:00:11. > :00:15.He might have been Prime Minister, but he didn't feel bold enough to
:00:15. > :00:21.take on the press. The people may send you to Downing Street, he says,
:00:21. > :00:25.but the press are something else. You fall out with them, and you
:00:25. > :00:31.watch out, because it is literally relentless and unremitting, once
:00:31. > :00:35.that happens. This Government seemed cowed by an old fast,ed
:00:35. > :00:40.press campaign too. Tonight a u- turn on both the pasty tax and the
:00:40. > :00:43.caravan tax. The worst atrocity yet in Syria,
:00:43. > :00:50.what realistically can the rest of the world do.
:00:50. > :00:57.And later on. We happy few, we Band of Brothers. What does Shakespeare
:00:57. > :01:02.teach us about the art and devilry of political leadership. Fresh from
:01:02. > :01:07.Henry V, Tom Hiddleston discusses with Mark Rylance, and Simon Schama.
:01:07. > :01:12.Is the Government creeping back towards a third runway at Heathrow.
:01:12. > :01:16.Boris Jonsson prefers a plan not involving his own back -- Sir
:01:16. > :01:19.Gordon Borrie Jonsson prefers a plan not involving his own back
:01:19. > :01:26.yard. It is good because it is off the map, because there are fewer
:01:26. > :01:30.votes to lose. There are fewer human beings.
:01:31. > :01:34.Two months ago it was an essential part of sorting out the tax system,
:01:35. > :01:38.tonight, the plan for imposing VAT on Cornish pasties has been
:01:38. > :01:43.abandoned. Game, set and match to a campaign in the press.
:01:43. > :01:47.We learned a lot more about the power of the press and how it looks
:01:47. > :01:50.in Downing Street, when Tony Blair took the stand at the Leveson
:01:50. > :01:54.Inquiry today. We learned too that whoever is paying for Tony Blair's
:01:54. > :01:57.large security detail and the administration of the inquiry, for
:01:57. > :02:00.example, you and me, isn't get especially good value for money. We
:02:00. > :02:09.learned why the former Prime Minister decided not to confront
:02:09. > :02:13.the press, but he said to try to manage it.
:02:13. > :02:16.He is The Godfather of Gloom, not just to one of Rupert Murdoch's
:02:16. > :02:23.children, but for many, The Godfather of Gloom of modern
:02:23. > :02:27.political media management. Half a decade out of power, and can he
:02:27. > :02:31.still draw a crowd. Today Mr Blair was at the heart of the story once
:02:31. > :02:35.again. I swear by Almighty God that the evidence I shall give shall be
:02:35. > :02:38.the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He said as a
:02:38. > :02:42.political leader, witnessing the savagry of the press, he faced a
:02:42. > :02:45.choice, take on the power of the media, or attempt, some how, to
:02:46. > :02:50.harness it. It is not that, as it were, I was afraid of taking them
:02:50. > :02:53.on, in that sense, but I knew that if I did, you have to be very, very
:02:53. > :02:57.clear about this, and that was the debate I had with Alastair, and
:02:57. > :03:03.others within Government all the way through. If you take this on,
:03:03. > :03:06.do not think for a single moment you are not in a long, protracted
:03:06. > :03:11.battle that will shove everything else to one side whilst it is going
:03:11. > :03:16.on. Instead Mr Blair tried to get close, famously travelling to
:03:17. > :03:19.address a News Corporation meeting in Australia, in 1995.
:03:19. > :03:23.I wouldn't have been going, of course, not all the way around the
:03:23. > :03:28.world. I remember I had to go after one Prime Minister's Questions, and
:03:28. > :03:31.return for the next, if it hadn't been a very deliberate and
:03:31. > :03:36.strategic decision that I would go and try to persuade them. I had a
:03:36. > :03:39.minimum and maximum objective. The minimum objective was to stop them
:03:39. > :03:46.tearing us to piece, and the maximum objective, was to open the
:03:46. > :03:51.way to support. But, Mr Blair insisted, there was no deal with
:03:52. > :03:59.urd -- Rupert Murdoch's -- Rupert Murdoch or anyone else? I wouldn't
:03:59. > :04:07.have gone if I hadn't had a strong interest in us legislating on the
:04:07. > :04:12.media, absolutely, but im plied deal of media interest, absolutely
:04:12. > :04:15.not. I don't think we will miss you. During his decade in power, Mr
:04:15. > :04:20.Blair said he saw countless examples of the press trying to rip
:04:20. > :04:25.someone apart. Not least, he said, what amounted to a vendetta against
:04:25. > :04:28.his wife. Who, he revealed, has used lawyers to challenge stories
:04:28. > :04:32.about her on 30 separate occasions. Powerful people within these
:04:32. > :04:36.positions will say, right, we are going after that person, what
:04:36. > :04:44.happens is, they will go after you. As I say, it is full on, full
:04:44. > :04:48.frontal, day in, day out. That is not journalism. In my view. That is
:04:48. > :04:52.an abuse of power, actually. those tuning into Mr Blair
:04:52. > :04:55.expecting to hear revelation, well, it was something of a
:04:55. > :05:00.disappointment. We learned very little that hasn't already come out
:05:00. > :05:04.in numerous inquiries, and countless biographies and
:05:04. > :05:07.autobiographies of the Blair era. And part Lewis because he was in
:05:07. > :05:10.office, and partly because of his technophobe character. Mr Blair
:05:10. > :05:13.never had a mobile phone or e-mail while in Downing Street. So he
:05:13. > :05:18.didn't have to explain any of the chummy messages that other
:05:18. > :05:24.witnesses have been confronted with. This was n many ways, a classic
:05:24. > :05:29.Blair event. Whilst he looked very, very relaxed, others got very, very
:05:29. > :05:36.excited. He held up the Iraq Bank for �20 billion. A protestor some
:05:36. > :05:40.how found his way through the judges' door into the court....JP
:05:40. > :05:44.Morgan, after he left office, the man is a war criminal. Mr Blair
:05:44. > :05:49.deed nationwide the man's accusations, and the inquiry
:05:49. > :05:52.promised another inquiry as to how he got in. Mr Blair was famously on
:05:52. > :05:54.kissing terms with News International, today we learned
:05:54. > :05:58.that Rupert Murdoch and he had three telephone conversations in
:05:58. > :06:03.the days before the Iraq War. So what's the solution? Well, Mr Blair
:06:03. > :06:08.says the press are so soufrl, because when they turn it is not --
:06:09. > :06:12.so powerful, because when they turn it is not just their opinion and
:06:12. > :06:16.leader columns that get poisonous, but also their news coverage. He
:06:16. > :06:23.said they should be given a duty to separate the two. Three problems,
:06:23. > :06:26.according to critics, who decides where that line s who polices it,
:06:26. > :06:32.and what is the sanction for those who cross it.
