. Downtrodden for centuries, Alawites have been more favoured
:18:50. > :18:53.since the Assad family, also Alawites, came to power 40-odd
:18:53. > :18:56.years ago. Most families probably have at least one member employed
:18:56. > :19:01.by the security forces. In this district of the increasingly
:19:01. > :19:07.segregated city of Homs, Syria's most fought over city, they
:19:07. > :19:12.bitterly oppose the revolution that is raging just a few blocks away.
:19:12. > :19:16.TRANSLATION: Our's is one of thousands of families who has had
:19:16. > :19:21.to flee their homes. I used to live in a different area, now we all
:19:21. > :19:25.have to move because of the armed gangs.
:19:25. > :19:35.Government supporters often cite this anti-Alawite threat from a
:19:35. > :19:43.popular rebel cleric, to try to prove the opposition's sectarianism.
:19:43. > :19:48."we won't hurt those Alawites who are neutral", he says, but adds, in
:19:48. > :19:52.a line certainly not typical of the opposition, still talking about
:19:52. > :20:00.Alawites, "those who fight against us, I swear by God almighty, we
:20:00. > :20:07.will turn them into mincemeat, and feed them to the dogs."
:20:07. > :20:13.You Fears of score d -- fears of score-settling are inevitably high
:20:13. > :20:18.in places like this, in the hills above dam mass cushion where
:20:18. > :20:23.Alawites were encouraged to settle, by Bashar al-Assad's father,
:20:23. > :20:30.perhaps to control the less reliable Sunnis living below.
:20:30. > :20:38.Almost all of the regime's trusted servants are Alawites. Among them
:20:38. > :20:44.this man, the owner of an advertising agency, decharged with
:20:44. > :20:48.designing a new logo for the leading party. He believes top-down
:20:48. > :20:54.political reform is still possible and it is the best way to avoid the
:20:54. > :20:59.sectarianism, which the regime says, are being stirred up by armed gangs.
:20:59. > :21:02.TRANSLATION: I'm afraid of instability, of the armed gangs
:21:02. > :21:07.that cause destruction, of the invasion of negative ideas into
:21:07. > :21:09.society. I'm not afraid of sectarian attacks. I'm gambling on
:21:09. > :21:14.the common sense of the Syrian people. They have a completely
:21:14. > :21:18.different outlook to others in the region. All the sects here value
:21:18. > :21:22.human life. They reject the violence you see in other places.
:21:22. > :21:26.Our main enemy now is fear itself. We have to support the existing
:21:26. > :21:29.system, because it is the foundation of our society. And
:21:29. > :21:34.reforms that Government is proposing, will help us build a new
:21:34. > :21:39.democracy. But some say it is the President
:21:39. > :21:43.who is spreading the fear. I'm going it meet one of the Alawites,
:21:43. > :21:50.who are active in the opposition, despite, what they say, are
:21:50. > :21:55.Government scare tactics. TRANSLATION: In areas where I'm
:21:55. > :21:57.from, people live in terror now, because of the propaganda about
:21:57. > :22:01.hidden explosives and armed gangs. People believe those stories, the
:22:01. > :22:07.people are being killed because they are Alawite, it is all lies.
:22:07. > :22:11.But the regime knows how to play this game. The Alawites were a poor
:22:11. > :22:16.sect, so many joined the army or police long ago. When the
:22:16. > :22:19.President's father came to power, he convinced the Alawites that the
:22:19. > :22:22.regime was protecting them. Now even people who don't like the
:22:22. > :22:26.Government are afraid of the revolution, because they are frayed
:22:26. > :22:32.of the Muslim Brotherhood, that they will force men to go to the
:22:32. > :22:37.mosque, force women to wear hijab, and not let children go to school.
