21/05/2012 Newsnight

So, how do we get ourselves out of the doldrums. Today's answer came

from a Tory donor, arguingp employers need to be able to hire

and fire more easily. Rubbish said the other half of the coalition

Government. We don't need to scare the wits out of workers with

threats to dismiss them, it is completely the wrong approach.

is the ghost of "I'm all right Jack", still at large. Could the

economy be energised if we were all less secure. Is he in. I will see

your union bogeyman, and raise awe free market economist.

Meanwhile, could a bank run in Greece spread to your local branch.

How at risk are the major banks of Europe. Later on. TRANSLATION:

doctors in Iraq told me, if this operation in Iraq does not work out,

I will have to have an amputation. Damaged in Iraq, mended in Jordan,

the hospital where they try to put back together the shattered bodies

of those who survived the violence. I sleep for one week before the

amputation, and one week after amputation. Amputation for any

surgeon is failure. We talk to one of the world's greatest sopranos,

or rather we listen. # Falling in love with love

# Is falling for make-believe. Britain has a deficit crisis, true,

the only escape is economic growth, also true enough, but after that,

the ideas laid out in a report for the Government, from a big Tory

donor get a whole lot more controversial. So controversial,

involving getting rid of all sorts of labour rights, that the Business

Secretary, Vince "diplomacy Cable, delivered the verdict that they are

complete nonsense. Will any of these plans that make hiring and

firing easier see the light of day, and or important, should they?

Here is Allegra Stratton. You can see why the Prime Minister

might spend his down time on this, with one dab of the index finger

you can slice through a juicy fruit, three in one go, you get more

points. For his party it is not fruit, it is flexible leave,

redundancy pay, and the juicyist of all, the ability to hire and fire.

Their set text is this. A review by Tory donor and private equity

businessman, Adrian Beecroft, it was published this afternoon. It

made 17 proposal that is would allow firms to opt out of

It was welcomed by those with experience running businesses.

labour market has to be flexible. You see that particularly with

employment law as well. What we want is a right to hire policy, we

want companies to be taking people on, and unafraid of the

consequences of taking people on. Small companies need flexibility.

But employees needs their rights too. It is a question of getting

the balance right. I think the Beecroft Report, published this

week, is a very important step on the road to considering all the

options. I think we should look at makes it as easy as possible for

smaller companies to take on staff. These ideas, however, do not mix

well in the coalition furnace, today sparks flew.

The Business Secretary, conveniently visiting the

sweltering steel works of Redcar, and so atired in flamable kit, went

into battle with his intellectual foes. Most of it is pretty

uncontroversial. There is one bit that has stirred up a lot of

controversy, this no-fault dismissal, some describe it as a

hire and fire system. I don't see a role for that. Britain has a

flexible, co-operative labour force. That is what you see here in this

steel plant, the work force have made a lot of this happen. Last

week I was at Ellesmere Port, where we have got back General Motors

investing in Vauxhall. One of the thing that attracted them is

British workers being flexible. We don't need to scare the wits out of

workers with threats to dismiss them, it is completely the wrong

approach. This is about the differences between the coalition

partners, it is as serious as it gets, for one it is an ap, the

other it is a pear. They don't agree. You have Conservative people,

including cabinet ministers, who think the reason the UK economy is

sluggish, is because the labour market is shrer rottic. And the

Liberal Democrats say there isn't a single shred of evidence that says

it is the UK's economy. They have a wider point, they say capitalism is

allowed to work because of regulation, it allows trust.

No matter, Tory MPs said in the Commons today, as the Government

fields questions in the chamber, Beecroft's lessons are legion.

2005, Germany exempted businesses with fewer than ten workers from

unfair dismissal regulations. They introduced a new catagory of mini

and midi jobs, their unemployment figures have halved, what can we

learn from Germany. The last survey in this area showed

that we were lightly regulated, the third lightest after America and

Canada. Germany is more regulated. Turkey, the most regulated, drew

its economy. Circumstantial evidence, and studies carried out

by a number of think-tanks, national and international, seem to

put some of the best economic performances, such as Germany, and

to some extent, France, on the more regulated end of the spectrum.

of how Germany has deregulated? have to see these particular

measures in the German context, which is the context of a highly-

regulated, neo-corporate, industrialised economy. And labour

lawyers, and comparative labour lawyers, are always warning against

the simplicity of the argument, of suggesting legal transplants from

one legal system to another. International Labour comparison is

interesting, Denmark is highest in the world for ease of hiring and

firing and redundancy costs. They have a system that is very good at

getting people back into work when they are unemployed, they support

them very well, and they have a highly-skilled work force. The

lesson is, if we are going down this path, we have to look at it in

the round, rather than focusing specifically on one element of

deregulation, as a solution to getting people into work.