:06:32. > :06:37.As he left pl, Blair knew he hadn't been tripped up or ripped --'s left,
:06:37. > :06:44.Mr Blair knew he hadn't been tripped up or ripped up by the
:06:44. > :06:50.inquiry, although he had got to say his side of things. But someone did
:06:50. > :06:55.get to throw an egg at him. Tessa Jowell and Stephen Glover,
:06:55. > :07:00.who has devoted a fair number of column inches to criticising the
:07:00. > :07:04.former Prime Minister. A man with land slight majorities in Downing
:07:04. > :07:08.Street, and the power to send troops to war and all the rest of
:07:08. > :07:12.it, complains about the press? don't think he complains about it,
:07:12. > :07:20.he was setting out throughout the whole of today and his evidence, a
:07:20. > :07:29.very clear strategic judgment, that you would reek havoc by trying to
:07:29. > :07:32.intervene and regulate the -- wreak havoc by trying to intervene and
:07:32. > :07:37.regulate the press. Instead you would try to manage the press, and
:07:37. > :07:40.get as much coverage for things as possible, but never live in hope.
:07:40. > :07:44.That was a reasonable ambition? reasonable ambition to get on with
:07:44. > :07:47.the press. The trouble was he thought getting on with the press
:07:47. > :07:53.meant sucking up to Rupert Murdoch. And getting so close to Rupert
:07:53. > :07:58.Murdoch, that within the eight days before we went to war in Iraq they
:07:59. > :08:02.spoke many times on the telephone. Is there any modern country where
:08:02. > :08:06.that would happen. He spoke to other editors at that very
:08:06. > :08:11.sensitive time. Not to the same extent three days the Iraq War.
:08:11. > :08:15.Telegraph, and the Mirror, in order that their readers could also
:08:15. > :08:19.understand why this momentous decision had been taken.
:08:20. > :08:24.anything like to the same extent. I mean, there were very few cabinet
:08:24. > :08:28.ministers who spoke with Blair three times in the days before we
:08:28. > :08:33.went to war. This was a relationship very much much closer
:08:33. > :08:35.than any other editoral proprietor. You conceded when you were
:08:35. > :08:38.appointed, Culture Secretary, you said you went to see the Prime
:08:38. > :08:43.Minister, and said is there any deal with Murdoch to give him what
:08:43. > :08:47.he wants on media regulation? wouldn't say I conceded, I wanted
:08:47. > :08:51.to establish exactly what the brief was that I was taking on. Why did
:08:51. > :08:57.you find it necessary to go and ask the Prime Minister whether such a
:08:57. > :09:05.deal had been done? Because I needed to be clear that I had, as a
:09:05. > :09:10.new Secretary of State, complete free rein to decide. Why should
:09:10. > :09:13.you? In exactly the same as the other issue I sought assurance on,
:09:13. > :09:17.if I was to sort out the position with Wembley Stadium, then the
:09:17. > :09:23.Football Association wouldn't come and see the Prime Minister behind
:09:23. > :09:25.my back. You had spae civic anxiety about Rupert Murdoch? -- a specific
:09:25. > :09:29.anxiety about Rupert Murdoch? You must have done otherwise you
:09:29. > :09:33.wouldn't have asked? I had a specific question about Rupert
:09:33. > :09:38.Murdoch, which was a prerequisite to my doing the job properly.
:09:38. > :09:42.you also ask him if there was a deal done with the Guardian, the
:09:42. > :09:46.Independent, the mirror ob anybody else? I asked him -- Or anybody
:09:46. > :09:49.else? I asked him specifically about Rupert Murdoch. The fact was
:09:49. > :09:54.that the Prime Minister did not see him, and the legislation I took
:09:54. > :09:58.through parliament, and concluded in 2003, gave Rupert Murdoch
:09:58. > :10:02.virtually nothing that he had lobbied, or News International had
:10:02. > :10:06.lobbied. You can make a face like that. I only wanted to know why you
:10:06. > :10:09.wanted the assurance, or felt you needed to have the assurance?
:10:09. > :10:12.wanted the assurance, in order that I knew the terms on which I was
:10:12. > :10:18.going to negotiate, not just with News International, but all the
:10:18. > :10:23.other media companies that I saw oifr that time. You didn't ask --
:10:23. > :10:28.Over that time. You didn't ask any of the others, as you agreed today.
:10:28. > :10:33.Mr Blair saw the Mail has being a real enemy of his, he said today,
:10:33. > :10:38.he said he had an analysis done while in Downing Street of 100
:10:39. > :10:43.stories printed in the Mail, and all 100 were hostile to him? That
:10:43. > :10:48.may be, I don't know. The Mail was the only paper which new Labour
:10:48. > :10:53.couldn't win over. They tried to win it over in the late 1990s, they
:10:53. > :10:58.petitioned the propriety and the editor, and they didn't get very --
:10:58. > :11:04.proi proprietor, and the -- proprietor, and they tried the
:11:05. > :11:09.editor but they didn't win them all over. There was the time between
:11:09. > :11:16.the 1996 election and the 2001 election where the whole press was
:11:16. > :11:20.Blairite. Isn't the point conceded by Tony Blair, that there isn't any
:11:20. > :11:23.distinction between fact and comment in the Mail? The Mail is
:11:23. > :11:27.surely free to run comment articles, critical of Tony Blair, I have
:11:27. > :11:31.written a few in my time. He's saying there is no distinction?