:22:37. > :22:41.This young Christian opposition activist, also rejects the regime's
:22:41. > :22:48.propaganda. She says the revolution isn't dividing people, it is
:22:48. > :22:51.uniting them. We say we are from this area and they know we are
:22:52. > :23:00.Christian, you can see how surprised and happy they are we are
:23:00. > :23:04.with them and support them, that we are part of this revolution. That's
:23:04. > :23:11.like we go in some houses that we will be the first Christian people
:23:12. > :23:20.to enter this house, and they really welcome us in a very amazing
:23:20. > :23:28.way. That gives the joy. So when the Government says these are
:23:28. > :23:33.terrorists who are trying to stop and end the stability of Syria,
:23:33. > :23:39.what do you think? This Government they are the one who is make this
:23:39. > :23:46.division between people. When you go out and you shout you feel you
:23:46. > :23:54.are free. In those moments, even if they are seconds, you feel you are
:23:54. > :24:00.free. Nobody will go back home. Even if a lot of people get killed.
:24:00. > :24:03.After decades of stability in Syria, wedged between war torn Lebanon and
:24:03. > :24:07.Iraq. Who wouldn't be at least a little afraid of the future now.
:24:07. > :24:13.The more the regime plays on those fears, and the longer the violence
:24:13. > :24:16.goes on, the greater the risk that those warnings of civil war will
:24:16. > :24:22.eventually become self-fulfiling provecy.
:24:22. > :24:28.You think you or your children got a GCSE or two, they didn't,
:24:28. > :24:36.necessarily, many vocational courses, subgts like nail
:24:36. > :24:40.technology or fish husbandry, will no longer be counted. The education
:24:40. > :24:49.department claims that every child with a good or disadvantaged
:24:49. > :24:53.background leaves school with a good GCSE pass in English and maths.
:24:53. > :24:57.These students are getting experience outside the formal
:24:57. > :25:05.classroom. The qualifications they build up here will be equivalent to
:25:05. > :25:09.up to four GCSEs. It helps the school in the league
:25:09. > :25:14.tables. As far as these 14-year- olds are concerned, it will help
:25:14. > :25:18.them to earn a living. With brick laying you can go get an
:25:18. > :25:22.apprenticeship, or you can go do other things like you can do it at
:25:22. > :25:27.college, or whatever. You get a good skill out of it. You are also
:25:27. > :25:32.getting the four GCSEs, which is kind of important. They are not
:25:32. > :25:37.happy that in future this course, whether at certificate or the
:25:37. > :25:45.higher diploma level, will count as just one GCSE. I think it is a load
:25:45. > :25:48.of rubbish, really. With the GCSEs you are doing more work, you are
:25:48. > :25:53.getting a better qualification for it, if you are doing one you are
:25:53. > :25:56.doing class work, not practical, like this. Building your wall,
:25:56. > :26:01.taking an engine to pieces, that is the bit that buys them into their
:26:01. > :26:06.education. That makes them enjoy coming to school. It buys them into
:26:06. > :26:13.their English and maths. The principle of vocational
:26:13. > :26:17.training is not in doubt. But the value of some of the courses is.
:26:17. > :26:22.Horse care and nail technology are all well and good if you want to
:26:22. > :26:29.qualify as a Barbie doll, but should they give a school a leg up
:26:29. > :26:35.in the league stables. At the moment there are 3,175
:26:35. > :26:40.equivalent courses. In future, just 125 of them will count towards
:26:40. > :26:46.GCSEs. Among those erased by the Government, a nail technology skill,
:26:46. > :26:55.worth two GCSEs, practical office skills, another two, and fish
:26:55. > :27:02.husbandry, again, worth two GCSEs. The vocational courses of offered
:27:02. > :27:05.at Feltham are seen as vital in an area of en trenched unemployment.
:27:05. > :27:09.Students studying childcare spend at least day a week out on direct
:27:09. > :27:15.work experience. The school will continue to prioritise the
:27:15. > :27:20.practical element, but that means less time for academic GCSEs, and a
:27:20. > :27:25.hit in the league tables. vocational courses to get the
:27:25. > :27:28.practical issues take a lot of time. We may be judged as failing in that
:27:29. > :27:33.we have some section, about 20% of our population, will not look like
:27:33. > :27:40.they are taking a full range of eight GCSEs.