Some within Government expect that there will be action on the

Beecroft Report, as part of a great reckoning between the two parties

that they have to do everything they can to get growth. The

question will be, will it be in substantial areas, where previously

there had been much disagreement, or whether it will be in those

areas where actually they have already said they sort of agree, so

the low-hanging fruit. There are some consultations out there, there

are some things the Department of Business has already said it will

implement. I understand that the Lib Dems

could move towards the Tories on Beecroft's ideas, it would be

limited to those affecting small businesses. Those employing fewer

than five employees may be exempted from regulations. Lib Dems suggest

they may exempt employee-owned, John Lewis-styled companies from

regulation, in an attempt to increase that model in the economy.

The Beecroft Report emerged having had hefty help from Downing Street

and civil servants. One source joked, final version was version 27.

Varnished or unvarnished, many think the Prime Minister does have

to act in some way, and Lib Dems know it. Tory MPs think the

Beecroft Report offers many fruits to be sliced, some in one swipe.

We have Lord Oakeshott, and the Conservative MP Tominic Raab, the

one-time economic adviser to George Bush, and head of an Asset

Management company, Pippa Malmgren, and Labour Party economist, Davit

Blanchflower. Where is the evidence that making

it easier to hire and fire people actually promotes growth? There is

actually a total of abundance of domestic and international evidence.

The CBI did a report last year, a survey which found 77% of

employiers said regulation was the major -- employers said regulation

was a major threat to businesses. The World Economic Forum says we

come 83rd on the league table for overregulating our businesses.

These are statements of opinion, I'm asking for evidence? In the

CBI's case it was a survey of employers. And they said something,

they did not produce any evidence, isn't that correct? In that case,

yes. But all of the business groups, all of the employee groups, are in

unison saying we have a major problem in this country. It is not

a silver bullet, there is finance and business taxes. But if you are

a small business, with all the uncertainty around you, you are

worried about taking that risk to hire someone, and someone in this

debate has to stand up for the 22% youth unemployed. That is what we

are doing, it is not standing up for the employers, but the

unemployed. Have you seen evidence to support this contention, Davit

Blanchflower? No. I listened to the commentator a moment ago, I looked

at what Vince Cable said. He's quite right to say there is

absolutely no evidence for this. There has been a huge literature in

economic about the effects of regulation, and how it impacts

unemployment. We see no co-relation whatsoever. A good thing to think

about in the UK, we have seen incredibly flexible wages and hours,

there is no credible evidence whatsoever to say that regulation

in the UK is a major problem. In fact, if you go to the business

department survey of 201, they said 7% of firms thought regulation was

a problem, so I'm afraid there is no basic evidence to support the

contention, at all. Lord Oakeshott, there is an apparent plausibilty to

this argument. It seems to make a certain amount of sense, doesn't it,

if you are Mr Beecroft, of course it makes sense. Yes. It is my turn

now. You hang on a second blees, Davit Blanchflower, I want to bring

in Lord Oakeshott. Can I say in my day job, not talking politics with,

I'm a small businessman, and I run a small business with five people.

I know a bit about it, and more than Adrian Beecroft, who has been

an asset stripping executive. may employ five people? He doesn't

employ them directly. If you ask small businesses and the Federation

of Small Businesss what the biggest problem is, it is not whether they

can sack workers, it is whether they can get the finance from the

banks, particularly the Royal Bank of Scotland, to take the workers on

in the first place. That is the biggest single problem. This

Beecroft Report, it does have some good things in it. Taking the fruit

analogy, there is decent apples in there, but two or three very bad

ones. The things like putting off the compulsory fund pension

contributions are being done, a lot is being done. What is not being

done is to have a sack on the spot culture just at the time when there

is no economic confidence. There is no chance, in your view, of the

Government to bring in those regulations? Not the one that says

sak-on-the-spot. In this country, we in this country do not believe

that is a price worth paying, even if they might in America.