:11:31. > :11:35.He's wrong about. That he didn't give any examples, he gave one
:11:35. > :11:40.example. He said there were 100 stories and all hostile? I don't
:11:40. > :11:42.know if 100 stories were, 100 pieces, articles, he didn't give
:11:42. > :11:49.specific examples about how comment had crept into news. He kept going
:11:49. > :11:57.on about it, but he didn't give any examples. An old fast,ed tabloid
:11:57. > :12:04.campaign seems to have done for the budget, its plans to intro-- --
:12:04. > :12:09.introduce a called pasty tax, and changes to the caravan tax. It was
:12:09. > :12:13.thought this announcement was made while ministers were on holiday to
:12:13. > :12:18.reduce embarrassment, according to the opposition. Pasty tax is dead?
:12:18. > :12:21.And the caravan tax. This story is both frivolous and serious, because
:12:21. > :12:26.talking about caravans and pasties isn't what any of us went into
:12:26. > :12:29.political journalism to do. It is serious for a number of reasons,
:12:29. > :12:34.this is a Government worried about its perceptions being out-of-touch,
:12:34. > :12:38.and the damage on these two and a series of things has already been
:12:38. > :12:43.done. It is also a serious thing because it looks like a Government
:12:43. > :12:47.that doesn't know its own mind. A few weeks ago they were talking
:12:47. > :12:51.about steadfast surety that they wouldn't backtrack on these, even
:12:51. > :12:56.though there was opposition from the get-go. There is the squeeze in
:12:56. > :13:00.how much life costs, when you can find �100 million to row back on
:13:00. > :13:03.caravan and pasty tax, but you can't find money on things like
:13:03. > :13:07.fuel duty, people will wonder about priorities. But it is the
:13:07. > :13:11.consequence, is it not, of a newspaper campaign? It is the
:13:11. > :13:15.consequence, but also of a series of MPs in the west of England who
:13:15. > :13:18.are feeling this isn't something they want to go back to ahead of
:13:18. > :13:22.the Jubilee weekend. I don't know if it is necessarily about
:13:23. > :13:27.newspapers, but they amplify, don't they. We would have liked to talk
:13:27. > :13:32.to a Treasury Minister, but no-one was available. But Stephen Glover
:13:32. > :13:35.this looks like the media exercising power and
:13:35. > :13:40.responsibility? It is comical, pasties and caravans, people say,
:13:40. > :13:45.but it is what it signifies? think the media spointing out a
:13:45. > :13:49.stupid an -- is pointing out a stupid anomally in the budget, and
:13:49. > :13:53.90% of the British public is probably on the media's side, they
:13:53. > :13:56.are reflecting what people think. The idea that the media will click
:13:56. > :14:00.its hands and the Government will change its mind, it is wrong,
:14:00. > :14:04.people are asking every day for the Government to stop doing what they
:14:04. > :14:09.are doing. This was clearly a cock- up, and the Government have
:14:09. > :14:13.sensibly stepped down. There is a massive area that is controversial
:14:13. > :14:17.in the budget, that is the 50p rate of tax going, that remains, but
:14:17. > :14:22.tweaks around the edges. What do you make of it? It is just a
:14:22. > :14:27.shambles. I mean I absolutely agree with the analysis. But I would like
:14:27. > :14:34.very quickly to touch on Stephen's point about newspaper campaigns, I
:14:34. > :14:41.think newspapers are entirely free, and should run campaigns. I think
:14:41. > :14:47.we, Stephen's paper ran a pretty ghastly campaign against the
:14:47. > :14:52.licensing act, against gambling legislation, they didn't win on
:14:52. > :14:58.either accounts. They won a campaign on Stephen Lawrence?
:14:59. > :15:03.did, not all campaigns are won, and some campaigns, actually, have more
:15:03. > :15:06.integrity than others. You don't dispute their right to do it?
:15:06. > :15:10.don't dispute their right to do it. For one moment. It is perfectly
:15:10. > :15:14.true that newspapers don't always win their campaigns, I must say the
:15:14. > :15:18.Mail of completely right about gambling. Why new Labour fell in
:15:18. > :15:22.love with gambling, God only knows. New Labour never fell in love with
:15:22. > :15:26.gambling, it was in order to make the public safer at a time when
:15:26. > :15:29.many more people were gambling. Shall we talk about this another
:15:29. > :15:34.time. I think we better do that. Thank you very much.
:15:34. > :15:38.You can believe the United Nations or you can believe President Bashar
:15:38. > :15:42.Al-Assad's propaganda machine. The former UN Secretary-General, Kofi
:15:43. > :15:46.Annan, is trying publicly at least, to keep an open mind on who
:15:46. > :15:50.murdered over 100 people, nearly half of them children, in the
:15:50. > :15:54.Syrian town of Houla on Friday. The Russians, who have been Al-
:15:54. > :15:56.Assad's main international protector shifted ground slightly
:15:56. > :16:01.today, admitting that the regime was, at least, partially
:16:01. > :16:06.responsible for the killings. Our diplomatic editor is here. Are
:16:06. > :16:11.we any closer to finding out what happened in Houla? There have been
:16:11. > :16:16.more details, and they are pretty shocking, really. In the initial
:16:16. > :16:19.hours after the attack, we can look at a map over the region. It is an
:16:19. > :16:23.I can't remember to the North West of Homs, a place where there had
:16:23. > :16:28.been known to be a great deal of fighting and suffering already. Up
:16:28. > :16:33.there in Houla, in the hours initially afterwards, a lot of
:16:33. > :16:38.focus on state artillery, and after Friday payers and demonstrations
:16:38. > :16:46.there was artillery fired into howl LA soon it progressed to a town
:16:46. > :16:51.south of it Taldou an extended family clan, more than 60 of those
:16:51. > :16:56.killed were killed at close range by gunmen, with shots to the head.