:27:40. > :27:44.While these Feltham pupils tended to their vocational courses, the
:27:44. > :27:49.Education Secretary defended the changes. Mr Gove, again, lambasted
:27:49. > :27:54.some critics of academy schools, which he insisted are raising
:27:54. > :28:00.standards. We have had a reprice of the all the enemies of promise, who
:28:00. > :28:04.fought against what Andrew Adonais and Tony Blair were trying to do
:28:04. > :28:10.reconstituting themselves. It is a great pity the Labour Party hasn't
:28:10. > :28:14.spoken against this campaign. Gof told MPs he was not undermining
:28:14. > :28:18.vocational training. If you say to a student, that we the state are
:28:18. > :28:24.going to value this qualification as an equivalent, the colleges to
:28:24. > :28:30.which they apply subsequently and the employers say no, that child
:28:30. > :28:38.will understandably feel betrayed and let down. Praised and pillaried,
:28:38. > :28:43.as Mr Gove's favourite teacher, Catherine Sing h, is setting up a
:28:43. > :28:50.new school, favoured on his principle that every child can
:28:50. > :28:54.receive good GCSE passes. They need a qualification even to be a
:28:54. > :28:58.hairdresser. Which children are they we say are not academic, it is
:28:58. > :29:04.often children who come from states, poorer and more disadvantaged, we
:29:04. > :29:08.expect less of them, we are not doing favours. Michael Gove says
:29:08. > :29:12.the most useful courses, like this one, will count towards league
:29:12. > :29:15.table. In a time of rising youth unemployment, the UK figure stands
:29:15. > :29:25.at more than a million out of work. The Government is being accused of
:29:25. > :29:29.making things worse. What should our children be taught, Stephen
:29:29. > :29:32.Twigg and Graham Stuart are both huer. There are hundreds of
:29:33. > :29:40.thousands of these courses being followed in schools. Is the
:29:40. > :29:42.Government really saying children doing them are wasting their time?
:29:42. > :29:48.They are saying there is a huge increase over the years, driven by
:29:48. > :29:51.the league stable, and schools have gained a system, in some cases,
:29:51. > :29:54.putting children...There hundreds of thousands of children
:29:54. > :29:59.out there, and parents supporting them in doing that. Are you saying
:29:59. > :30:02.they are wasting their time? What Alison Wolf who did a review of the
:30:02. > :30:06.Vocational Qualifications for the Government, saying many of the
:30:06. > :30:12.courses don't lead anywhere, and there needs to be a review. A lot
:30:12. > :30:16.are wasting their time? Alison skaf Wolf, the expert said a lot of
:30:16. > :30:19.cases didn't lead to education or a job and needed to be reviewed. They
:30:19. > :30:23.were given too much value in the league stables. Your hands are
:30:23. > :30:28.pretty dirty on all of this, in effect, you have encouraged
:30:28. > :30:33.children to waste their time at school? It was right to have the
:30:33. > :30:41.review, but I'm worried it will be the baby out with the bath water.
:30:41. > :30:49.Some of the GCSEs have buy in from employers and universities. You
:30:49. > :30:56.recognise You recognise some are not? Recreated the diplomas, the
:30:56. > :31:01.equivalent of four or five GCSEs. Employers have said the engineering
:31:01. > :31:05.dip plom ma is a great qualification.
:31:05. > :31:07.That needs to change. That is not me saying that, that is some of the
:31:07. > :31:10.top engineering employers saying that.