Frightfully rude, I should have brought you in. I want to bring

Dominic on the point that whether this Government will introduce this

particular, do you think the Prime Minister is on your side, the

particular point about making it easier to hire and fire? I'm not a

psychologists, I'm a politician. You are asking me to guess what the

Government will do, don't -- are asking me to guess what the

Government will do. Don't you know what your leader

will do? Does he agree with you? hope he does. You don't know?

are having a consultation and we will find out. On the issue of

firing on the spot. There are whole swathes of ways of doing this. We

extended the period from one to two years, and I didn't hear Lord

Oakeshott complaining then. I'm in favour of that. What we are arguing

about is this one thing here which you Conservative right-wingers seem

to be fixating on, which is the sack-on-the spot culture. You don't

need to throw jibes. The one to two years has been done by the

Department of Business. You support that. So for two years you are

happy with sack-on-the spot. When you take someone on it is

reasonable to have two years. The sensible parts of Beecroft are

being done already, so why is there suddenly this great attack on Cable

because they won't do the sack-on- the-spot thing. As you have

accepted, most of it is completely uncontentious. This particular

point is held by people like Tominic Raab and his friends to be

abs you luetly key. Absolutely keen. It is a totem pole. What about the

United States? Two-thirds of economies are generated by firms

that employ fewer than 50 people. So if we want to create new jobs,

it is only going to come from one place, that is from entrepeneurs

who are taking risk. So far so uncontentious? If we talk about

sacking on the spot, I want to be clear. The thing to cause people to

be sacked on the spot is not regulation, but the debt problem

that is bearing down on this country and the austerity. You

can't project people from losing their jobs by having all this

legislation in place. That is what we learned in the United States.

The one thing you have to do is create new jobs. And that GDP

construction can only occur if you have a risk-taker, the risk-taker

needs to know if he or she puts his capital down, that they can

manoeuvre who are my employees, what is the nature of the business,

can I innovate fast. What we have to do in Britain is to innovate

fast. We have that already. Look at this clart, you will be able to see

it, -- This chart. You will be able to see, it was referred to in the

piece. It is the OECD's assessment of employment protection in this

country. You can't see it Davit Blanchflower, but you know the

facts. I have it here. The UK is down there, why does that have

anything whatsoever to do with economic performance? The point is,

the debt problem in this country has created such a burden on growth,

the point is how are you going to get growth going, you are not going

to go through the state. Davit Blanchflower you are in the states.

Putting your hand up, you can speak. Job protection, there is no

question it is a problem. If you look at the World Bank's business

ratings, the UK ranks 7th behind the US and Canada, same countries.

There is no evidence whatsoever to say it is regulation, and actually,

I agree that the big problem in the UK are two things, lack of demand

and lack of access to finance to small firms. None of which are

being dealt with. All of this stuff is just a way to scare workers,

make them have an increased fear of unemployment, stop consuming,

increase spending, lowering growth. I think this looks like a right-

wing disaster. Can I say something nice about the

stories, please. Hang you, you want to hear something nice, we don't

want to hear that! Seriously, the point he's making, and the point

about I'm already Jack, we have a totally different Labour market

than 20 years ago. I pay tribute for Mrs Thatcher for cracking the

strength of the unions, we have a free and flexible market. Look at

Vauxhall, it is not a problem any more. I want to talk to Tominic

Raab now, about this point that David Blanchflower -- Dominic Raab

now, about this point that David Blanchflower made. If people fear

for their jobs, they are not going to consume, and without consumption

you don't get demand and therefore no growth? That may be true, but if

they are languishing unemployed. is rather serious? There are a

whole range of competing risks here, the big risk for us is we have 22%

youth unemployed, 8% unemployed, I agree with the points about finance,

we have told the banks we have introduced major reforms, we

probably agree on most of those. We are telling the banks two different

things at the moment. Our control over certain things, like finance,

is wanting to stop bail outs happening again. One of the things

we have total control about is the regulatory climate. The problem

with the chart, it is four years old, if you look at what the IOD

estimates for last year, they said the equivalent of the output of

Singapore is what businesses lost in the regulatory burden. That is

why if you look at other surveys. Anecdote. We are still well down

towards the deregulated labour markets around the world.