:16:56. > :16:58.That is becoming clearer in the last couple of days from survivors'
:16:58. > :17:03.accounts. TRANSLATION: I swear to God, they
:17:03. > :17:07.killed my husband, they killed 12 members of my household. This baby
:17:07. > :17:11.is my niece, they killed her mother and her sister. The thugs made us
:17:11. > :17:15.come down stairs, they started their carnage, I lost four
:17:15. > :17:18.daughters and other family members. The attackers were dressed in
:17:18. > :17:23.military fatigue, and came in a white car, they stormed our homes
:17:23. > :17:30.and started a shooting spree. baby did survive, but not the rest
:17:30. > :17:33.of her family, of course. What's become clear from rebel accounts,
:17:33. > :17:38.resistance accounts, is these people were unofficial
:17:38. > :17:43.paramilitaries, murder squads, death squads, if you choose to call
:17:43. > :17:48.them that. The Syrian Government denied, that blaming it on called
:17:48. > :17:51.terrorists, US, and everybody else seems to accept that. These
:17:51. > :17:55.international phrases have been carefully worded, in, for example,
:17:55. > :18:01.the UN's statement over the weekend. The resistance seems to see this as
:18:01. > :18:05.a moment of truth where they can began vanise public opinion. This
:18:05. > :18:09.shocking image, a dead child, placed on the bonnet of one of the
:18:09. > :18:13.UN vehicles as they went into Houla at the weekend. It is a horrible
:18:13. > :18:17.incident. What has been the diplomatic response? Because of
:18:17. > :18:19.what happened, there was this urgent UN presidential statement,
:18:19. > :18:23.the Security Council presidential statement at the weekend. Now, some
:18:23. > :18:26.people feel this is part of a pattern of Russia and China, who
:18:26. > :18:30.had blocked serious action in the UN last year, coming closer to
:18:30. > :18:34.being on side. The Russians point out that they, for example, have
:18:34. > :18:38.agreed to the deployment of those monitor, they have signed up to the
:18:38. > :18:41.two presidential statements recently condemning Syria. In that
:18:41. > :18:44.spirit, William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary went to Moscow
:18:44. > :18:49.today, to try to get more out of the Russians and see if there was
:18:49. > :18:53.room to push this whole agenda forward of more robust action.
:18:53. > :19:03.Instead he found Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, still
:19:03. > :19:07.apparently apportioning blame equally in Moscow today.
:19:07. > :19:12.TRANSLATION: We are dealing with a situation in which both sides
:19:12. > :19:18.participated in the killings of innocent civilian, including
:19:18. > :19:21.several small children and women. This district is controlled by the
:19:21. > :19:31.armed militants, at the same time it is encirleled by Government
:19:31. > :19:33.
:19:33. > :19:39.forces. -- -- encirleled by Government forces. Where does it
:19:39. > :19:43.leave international mediation? of the reports seem to indicate
:19:43. > :19:48.escalation. The fact that money and weapons do seem to be getting
:19:48. > :19:52.through from Qatar, to the Free Syrian Army, the rebel forces, the
:19:52. > :19:55.fact that there is a complete diplomatic past Tiel, there was
:19:55. > :20:00.strong language at the weekend, but the Russians are still determined
:20:00. > :20:04.to hold on to a transition arrangement they want to call the
:20:04. > :20:09.shots upon. We must never forget in this the US presidential cycle
:20:09. > :20:12.seems to be determining a US attitude not to lead a strong
:20:12. > :20:19.international response to this, particularly if it might involve US
:20:19. > :20:26.troops. Bashar Al-Assad is the sort of bloody tyrant who might have
:20:26. > :20:29.been drawn by Shakespeare, Macbeth, Richard II II or tight Andronicus,
:20:29. > :20:37.we are reflected this week in Britain through the writings of
:20:37. > :20:40.three British authors, no better space to start with spaix peer --
:20:40. > :20:45.Shakespeare, on the question of leadership. What does he have to
:20:45. > :20:48.tell us about it, and do we care about it any longer. Two of our
:20:48. > :20:58.leading actors and a foremost historian will try to answer those
:20:58. > :21:07.
:21:07. > :21:15."Be not afraid of greatness, some are born great, some achieve
:21:15. > :21:25.greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them". "Uneasy lies the
:21:25. > :21:25.
:21:25. > :21:30.head that wears the crown ". "Men of few words are the best men".
:21:30. > :21:35."The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on".
:21:35. > :21:39.When we are not out on the street, calling for our leaders to depart
:21:40. > :21:44.the stage at the first available opportunity, we are indulging in
:21:44. > :21:48.other colourful traditions of our island story, like celebrating the
:21:48. > :21:54.anniversary of a popular sovereign, coming to the throne.
:21:54. > :22:01.Who would be a leader, at the mercy of our whims and appetites.
:22:01. > :22:10.By being seldom seen, I could not stir, but like a comet, I was
:22:10. > :22:17.wondered at. Sir Richard Eyre has been directing
:22:17. > :22:21.Henry IV, as part of a Jubilee season of Shakespeare plays for the
:22:21. > :22:29.BBC. All Shakespeare has become proverbial, it is there, thank God,
:22:29. > :22:32.as part of the DNA of British life. Sketch writers, voters, we often
:22:32. > :22:37.see politicians in Shakespearian terms, do you think they do
:22:38. > :22:47.themselves? I think most of them aspire, and it is not a very close
:22:48. > :22:49.
:22:49. > :22:54.reading of the play, to hen vee V. We few, -- Henry V. We few, we
:22:55. > :22:59.happy few, we Band of Brothers. is the exemplary piece of political
:22:59. > :23:06.rhetoric, they all see themselves, at party conference, standing up
:23:06. > :23:13.and rousing the troops in that way. We are Conservatives, we will speak
:23:13. > :23:17.of pride, of honour, of valour in battle, and yes, of glory.
:23:17. > :23:23.The voice of the real people, with real needs, is louder than all the
:23:23. > :23:29.boos. Education, education, and education. As with Henry V, it is
:23:29. > :23:33.quite cynical, and it doesn't solve the problem of how to govern. How
:23:33. > :23:39.to govern is the constant preoccupation, in play after play,
:23:39. > :23:47.after play, after play, of Shakespeare's, it is how do you
:23:47. > :23:53.manage a society that has internal dissent.
:23:53. > :23:56.Shakespeare is brilliantly perceptive about the virus of power.