:31:11. > :31:17.Why has there been such a conspicuous failure to engage with
:31:17. > :31:22.this question of what children, who are not going to follow the GCSE,
:31:22. > :31:26.A-level, university route, do with their time at school? One of the
:31:26. > :31:32.problems is the measures we have in schools, and there is one
:31:32. > :31:35.overwhelming one, that is five good GCSEs. Today my select committee
:31:35. > :31:37.and are were challenging the secretary, the last Government and
:31:37. > :31:44.this Government putting too much on that one measure, it drives
:31:44. > :31:48.performance in schools. It means the poorest performing bottom 20%
:31:48. > :31:53.in good schools, don't score there. It is important to have courses
:31:53. > :31:57.where they can achieve and go along. Why have the metrics been set
:31:57. > :32:01.wrongly? Successive Governments have failed to find a more balanced
:32:01. > :32:06.scorecard. Why? We privilege certain forms of learnings, there
:32:06. > :32:12.is a notion of the academic. This idea there is academic here and
:32:12. > :32:17.vocational there is nonsense. English and mathematics are
:32:17. > :32:22.academic subjects but hugely practical as well. There has been a
:32:22. > :32:26.big debate over the years. This announcement today does the mistake,
:32:27. > :32:32.to privilege certain sorts of learning over others That is why I
:32:32. > :32:36.have said it is baby out with the bath water. You are imprecise where
:32:36. > :32:41.the baby is? It is important to looks a Alison Wolf did, the report
:32:41. > :32:46.is a rigorous piece of work, some changes make sense, not all of them.
:32:46. > :32:52.You think it is right to chuck some out, why ones might be and which
:32:52. > :32:56.not want? The bonus system we developed had four or five GCSEs,
:32:56. > :33:03.instructed with lawyers and universities. It is not safe to
:33:03. > :33:10.reduce them from four GCSEs to one. The figure of 15, how many would
:33:10. > :33:17.you say? -- 125, how many would you say? I wouldn't say. It doesn't
:33:17. > :33:24.mean they are invalid. 500, a 1,000? I wouldn't put a figure on
:33:24. > :33:29.it, you have to look at all of them, some have the equivalent of four
:33:29. > :33:32.GCSEs and they should maybe only have two. You don't know about it
:33:32. > :33:37.all? I don't know because I have to look at each individual
:33:37. > :33:40.qualification. I do know there are vigorous qualifications downgraded
:33:40. > :33:45.today that should not be, that is wrong. What the Government is doing
:33:45. > :33:50.is rushing into a decision on this. When they should be consulting far
:33:50. > :33:58.more wide low, building a cross- party consensus, getting support
:33:58. > :34:04.from employers. They have a cross- party consensus, you agree with
:34:04. > :34:08.them? I don't agree with what they are doing with the dip plom mas.
:34:08. > :34:14.is a technical skill for the Labour Party to point in two directions at
:34:14. > :34:18.the same time. On the issue of the dip plom ma, I was on the committee
:34:18. > :34:21.when Ed Balls was pushing it through in a hurry. It was the most
:34:21. > :34:27.complicated than any body had seen, we asked him to slow down and get
:34:28. > :34:30.it right. We have failed to get the right structure in place for
:34:30. > :34:35.Vocational Qualifications, it is tremenduously important. The last
:34:35. > :34:44.Government made a mess of it. There are only a few bits of the
:34:44. > :34:51.qualification that are good, like the engineering. It is going to get
:34:51. > :34:57.worse, many more children at school until the age of 18, for whom some
:34:57. > :35:01.vocational qualification is the way to go. Why -- Why didn't you think
:35:02. > :35:09.it through when you looked at the school leaving age? The diplomas
:35:09. > :35:15.were not perfect, but some of them including engineering, they were
:35:15. > :35:17.good rigorous qualifications looked at in schools. We should look at
:35:17. > :35:23.some positives. We have the university technical colleges from
:35:23. > :35:33.the age of 14, we have allson Wolf saying more children at 14 should
:35:33. > :35:33.
:35:33. > :35:37.go into FE colleges. We need action on that. This is an inishal stab at
:35:37. > :35:41.reducing the number -- initial stab at reducing numbers. We can add to
:35:41. > :35:46.the number but make sure we never again put children on courses that
:35:46. > :35:50.don't lead anywhere, and does mean they are wasting their time.