Please? Smaller companies need to face less regulation. You can

choose what is the level of employees at which you want to have

protection of employment begin, but that's not even the critical issue

here. I think this is what the Beecroft Report isn't addressing.

Is what is the bigger question of how to incentivise more risk-taking

in the economy. That involves a question about tax policy,

regulatory policy, frankly, monetary policy and what purpose it

service in the current environment. The point is, this country needs to

have a massive debate, about the relative balance between these

different things. All with a view to incentivising more risk-taking.

I agree with, that we need more investment and more confidence and

more growth, at the moment it is not working.

Thank you. The dealers who make-or- break currencies, were willing to

pay a little more to buy euros, it was a reflection of the weekend

comments by leaders that Greece will stay in the euro. Easier said

than done, perhaps what may determine the fate of the euro, and

of many European economies, is much less words of politicians, than the

actions of their citizens. Specifically whether they are

willing to leave their money in the banks, and whether those banks are

themselves judged safe. Paul Mason, our Economics Editor,

is here, before you talk about that. It didn't seem to me to achieve

very much that gathering in America. That is clear, the news is, nothing

happened in the weekend. The G8 leaders don't get together often.

It was an opportunity. What we can say is the battle lines inside the

powerful nations were drawn more clearly in the sense that Germany

is a bit more isolated in its insistence that there has to be a

lot of austerity in Europe. The growth wing strengthened its hand.

The good news today is no bank run in Greece and Spain. Towards the

end of the week people in the markets were pretty wordied that

people would pull their money out of the banks. What passes for good

news today is there is not a run on the bank? That is not just because

we don't like to see queues outside banks or 1930s-style scenes. It is

very difficult to understand at the moment what is holding Europe

together. Europe has a sovereign debt problem. The European banks

are currently buying the debt of countries, because the European

banks have been given money by the European Central Bank. If there is

a bank run, that is not just a bad thing for Greece, where the most

likely candidate it is for it to happen. A bank run, for reasons I

will explain in a minute, can take apart the very mechanism that

allows the money to flow through banks to state. The whole situation

being created could come tumbling down if we got one queue outside a

big bank in Athens. It is technical, but here is why.

Eurozone banks send money to each other through a system known as

Target 2, it is a payment system, not a lending system. All

transactions take place within the European Central Bank, not direct

between a Greek bank and a Germany bank, say. Here is the problem,

with the Greek banks in droubl, they can only operate in this

system because the ECB is letting them draw money they don't have. It

is auld emergency liquidity assistance, ELA, it is a lifeline

the European Central Bank has to vote for, twice a week. Last week

it was raised ten billion, to 100 billion euros. If a real bank run

begins in Greece, independent of who wins the election, that

lifeline could be shut down. It did seem quite clear, pleasingly

clear. There is a European meeting later this week? It is a dinner of

the heads of state, convened by your favoured man in Europe, Mr Van

Rompey. There is fun already happened there is two-and-a-half

pages of detail before the immortal statement, "before the end of

dinner, I propose we talk about recent developments in the

eurozone". It is a kind of acceptance that at the big

diplomatic evidence there is not much more action until the Greek

election on the 17th of June. And while Greece is a ticking detonator,

ready to go, what people are then worried about is what it sets off.

Because while Greece is, we have discussed again and again the Greek

problem, the banks are effectively bust, they are on life support from

the European system. It is what happens if the Spanish banking

system is in some way ignited by that detonator. What you don't want

is to have an unstable political situation in Greece, where a

trigger is either through the bank run system, or simply by the idea

that the Greek also not carry out the austerity moves, that the

crisis comes in Greece at a point when the Spanish banking system is

not stablised. They are trying to stablise the Spanish banking system

and want to give the Spanish banks 100 billion. Now we have the

problem we always run into, the Spanish bank doesn't want to be

bailed out at the moment. That is where we are, by Wednesday night we

might be is somewhere else, or by the time coffee and the canapes

come out, I'm not sure. Two people who know a thing or two about banks

in trouble, are Gillian Tetting, managingedor of the Financial Times

in -- managing director of the Financial Times in America.