:23:56. > :24:00.The laughable in British politics, it is always in the House of
:24:00. > :24:04.Commons you see aggressive opposition. That is absolutely
:24:04. > :24:11.endemic. If we listened to the muttering idiot sitting opposite
:24:11. > :24:17.me... I'm taking the Shakespeare Way, which goes from Stratford to
:24:17. > :24:21.London. And passes through Chipping Norton. It has been one of the most
:24:21. > :24:26.important centres of power in the country, home to David Cameron and
:24:26. > :24:30.his influential friends. The whole Chipping Norton set thing is so
:24:30. > :24:33.interesting, it is something that would have been unremarkable 50 or
:24:33. > :24:36.100 years ago, when Harold Macmillan was swaning around
:24:36. > :24:42.clubland or something. Nobody thought anything of it. Now we live
:24:42. > :24:45.in this populist, individualistic, democratic age, where people almost
:24:45. > :24:50.slightly resent the idea that everybody at the top knows one
:24:50. > :24:56.another, there is this pat tricks world that ordinary people are shut
:24:56. > :24:59.out of. The idea of leadership has become quite suspect. We live in a
:24:59. > :25:03.completely different intellectual world from the one that Shakespeare,
:25:03. > :25:08.or even someone like Gladstone inhabited. We live in an age of
:25:08. > :25:12.universal literacy s mass education, and so on, where your opinion is as
:25:12. > :25:19.good as the next man's, you won't be talked down to and led, that
:25:19. > :25:25.kind of eno sir makes it hard for somebody to -- -- that kind of
:25:25. > :25:29.ethos makes it hard for somebody to stand up and say I will lead and
:25:29. > :25:33.guide you. The Shakespeare Way runs from Chipping Norton to Oxford,
:25:33. > :25:38.David Cameron travelled in the opposite direction. But in common
:25:38. > :25:42.with many frontline politicians, he likes to play down his prestigious
:25:42. > :25:48.education, preferring to advertise his taste for a humble snack, which
:25:48. > :25:53.was around in Shakespeare's time. In search of further clues about
:25:53. > :26:00.Shakespeare and leadership, I have come to the historic city of Oxford,
:26:00. > :26:06.to a hallowed spot, forever associated with the Bard. An
:26:06. > :26:12.absolutely steeped place in his offerings, it is just above the
:26:12. > :26:17.bookmakers. Believe it or not, this was once a
:26:17. > :26:20.hotel room, and the swan of Avon himself once stayed here, scuffed
:26:20. > :26:24.and partially hidden behind a sliding panel, these walls are
:26:24. > :26:28.thought to be largely unchanged since his time. Shakespeare bedded
:26:28. > :26:32.down here with the common man and woman. He understood their desires
:26:32. > :26:36.couldn't always been indulged by a good leader.
:26:36. > :26:42.Leadership is sometimes about uncompromising, and other times it
:26:42. > :26:47.is about a dialogue. I'm very struck in the case of David Cameron,
:26:47. > :26:53.that he has this extraordinary valuation of friendship, that he
:26:53. > :26:57.will standby his friends, whatever happens. But an essential part of
:26:57. > :27:03.leadership, has to be being a good butcher. Henry V is a good butcher.
:27:03. > :27:08.If it comes to it, he chooses the right course for his country, even
:27:08. > :27:15.if it that means betraying, destroying, his friends.
:27:15. > :27:21.This is London. And so is this. the Second World War, another
:27:21. > :27:26.leader, who understood the rallying power of Shakespeare's prose,
:27:26. > :27:32.commissioned this famous version of Henry V, from Laurence Olivier.
:27:32. > :27:38.Once more unto the breach. Prime Minister Churchill wanted to
:27:38. > :27:46.inspire the troops serving on D-Day, the film was even dedicated to them.
:27:46. > :27:51.Charge, cry God for Harry, England and St George.
:27:51. > :27:56.Motivation when it works is like an adrenaline shot, it pumps people up,
:27:56. > :28:02.so that at the end, when he says "cry God, for Harry, England and St
:28:02. > :28:05.George". They are saying, let's go. Olivier's son, Richard, uses the
:28:05. > :28:10.same ringing oratory to teach management skills to business
:28:10. > :28:16.leaders. Many leaders, in our experience, on day 90 of the
:28:16. > :28:22.campaign, given Henry's situation, do not say, "Once more unto the
:28:22. > :28:27.breach", they come in with a detailed report of the performance
:28:27. > :28:33.indicators of the first three months of the siege.
:28:34. > :28:38.Human beings need purpose and leaders who tell a good story, hold
:28:38. > :28:42.that for us. There does seem to be a contempt for leaders, can
:28:42. > :28:46.Shakespeare help us out of it? biased, I think Shakespeare can
:28:46. > :28:50.guide us through pretty much anything, if you find the right
:28:50. > :28:56.play and look at it in the right way. There is that absolute sense,
:28:56. > :29:00.in people, that we want better leaders. Unfortunately, I would
:29:00. > :29:04.probably also say we tend to get the leadership we deserve. What are
:29:04. > :29:10.we not doing, what are we not developing in our leaders, what
:29:10. > :29:14.permission are we giving them to be greedy, or rapacious, who is
:29:14. > :29:18.rewarding them? The good news for today's politicians is that they
:29:18. > :29:21.rarely have to settle their differences as they did in
:29:21. > :29:26.Shakespeare's plays, and the worst they have to fear is a clash of
:29:26. > :29:29.personalities. Rile royal rile, as well as
:29:30. > :29:34.starring in the smash hit, Jerusalem, has played more
:29:34. > :29:38.Shakespearian characters than most of us have had hot dinners, he's
:29:38. > :29:43.here with fellow actor, Tom Hiddleston, who has just finished
:29:43. > :29:50.shooting a new production of Henry V, and Simon Schama, historian,
:29:50. > :29:53.whose latest series, Shakespeare and Us, broadcasts next week. What
:29:53. > :29:58.does Shakespeare teach us about leadership? They are all human
:29:58. > :30:04.beings, and he so loves opposites, that even in a character like
:30:04. > :30:09.Richard II I, he gives him a remarkable speech of conscience,
:30:09. > :30:13.Macbeth has a large speech of conscience, Henry V is a very
:30:13. > :30:17.responsible leader, but there are two plays before where he's most
:30:17. > :30:23.irresponsible, doing the equivalent n my mind, of taking ecstacy, and
:30:23. > :30:28.going out every nightclubing. He shows is humanity. I wonder if we
:30:28. > :30:36.expect our leaders to be perfect in all fields. A leader in another
:30:36. > :30:42.area, like Dogg ery, in Much Ado About Nothing, a village constable,
:30:42. > :30:46.so was the plot, he finds, through ineptitude, the evil going on. Is
:30:46. > :30:52.it right, I have been thinking, is it right to expect our leaders to
:30:52. > :30:58.be very strong in every area. If Martin Luther King had been alive
:30:58. > :31:02.now, under the scrutiny of the press now, and we learned about his
:31:02. > :31:05.infidelties and misbehaviour, would he have ever got to the capital and
:31:05. > :31:09.made the speech. Would we have been better off to have known everything
:31:09. > :31:12.about him and rejected him. This question of the humanity, that the
:31:12. > :31:18.person is not only the office but they are a human being, is
:31:18. > :31:21.something, as Mark remarks, is something that has been, until very
:31:21. > :31:26.recently, is something very hard for people to deal with? It was an
:31:26. > :31:32.issue for the Elizabethan, because the Queen, Elizabeth I, very
:31:32. > :31:34.unusually, in the Tilbury speech, for example, her entire authority
:31:34. > :31:40.was predicated, not on her remoteness, but actually the
:31:40. > :31:45.illusion, at least, that she was one of everybody else. So already
:31:45. > :31:53.that dilemma of how do you actually be familiar, and yet Auguste, and
:31:53. > :31:55.the two, those two -- aug ust, and those two role models, endlessly
:31:55. > :32:01.grinding against each other, goes through Shakespeare all the time.