:35:50. > :35:56.Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door
:35:56. > :36:02.they used to say. The inventor of social network on the Internet,
:36:02. > :36:08.they may pay you up to $100 billion. Facebook offers itself for sale
:36:08. > :36:12.tomorrow, it claims to have 800 million users, not bad considering
:36:12. > :36:17.it didn't exist until a year ago. We will discuss the business model
:36:17. > :36:21.in a short time. First we look at how it can become to be worth so
:36:21. > :36:26.much so fast. If you are on Facebook, this is how
:36:26. > :36:31.Mark Zuckerberg wants you to tell your story from now on. The new
:36:31. > :36:38.timeline laying out your history for your friends. Zuckerberg's own
:36:38. > :36:42.Facebook life begins in 2004, when he starts Facebook in his bedroom.
:36:42. > :36:50.Now he's going to float on the stock market, after years of
:36:50. > :36:55.refusing to sell up to all sorts of suitors. The hardest one was when
:36:55. > :36:58.Yahoo offered $1 billion. That was the first big offer, I knew nothing
:36:58. > :37:03.about business or what a company might be worth.
:37:03. > :37:11.Until now, it has been hard to know exactly what Facebook is worth. But
:37:11. > :37:19.private stakes in the firm, were trading recently at a qalation of
:37:19. > :37:25.�80 billion. There is talk of -- Wall Street is very excited. One
:37:25. > :37:28.man who got overexcited in the last dotcom bubble is trying to stay
:37:29. > :37:31.calm? There is pandemonium in the United States over the deal. It is
:37:31. > :37:36.shre overdone, this is a very mature company. Everyone is excited
:37:36. > :37:41.to see the numbers, but the hype is completely absurd, relative loo
:37:41. > :37:48.what the likely event will be. Facebook's whole business is a bet
:37:48. > :37:52.on us. The 800 million users flowing down its mighty river.
:37:52. > :37:58.Someone once said you are not paying to be here, you are not the
:37:58. > :38:03.customer, you are the products. Our likes and dislikes are a vital
:38:03. > :38:07.currency for Facebook, advertisers could target us with personalised
:38:07. > :38:10.messages. Are we worth as much as investors seem to think.
:38:10. > :38:15.What's happening here? We are starting to build a new campaign
:38:15. > :38:22.for job sites. We will build some perzone nas, looking for people
:38:22. > :38:26.looking for a new job, effectively. At this digital marketing agency,
:38:26. > :38:31.they are finding clients being attracted to the targeting that
:38:31. > :38:37.Facebook can offer. If one wanted to target me, it would be a 43-
:38:37. > :38:42.year-old, living in Kilburn, liking beer. They could target me
:38:42. > :38:49.precisely and show me whatever ad they would like. It is interwoven
:38:49. > :38:54.with the platform itself. Something like sponsored stories, advertising
:38:55. > :38:58.off the back of a recommendation, I think they will get great results
:38:58. > :39:05.if they keep this. Facebook's timeline will intercept with a
:39:05. > :39:09.larger and more powerful one, Google, the company owns the
:39:09. > :39:16.lucrative search advertising market, with Google Plus, it would like to
:39:16. > :39:20.boss social advertising too. Can Facebook ever be as big a beast.