-- Gillian Tett. Are we there yet? The ECB has

propped up the banking system to an extraordinary degree, which is good

news, but the key challenges are very serious. The question is, what

are they doing behind the scenes to prepare for the worst case. People

behind the scenes should watch are they supporting the bond system,

will they create an insurance scheme for the entire eurozone, and

just how much more can the ECB do. We hope to explore some of those,

what is your view of whether there will be a run on the banks?

tricky parts is in terms of how Greece will be managed, is manage

the cross-border exposures, the extent to which banks are indebted

to banks across the border has to be covered. That is the big

question. How is it covered, by what Gillian was talking about?

There has been experience of this, in the 1980s in Latin America, you

had a big crisis of the banks potentially collapsing and the

currencies collapsing. It was covered, in effect, in a system

known as Brady Bonds, US dollars security, an analogy could be the

eurobonds. What is happening now? If they have any sense, they will

be working out how that eurobond- type cover can work to stablies

those currencies, if there is any risk in that cross-border exposure,

between the banks transferring. That's the defence mechanism that

needs to be put in place at this point in time in Europe. You have

spoken to a lot of these people at the European Central Bank, haven't

you? I have recently, yes. Is that what they are doing? They are

certainly looking at just how many extraordinary weapons they can pull

out of the Arsenal and fire. Over the last year or so they have

already surprised people by -- arsenal and fire. Over the last

year they have already surprised people by old actions with the LTRO.

What is that? Long-term retail operations, the ECB could be

fatastically bold if it wanted. We have an article from the Polish

Finance Minister today, alling for unlimited purchases of the eurozone

bonds by the ECB. That is a very big step for the Germans to stand

up to. The Germans are against all that? They have been very cautious

up to now. Germany has to recognise, to some extent and to a large

extent, it hasn't been explained to the German voter, but the German

economy is being largely subsidised by keeping its exports competitive

by the other countries in the eurozone. If these countries are at

risk, the danger is that the German currency s or the eurobit of that,

deflates rapidly making Germany uncompetitive. Germany has had a

boom, because of the high level of stability in German employment, in

marked contrast to what we were hearing, it has meant the German

consumer is not worried about losing their jobs and is spending

more. If there is the sort of banking

crisis that we are thinking about, what happens to banks in this

country? I think this is very much almost a third order, if you like,

the second order was the contagion alluded to in terms of Spain and

Italy, the third order is the UK, which has less exposure to

continental European banks. What about Santander, which took over

Abbey National? Santander UK is isolated, it can't pay a dividend

to the Spanish parent unless the FSA approves that. If you had money

in santand der you would loaf it there? It is pretty safe. The only

downside to it, is you can'tness -- the bank can't get capital out of

the parent in Spain to support itself, in a way another bank may

be able to. The rest of that is very safe. I support Ian's point

and pick up on something he said earlier. The good news about the UK

system is people have got deposits in UK banks do know there is an

insurance scheme in place, they know who stands behind it. One of

the big problems in the eurozone is there isn't a common insurance

scheme for the entire area. If you are a Greek depositor, you don't

know who is backing it, at the end of the day. When it is said the

issue right now is the cross-border balances being covered, what is

happening in the financial system now is you are seeing fracturing in

terms of how banks actually order their businesses, that is

incredibly important. If you were a Greek with funds on deposit in a

Greek bank, surely you could move it to a German bank? That is why we

have money moving out of Greece right now. The legality of this

protection scheme, and the question of who is responsible for whom, it

is simply not defined right now. What you have already is many banks,

as Ian knows, essentially saying, if I'm lending money to Italian

companies, I want to make sure I'm electing -- collecting money from

Italian depositors to match them up. If you go back to two or three

years, everyone thought it was a common euromush, they were treating

it like a single currency area, the banks are don't that any more.

is to cover the cross-border exposure, if a bank is borrowing

across country borders, there is an insulation in the banks for the

cross-border exposure. That is, in effect, what the ECB has to put in

place to keep it going, that is the called firewall protection they are

working on. Time for something positive, it is

a pretty rare commodity in coverage of the Middle East, where frontline

journalism focuses on bombs, shootings, torture and suffering.

For every person who dies in a bomb explosion, many others are wounded,

often serious lo. There is a remarkable hospital in the

Jordanian capital, Amman, which offers to repair those victims. It

has began caring for patients from Iraq, and now patients come from

all over. All the patients have something in

common. They have been terrorised, by explosions, by bullets, by

catastrophy. I admire my patients. They are great, they are strong.

have come to Jordan to meet the faces behind the statistics. Tucked

away in a suburb of Amman, the forgotten victims of violence in

the Middle East. Is survivors of unimaginable horrors.