:32:01. > :32:08.He lived in both world, he's an actor, he roughs it a bit where he
:32:08. > :32:13.lives, but he also plays abefore the court. You have played the most
:32:13. > :32:21.inspirational of the lot, Henry V? The thing is it dramatises the
:32:21. > :32:24.tussle between the responsibility of public office, and the private,
:32:24. > :32:31.almost torment, of personal accountability, are very aware. One
:32:31. > :32:37.of my favourite lines from the play, is on the eve of ago again court,
:32:37. > :32:42.Henry V, disguised under the cloak of one of his captains, gets into a
:32:42. > :32:44.debate with a soldier with kingship and responsibility, and this
:32:44. > :32:48.character Williams is casting various aspersions about, it will
:32:48. > :32:53.be a black matter when all the arplgs and legs chopped off in
:32:53. > :32:58.battle said they would died in such a place, it is a black matter for
:32:58. > :33:01.the king who led them to it. Henry's response is every subject's
:33:01. > :33:09.duty is the king's, but every subject's soul is his own.
:33:09. > :33:14.How do you think, you have just played it now, for this BBC series.
:33:14. > :33:19.Did you think about how the mood of the times made it a different sort
:33:19. > :33:25.of person you were portraying, to, for example, Olivier there in 1944?
:33:25. > :33:33.Yes, I did. I was in no way going to match or compete with Olivier's
:33:33. > :33:38.portrayal, I think. I think because, and I have discussed this a lot, I
:33:38. > :33:46.think in our society, we don't trust rhetoric in the same way. We
:33:46. > :33:49.are all used to seeing. This is interesting, Dominic Sandbrook, in
:33:49. > :33:53.the piece there, talking about society now, we are not willing to
:33:53. > :33:56.indulge a belief in the magical properties of leaders, in the way
:33:56. > :34:01.that perhaps some leaders Oregan rations were, or we think they
:34:01. > :34:05.were? -- or generations were, or we think they were? The thing about
:34:05. > :34:08.Henry V, that distinguishes him from contemporary leaders, that the
:34:08. > :34:13.men and women in the highest positions of power, were also the
:34:13. > :34:20.men and women physically leading their armies to battle. Henry V is
:34:20. > :34:24.able to give the speech, and thump on the horse and ride into battle -
:34:24. > :34:29.- jump on the horse and ride into battle himself. I live in America
:34:29. > :34:37.all the time, and whether or not Obama's rhetoric, who is a master,
:34:37. > :34:42.is an asset or liability, it was a grey asset in 2008, we don't know,
:34:42. > :34:46.he has the ability to produce rhetorical rabbits from the hat.
:34:46. > :34:51.Rhetoric does change power, Churchill's rhetoric changed what
:34:51. > :34:58.the cabinet said it would do. It is in Shakespeare's own time, that
:34:58. > :35:03.regular kids in village grammar schools were taught rhetoric, books,
:35:03. > :35:06.The Garden of Eloquence. You could be a lower person from a lower
:35:06. > :35:10.middle-class background, and suppose you could not get through
:35:10. > :35:14.school unless you spoke. This is why my dad, when I was nine, forced
:35:14. > :35:20.me to do a speech, standing on chair in my mother's lounge, as we
:35:20. > :35:25.called it. I never did that, did you? No. That is why you are actors,
:35:26. > :35:29.and I'm not. Do you think it is hard to be a leader, we live in a
:35:29. > :35:33.very, very different time, where people are much more inclined to
:35:33. > :35:36.make their own judgments about more or less everything, everything
:35:36. > :35:40.become a more difficult people to lead? I always think, Jeremy, when
:35:40. > :35:44.I was a young man I used to drive too fast sometimes, people would
:35:44. > :35:49.tell me slow down, and I wouldn't. One day I was driving too fast in
:35:49. > :35:53.Kent, and someone in the back, a young woman said, look, I had an
:35:53. > :35:57.accident six months ago, would you please slow down, because it is
:35:57. > :36:01.frightening me. And I slowed down. Because she spoke from experience.
:36:01. > :36:05.And so many, like that wonderful quote, and that wonderful scene,
:36:06. > :36:09.that these leaders were able to go amongst the people, and get
:36:10. > :36:14.experience. Not like Diana and Fergie, going out to have a party,
:36:14. > :36:19.but you think of the Duke in Measure For Measure, so many, Ross
:36:19. > :36:22.land, and all these Princesses, are able to go into a situation in
:36:22. > :36:32.disguise and find out about it truthfully, and they learn from
:36:32. > :36:33.
:36:33. > :36:37.that. Or live wildly as Henry V do, part of his experiences mean that
:36:37. > :36:41.now we couldn't elect him. understands who he is leading.