:39:21. > :39:24.This is going to be large and successful business. That said, I'm
:39:24. > :39:31.not convinced it will be as great a business as some people think. This
:39:31. > :39:34.is still a social media business there have been lots of social
:39:34. > :39:40.media businesses on-line and elsewhere. It turns out they are
:39:40. > :39:44.just not that spectacular at advertising medium. Google found it
:39:44. > :39:49.miraculous product where you go to the search engine and say I'm
:39:49. > :39:54.looking for a particular product, you get an ad for it, it is a
:39:54. > :39:59.perfect advertising vehicle. If I'm a betting man, and I am, I would
:39:59. > :40:04.bet on Google, fantastic business that works well. Facebook is a good
:40:04. > :40:09.eachway bet at the moment. Not a certainty. The early signs are
:40:09. > :40:15.encouraging. What do go wrong in terms of -- what could go wrong in
:40:15. > :40:21.terms of Facebook? It is whether advertisers could get a good turn
:40:21. > :40:24.on a scale big enough to support the evaluation. That is the big
:40:24. > :40:28.risk. Whatever price a company gets for
:40:28. > :40:32.its shares, Mark Zuckerberg's next step along his time again, will
:40:32. > :40:37.confirm him as the world's richest 27-year-old, then comes the hard
:40:37. > :40:45.bit, keeping Facebook users happy, while targeting with ever more
:40:45. > :40:47.advertising. Can it possibly be worth up to $100 billion. The Brent
:40:47. > :40:52.Hoberman, and Aleks Krotoski are here.
:40:52. > :40:59.What is for sale here is effectively us, anyone who has ever
:40:59. > :41:03.put anything on Facebook, isn't it? It is absolutely, 850 million users,
:41:03. > :41:07.it is the lock in Facebook will have on the users. If I have
:41:07. > :41:11.invested the time to pull my friends in there, it is hard to
:41:11. > :41:17.switch over. What Facebook can do is influence my behaviour.
:41:17. > :41:24.Does that appeal to you? I find it quite frightening. What Facebook
:41:24. > :41:28.and things like Google do, is they help us make sense of the vast
:41:28. > :41:31.information on-line. Google says a model if everybody says this is
:41:31. > :41:35.good manufactures then it is relevant and value for me. What
:41:35. > :41:40.Facebook does, slightly different, and is seemingly more value is it
:41:40. > :41:44.says, if all of my friends think that this is valuable, then it is
:41:44. > :41:48.valuable and relevant to me. That is what it is that they trade on.
:41:48. > :41:56.Which is why they want more and more of our information.
:41:56. > :42:03.It turns, does it not, Facebook's customer, from a user of an
:42:03. > :42:08.apparent service into Koon sumeer - - consumer and target for
:42:09. > :42:13.advertiser. Yes, and also an Evangelist, if you like a product
:42:13. > :42:17.and you become an Evangelist, and the message is sent to your friends,
:42:17. > :42:24.it is incredibly powerful marketing. The data you give and the ability
:42:25. > :42:29.for those to target that data is the holely grail of advertising.
:42:29. > :42:34.provides an intentionality that advertisers haven't had. First of
:42:34. > :42:39.all, you have the content is in exactly the right place for the
:42:39. > :42:43.right eyeballs to see T because of the all of the things we put on-
:42:43. > :42:47.line, whether it is photographs of our kids, or whatever, put in front
:42:47. > :42:51.of the Taj Mahal. We are saying to the technology, this is what we are
:42:51. > :42:55.interested in, this is the kind of thing we want. What we're going to
:42:55. > :43:01.do, this is what we're going to buy. That is phenomenally valuable. That
:43:01. > :43:07.truly is the innovation. A lot of people will see this as rather
:43:08. > :43:11.sinister? Oh yes. People do it willingly? I don't think that they
:43:11. > :43:14.necessarily go through the fine print of 35 pages of terms and
:43:14. > :43:19.conditions and say they will accept. Most people are haep happy to say
:43:19. > :43:26.it is a free service, it is changing the way I'm communicating
:43:26. > :43:31.with friends. I don't mind giving out the information. There was one
:43:31. > :43:36.a survey, how much would you have to offer to teenagers to give way
:43:36. > :43:43.their on-line information about their lives, the answer was �10.