Here, doctors are reconstructing their broken bodies. And helping

them rebuild their lives. When we get a result, it makes you feel

good, really good. Dr Majd el-Rass, is a Syrian surgeon, preparing to

operate on a young Iraqi girl, injured in a bomb. When I see these

patients, I feel I'm not having enough, I should give more. They

need more. They are suffering, they didn't do anything bad to suffer,

they are here asking us to help them.

Waiting anxiously is this girl. An explosion outside her home in

Baghdad last September killed her brother, and shattered her leg. She

hasn't been able to walk or go to school since then. TRANSLATION:

doctors in Iraq told me, if they operation doesn't work out, I will

have to have an amputation. That's why I'm scared. Since the moment I

arrived in Jordan, I have been nervous. This is the first stage of

surgery. She will need a lot, at least three or four. We hope, after

that, she will walk. But there is always a risk. There is a risk of

amputation, always. By the time they get here, the

patients are all extremely complicated medical cases. And over

many months and years they face multiple gruelling surguries. But

the care they get here is so u Neil Kinnock there is -- surgeries, but

the care they get here is so unique, there is a huge waiting list. Set

up in to deal with the patients of conflict in Iraq, it was a

temporary unit. But with increasing conflicts, the hospital had to

expand, with an increase in 46%. It has taken in patients from Libya,

Yemen, Iraq and Syria, and Egyptians. Amongst the Syrians,

desperate to keep in touch with news from home, there is a special

camaraderie. Almost all are afraid to be identified, because of

concerns for relatives left behind. Not Abu Hassan, he managed to get

both himself and his family out. A woodcutter from Deraa, he says he

was politicised when he saw the Al- Assad's response to peaceful

demonstrations on the streets. He began to mobilise young

protestors, and witnessed and filmed, as demonstrators were

gunned down. Soon he was rounded up, interrogated and tortured.

TRANSLATION: I was handcuffed and blindfolded, and the interrogator

told me he would bring Syrian television in, and I must tell them

I smuggled weapons from abroad, and I regreted it. I said I cannot do

that. He said he knew how to make me confess, then he put burning

coals on my feet, and poured a kettle of boiling water over my

legs. But he knows he's lucky, only Syria's walking wounded are making

it here. Saed had to be operated on three times, but in the end the 27-

year-old's leg had to be amputated. He says he was shot while helping

wounded protestors, shot by snipers. He hid, sleepless with pain on a

farm for seven months, before being smuggled here for treatment. Today

the doctor is preparing Saed's stump for a prothesis. I can't

sleep for one week before an amputation, and one week after the

amputation. Amputation for me, or for any surgeon is like failure.

It is like a failure. But times it is the saving measure, the saving

of life sometimes. For months on end, this hotel is a

home from home for the patients. Some will have to return year after

year. Amid the pain, hope and expectation. But most of all, this

is a place of waiting, and for many, progress is slow.

This boy was six years old when a bomb went off at a family funeral

in Baghdad. He lost several relatives, as well as his left leg,

left eye, and half of his face. Already he's had 25 operations. To

help rebuild his mouth, muscle was transferred from his back.

Complicated surgery rarely perform anywhere else in the world.

One in ten of the project's patients at the moment are children.

And in room 502, they have just opened a makeshift school. The

teacher told us the children are so keen, that they pile into class the

moment she arrives at the hotel. Most of them now are Iraqis, but

MSF is readying itself for an influx from Miria in the months

ahead. What strikes you most about these

children is the complete absence of self-pity. This 12-year-old is from

Fallujah. TRANSLATION: I have been here for a

year. This bit of my face used to be like the other side. I have had

two operations so far. How is it being here, is it difficult to be

away from home? It's good? In what way? You like the weather. You like

the calm and the fact that there are no explosions. Hussein is

waiting for a third skin graft. He showed me how he was burned in a

bomb. He says it hurts, but only at night. The patients living behind

these doors all have very visible injuries, but hidden away is the

mental pain, of men who have been rejected for work because of their

disfigurement. Of women so badly maimed they have been divorced by

their husbands, and children, ostracised at school because of

their disfigurement. And the psychological wounds are extremely

hard to treat. This man's deepest wounds cannot be

seen. On day out with his family, the young Yemeny's car was hit by a

rocket, killing his wife and two- year-old son, in front of him.