:36:41. > :36:45.Because of the rough experiences he goes through. The fact is s I don't
:36:45. > :36:51.want to harp on the Virgin Queen, why not, she's the only one who has
:36:51. > :36:54.done it. She did go on progress, and she did this in great carriages,
:36:54. > :36:59.trundling along, surrounded by courtiers, but she had the common
:36:59. > :37:03.touch. When there was a little geezer in Warwick, at that progress,
:37:04. > :37:08.who couldn't barely get the words out of greeting to the between. She
:37:08. > :37:15.said come hiter, whatever his name was, she absolutely, whatever it
:37:15. > :37:19.was about her, that has never happened since in that way. She was
:37:19. > :37:23.taught by a tutor, who taught her rhetoric, it was a hard thing to
:37:23. > :37:28.pull off. When I came into the profession, I had a real aversion
:37:28. > :37:31.to actors who sang Shakespeare, I think it goes hand-in-hand with the
:37:31. > :37:35.kind of rhetoric people do believe, in the case of someone like George
:37:35. > :37:40.Bush, who can't even put a sentence together, the man can't be pulling
:37:40. > :37:46.the wool over our ears, because he can hardly speak. That is a form of
:37:46. > :37:51.reverse rhetoric, that convinced a lot of people that he was honest.
:37:51. > :37:55.But eloquence, the meaning in the dictionary so to speak in way that
:37:55. > :38:00.affects the mind and moves the emotion, with force, fluency and
:38:00. > :38:04.appropriateness. "appropriateness" is the remarkable and hard thing
:38:04. > :38:07.that it is hard for politicians, speakers, not just politicians, but
:38:07. > :38:11.leaders of corporations, the manager in your shop to learn,
:38:11. > :38:15.unless you learn it through experience. Do you, as people very
:38:15. > :38:20.familiar with the text, when you hear politicians speaking, there
:38:20. > :38:24.was a clip of Michael Portillo there, there were a couple of other
:38:24. > :38:29.things. Do you detect the resonances of Shakespeare in the
:38:29. > :38:34.way our political leaders behave? Richard rightly said there, that
:38:34. > :38:38.often Henry V is quoted with a rather lazy reading of the play.
:38:38. > :38:44.The play itself is an incredibly brutal, shocking, violent piece of
:38:44. > :38:54.work. Examining the nature of warfare through the eyes of one man
:38:54. > :38:55.
:38:55. > :39:01.as he experiences it. The Cripins Day speech on the morning of ago
:39:01. > :39:04.again court comes out of despair, he's on the brink, he has nothing
:39:04. > :39:09.left, the men are dying of starvation and dysentery, they are
:39:09. > :39:13.going to lose. It is an amazing piece of pragmatic genius, turning
:39:14. > :39:19.weaknesses into strength, we are out numbered, we happy few. And a
:39:19. > :39:23.second stroke of begin yu, to say "He who is with me will be my
:39:23. > :39:27.brother", the illusion you are democratically promoted by sharing
:39:27. > :39:33.your wounds with the king, that is total, political genius. Do you
:39:33. > :39:38.think the modern equivalent of that, is the demotic, that our
:39:38. > :39:44.politicians effect now? Alas it is. It is partly because Shakespeare
:39:44. > :39:51.had so many lives, he was a fantastic listener in the pub. It
:39:51. > :39:55.wasn't like an Eatonian chomping on a pasty for the sake of effect.
:39:55. > :40:01.Steadty of, we have one. I hold my hands up. He lived that Russian he
:40:01. > :40:06.had a voice for the gutter in a way -- he lived that, he had a voice
:40:06. > :40:13.for the gutter in a way, when deployed in the play it had
:40:13. > :40:18.credibility. I was only making faces. Making faces for fun? I'm an
:40:18. > :40:22.actor. I thought you wanted to speak. You wanted to say something.
:40:22. > :40:27.Only that Shakespeare had enormous empathy, compassion and wisdom,
:40:27. > :40:31.about not just the man of the gutter, but every man. That is why
:40:31. > :40:35.he's so extraordinary, he's able to think and feel himself into the
:40:35. > :40:43.hearts and minds of an entire people, so kings and queens are
:40:43. > :40:47.represented, seemingly truthfully, as are men of the gutter, Falstaff,
:40:47. > :40:51.and Mistress Quickly. On tomorrow's programme we will consider what
:40:51. > :40:55.Charles Dickens has to tell us about modern day Britain with the
:40:55. > :41:01.help of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. What
:41:01. > :41:05.one of Shakespeare's least happy political role models, Macbeth,
:41:06. > :41:10.calls vaulting ambition is a prerequisite of power. The last
:41:10. > :41:20.time I asked Boris Johnson if he wanted David Cameron's old job, he
:41:20. > :41:24.
:41:24. > :41:29.was all cripes andia radio, and he was warning off any moves towards
:41:29. > :41:32.another runway. But the Government seems to be tiptoeing back to the
:41:32. > :41:37.idea. He has been speaking to our political editor.
:41:37. > :41:42.It is a building made to be seen from the sky. But this site, the
:41:42. > :41:48.one from the air, is the one the current mayor believes too many
:41:48. > :41:52.people see. London's airport set up is all wrong, Boris Johnson thinks,
:41:52. > :41:55.too much traffic comes in over the city T he tells Newsnight he would
:41:55. > :42:03.move things east. If you land at Heathrow, you have to come in,
:42:03. > :42:08.because the wind is coming this way, you land like this. So you approach,
:42:08. > :42:12.your approach over west London there are two great walls, and they
:42:12. > :42:16.approach like that, and go in like that, there is an approach like
:42:16. > :42:21.that. There is a north and south stack. The map in the basement of
:42:21. > :42:25.City Hall proves rather useful. Where would a third runway go?