:43:43. > :43:50.What does that tell us about teenagers today. What it does is it
:43:50. > :43:56.turns us from users into victims n a way. Or evangelist is the
:43:57. > :44:03.positive way of looking at it. is more that we become commodities,
:44:03. > :44:08.this is the realisation of a process that has been on going for
:44:08. > :44:12.a time. This is the most effective and streamlined way the advertising
:44:12. > :44:17.model. Let's look at the way investors will look at it. There is
:44:17. > :44:21.Facebooks out there, shortly, there is Google out there, is there room
:44:21. > :44:24.for the two of them? As I said before, they approached the same
:44:24. > :44:29.problem in two different ways. What is interesting is how they are
:44:29. > :44:33.trying to interact. There is this kind of dance they are doing
:44:33. > :44:37.together. Google has its social networking service, Google Plus,
:44:37. > :44:41.trying to do what Facebook has done, it is trying to fill the holes and
:44:41. > :44:48.put a plaster on some of the problems that people have. Users
:44:48. > :44:52.have with Facebook. This idea when you put something out there 2 goes
:44:52. > :45:00.to all your friends, despite them being friends, work mates or family.
:45:00. > :45:08.Google is trying to do this social searching. But it isth also
:45:08. > :45:12.provides n some ways, an enpsyche immediateic approach --
:45:12. > :45:19.encyclopaedic approach. Google is more like you are looking for
:45:19. > :45:25.something and it provides a way. is good Facebook has come up here
:45:26. > :45:34.and given a challenge to Google. Facebook says its content is not
:45:34. > :45:40.searchable on their sites. I don't think the use will be the amount of
:45:40. > :45:50.time people are putting into Facebook. Would you invest in it?
:45:50. > :45:54.
:45:54. > :45:57.did get caught in last minute dot comb -- lastminute.com, I lost many
:45:57. > :46:02.money there. They have product geniuss knowing what their
:46:02. > :46:08.customers want and love. They may well be able to grow into the
:46:08. > :46:11.valuation. If it is $100 million do they merit it today, neither did
:46:11. > :46:18.Google when it went public, and people did well who invested in
:46:18. > :46:23.that. Assuming you had the money, would you invest in it? What would
:46:24. > :46:28.I do with that kind of money. There is the unique selling point, it is
:46:28. > :46:31.the lock-in, that Brent reference before. This idea that it has this
:46:32. > :46:35.way of attracting people and keeping people in because your
:46:35. > :46:41.friends are there. The other thing is I don't think they have started
:46:41. > :46:47.yet on how well they can monitor it. The public will make them do that a
:46:47. > :46:51.lot more. Thank you very much, the daily --
:46:51. > :46:59.Daily Express has unearthed an American medal report. Otherwise
:46:59. > :47:06.they are all going with Fred Goodwin, the Mail, the FT, Andy's
:47:06. > :47:16.on the front page of the Telegraph. That's it for tonight. We will be
:47:16. > :47:39.
:47:39. > :47:43.That's it for tonight. We will be Payback time weather wise, after a
:47:43. > :47:48.mild winter. Much colder this week, colder through the next few days.
:47:48. > :47:53.By day and night. Cold and frosty start to the day. Lots of sunshine
:47:53. > :47:57.out there, blight, crisping and sunny, very cold, particularly in
:47:57. > :48:02.the south. A risk easterly wind developing. Significant wind shield
:48:02. > :48:07.here. Lots and lots of sunshine. If you get well wrapped up in the
:48:07. > :48:10.sunshine it will feel lovely. In the breeze cold. Any flurries
:48:10. > :48:15.across Devon and Cornwall will fade away. Increasing amounts of
:48:15. > :48:19.sunshine as we end the day. For Wales a beautiful day. Beautiful
:48:20. > :48:24.but cold. Further north across the country, the winds are lighter, of
:48:24. > :48:28.some benefit, cloud dripping on the east coast in Northern Ireland. For
:48:28. > :48:34.Scotland too, sunny across many parts, but a bit more cloud
:48:34. > :48:38.developing. I think I could just see the odd flurry of snow, but
:48:38. > :48:43.basically dry. Not much changing on Thursday, the risk of one or two
:48:43. > :48:48.wint free showers on the east coast of Scotland and England. London
:48:48. > :48:53.could catch a snow shower too. Generally most places are try,