Tomorrow he will have complex surgery to transplant a bone from

his leg to his arm, and staff are anxious about him. He has attempted

suicide three times. TRANSLATION: Since it happened I have known no

peace, none at all, I'm in constant pain. I had four operations in

Yemen, each one made things worse. Here I love the doctors, they are

like a family to me, anything we need, they give us.

It is Wednesday afternoon, and they have opened up the hotel ballroom.

Every few months staff put on a special party for the patients, to

try to lift their spirits. Time to keep a close eye, this woman is

responsible for the patients psychological welfare. Do you worry

about their physical or mental injuries more? The mental injury,

the physical will be treated. It is the last day of the week, and

the doctor has patients to check up on. Three days after surgery,

wassan is recovering slowly. Her mother is concerned that she

has lost weight. That is her on the left, taken before the explosion. A

young women now reduced by her injury to childlike dependency. But

all are relieved that the first operation has gone to plan. Saed is

busy rebuilding his strength. As soon as he gets his new leg and can

walk on it, he has told me he's going straight back to Syria. The

doctor is gathering his strength for a new influx of patients.

hardest part is to see the patient on arrival. When he arrives to me,

especially children. I have my habit, when I see a child with a

fracture of the limbs o a problem with the limbs, when they arrive to

me, I say you will walk for me on both limbs, with a football, I will

bring the football. If you didn't exist or this

hospital didn't exist, what would happen to them? It would be

catastrophic for them. Catastrophic. Now, one of the greatest voices in

the world was heard in London earlier this evening, Jessie Norman,

the great American soprano, gave her first concert in a decade on

the South Bank. A programme from Gershwin and Bernstein, to Rodgers

and Hammerstein. She rarely gives interviews, but she has given one

to Steve Smith. Jessye Norman is a diva, in a good

way, and husband been one for 40 years, if you think she has a great

voice, you are quite wrong, unusually she has three great

voices. I have the great privilege of

having a lot of low notes, a very strong middle voice, and high notes

as well. Do you ever ring people up in different voices on the phone

and catch them out, does that work? I have never tried it. Most people

recognise me on the phone, I don't think I would get away with it at

all, I hadn't thought of it. Miss Norman was born and raised in

what is then the segregated south of the United States. Long before

she performed the classical repertoire, other styles claimed

her. Growing up I listened to a great deal of gospel music. I love

jazz, I love singing the American song book, these things that I will

be singing. Cole Porter a Gershwin? Rodgers and hammer stein, Gershwin.

This is all beautiful music s I love it T I want other people who

are stuck, as it were, in what we call the traditional classical

canon, I would encourage them to allow those walls to fall down, and

to allow themselves to listen to a song of George Gershwin and be

happy about it. # It is very clear

# Our love is here to stay. Is there still snobbery in the

classical world? Oh yes, we are very snobbish, we think if it

hadn't been written, particularly and preferably in the 19th century,

somewhere in Europe, it can't possibly be as good. That is simply

a mistake. Jessye Norman backs Barack Obama

for a second term, and not just because he gave her a medal. She

supports him over gay marriage. have never understood why it

bothers other people so. If you're in a committed hetrosexual

relationship, why does it bother you that the people across the road

are the same-sex and happy together. Wouldn't you just want to celebrate

love in any form that it can occur in this challenging world of our's?

Religion plays a great big part, particularly conservative religion.

I don't know how conserve ive and religion goes together, since any

religion is meant to be about love, and understanding, and acceptance.

So conservative and religion is an objectiony moron for me.

Oxymoron for me. You're from the same town as James

Brown? I saw him in the lobby, and I thought should I go and say hello,

or walk by and keep smiling. He turned around and he said, Jess,

how marvellous to see you. And so I said, I was going to say hello, but

I certainly could imagine that you had any idea. He said he knows all

of his homegirls. I wouldn't do my job properly, and usually that is

how it is, if I didn't say, could you please sing a little for us.

# Falling in love with love # Is falling for make-believe

Falling in love with love # Is playing the fool

Good, would you say that you are a diva? One thinks of a diva as being

a person who is rather difficult to be around, and difficult to be with,

forgive the dangle participles, and capricious and generally rather bad

company, and I'm not like that. If a diva is a person that takes