:42:25. > :42:29.would go, basically through here. Instead he wants a new Heathrow,
:42:29. > :42:35.double its size, in Kent. It is very nice that your idea is
:42:35. > :42:40.completely off the map. There is no votes to lose. There are fewer
:42:40. > :42:47.human beings. His idea, he believes, would see
:42:47. > :42:51.fewer people move home. But it is expensive. Look, I'm open to all
:42:51. > :42:58.solutions, I don't think you can avoid having, there has to be a
:42:58. > :43:02.fight now, and they have got to grasp the nettle. If we had a bit
:43:02. > :43:07.of get-up-and-go in this country we would be done in six years. That is
:43:07. > :43:10.how long it took in Singapore and Hong Kong. You just need...Doesn't
:43:10. > :43:14.The Prime Minister have get-up-and- go? Of course he does, of course he
:43:14. > :43:18.does. The Government is consulting on new airport capacity in the
:43:18. > :43:21.south-east, the problem for it, is it is ham strung by its own
:43:21. > :43:24.pronouncements in this area. They have ruled out in the coalition
:43:24. > :43:29.Government the expansion of a third runway at Heathrow. They have also
:43:29. > :43:35.ruled out more runways at Stanstead and GATT which, they are left
:43:35. > :43:40.looking at the -- Gatwick, they are left looking at a an idea that was
:43:40. > :43:45.seen as fantastical, Boris Island. It needs a stop-gap solution,
:43:46. > :43:53.looking at ideas once completely off the able. There is now a risk
:43:53. > :43:57.that the Government will tip toe behind the back -- -- the electric
:43:57. > :44:02.fence of the third runway. You can see ministers are testing the water,
:44:02. > :44:06.to mix my metaphors. Water and electricity not good? When they get
:44:06. > :44:11.to that electrified fence, they will have a most powerful shock. It
:44:11. > :44:17.is not deliverable, now, or in the future, the third runway is, as
:44:17. > :44:21.they say in Brussels, kadook, it is dead, over, move on. Is that your
:44:21. > :44:25.message to George Osborne? It is. But the coalition Government rules
:44:25. > :44:29.out another runway at Stanstead and Gatwick, you have ruled out a third
:44:29. > :44:33.runway, what is the solution? Though you have excluded some
:44:33. > :44:37.options there which I don't think are necessarily excluded. They are
:44:37. > :44:41.excluded in the coalition agreement? There are other options
:44:41. > :44:46.as well. Don't forget the -- forget the coalition has moved some way in
:44:46. > :44:50.the last couple of years. They began with the policy of no more
:44:50. > :44:54.runways anywhere ever in the south- east. That was not economically
:44:54. > :44:59.sustainable. This place used to be covered with docks and cranes and
:44:59. > :45:02.whatever, that all collapsed because capacity died. There was
:45:02. > :45:07.not enough capacity for the docks to accommodate the new containers
:45:07. > :45:12.that came. It all moved out to other ports, Felixstowe, Rotterdam,
:45:12. > :45:17.that kind of thing, London lost out. OK, we get it t what's his plan?
:45:17. > :45:21.London, the UK, would have a 24- hour hub airport. This is the key
:45:21. > :45:26.point, that would allow us to communicate with the big growth
:45:26. > :45:30.cities of the Far East, particularly, of Latin America.
:45:30. > :45:33.What your idea is this huge expansion of capacity, more than
:45:33. > :45:40.actually we need? I don't think. Familiar with these arguments?
:45:40. > :45:46.understand that point, but there again, don't forget we're only now
:45:46. > :45:49.upgrading the sewers that Basil Jet put in, he had the foresight to
:45:49. > :45:54.make them twice as big as he thought was going to be necessary.
:45:54. > :45:58.If you went up to the capacity that four runways would allow you, that
:45:58. > :46:04.would take you over the carbon emissions line that you are so keen
:46:04. > :46:07.to stay in? I'm not sure that is the case. I think you can have
:46:07. > :46:12.another 80 million passenger movements, without getting over our
:46:12. > :46:16.commitments under Kyoto. Grand plans may be, but they are not
:46:16. > :46:19.speedy plans? In reality you are looking at something like ten to 15
:46:20. > :46:23.years. That is with the planning laws as they stand, and the
:46:23. > :46:26.Government being a bit lackadaisical? I think that is with
:46:26. > :46:29.a certain amount of electroconvulsive shock therapy to
:46:29. > :46:35.the whole system. Without shock therapy, what does he think the
:46:36. > :46:39.Government will do? Let me explain what is happening, they are trying
:46:39. > :46:42.to long-grass it. The strategy is this is too difficult, it is
:46:42. > :46:45.difficult because they have to appease their environmentalists,
:46:45. > :46:51.ideolgical wing, some in the Tory Party, some in the Liberal
:46:51. > :46:55.Democrats, they want to keep every ball in the air until past 2015,
:46:55. > :47:00.that is the strategy, as I understand it. That is my hunch,
:47:00. > :47:03.OK? We find out whether the grass is long or short fairly soon. The
:47:03. > :47:07.Government publishes its airport strategy in the summer.
:47:07. > :47:10.That's it for now, I could tell you some more of what's in store
:47:10. > :47:15.tomorrow, actually I couldn't, any way, it would spoil the surprise.
:47:15. > :47:22.Here's what happened when the light projector artist of urban screen
:47:22. > :47:26.were let loose on the Sydney Opera House. Good night.
:47:26. > :47:35.# In the velvet darkness # Of the blackest night
:47:35. > :47:45.# Burning bright # There's a guiding star
:47:45. > :47:46.
:47:46. > :47:53.# No matter what or who # Who you are
:47:53. > :48:03.# There's a light # Over at the breaking star
:48:03. > :48:09.
:48:09. > :48:12.Good evening, the heat and humidity set off a few thunderstorms today,
:48:12. > :48:15.they are easing away across East Anglia. Most into the morning will
:48:15. > :48:19.be dry. More cloud across central eastern Scotland and the eastern
:48:19. > :48:23.coast of England. Some bright and sunny spells, ease lated showers
:48:23. > :48:27.burning through the day. Temperatures in the North West with
:48:27. > :48:32.sunny spells, down the eastern coastal counties, a good deal
:48:32. > :48:35.cooler, with the cloud coming and going all day. An isolated shower
:48:36. > :48:39.with a rumble of thunder. Most staying dry, fairly bright with
:48:39. > :48:43.sunshine, the vast majority of England and Wales. On the coast of
:48:43. > :48:48.Devon and Cornwall, around good parts of Wales. A risk of some
:48:48. > :48:53.misty sea fog, coming in on shore every now and then. Coming and
:48:53. > :48:57.going throughout the afternoon. Northern Ireland, dry and bright,