28/05/2012 Newsnight

He might have been Prime Minister, but he didn't feel bold enough to

take on the press. The people may send you to Downing Street, he says,

but the press are something else. You fall out with them, and you

watch out, because it is literally relentless and unremitting, once

that happens. This Government seemed cowed by an old fast,ed

press campaign too. Tonight a u- turn on both the pasty tax and the

caravan tax. The worst atrocity yet in Syria,

what realistically can the rest of the world do.

And later on. We happy few, we Band of Brothers. What does Shakespeare

teach us about the art and devilry of political leadership. Fresh from

Henry V, Tom Hiddleston discusses with Mark Rylance, and Simon Schama.

Is the Government creeping back towards a third runway at Heathrow.

Boris Jonsson prefers a plan not involving his own back -- Sir

Gordon Borrie Jonsson prefers a plan not involving his own back

yard. It is good because it is off the map, because there are fewer

votes to lose. There are fewer human beings.

Two months ago it was an essential part of sorting out the tax system,

tonight, the plan for imposing VAT on Cornish pasties has been

abandoned. Game, set and match to a campaign in the press.

We learned a lot more about the power of the press and how it looks

in Downing Street, when Tony Blair took the stand at the Leveson

Inquiry today. We learned too that whoever is paying for Tony Blair's

large security detail and the administration of the inquiry, for

example, you and me, isn't get especially good value for money. We

learned why the former Prime Minister decided not to confront

the press, but he said to try to manage it.

He is The Godfather of Gloom, not just to one of Rupert Murdoch's

children, but for many, The Godfather of Gloom of modern

political media management. Half a decade out of power, and can he

still draw a crowd. Today Mr Blair was at the heart of the story once

again. I swear by Almighty God that the evidence I shall give shall be

the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He said as a

political leader, witnessing the savagry of the press, he faced a

choice, take on the power of the media, or attempt, some how, to

harness it. It is not that, as it were, I was afraid of taking them

on, in that sense, but I knew that if I did, you have to be very, very

clear about this, and that was the debate I had with Alastair, and

others within Government all the way through. If you take this on,

do not think for a single moment you are not in a long, protracted

battle that will shove everything else to one side whilst it is going

on. Instead Mr Blair tried to get close, famously travelling to

address a News Corporation meeting in Australia, in 1995.

I wouldn't have been going, of course, not all the way around the

world. I remember I had to go after one Prime Minister's Questions, and

return for the next, if it hadn't been a very deliberate and

strategic decision that I would go and try to persuade them. I had a

minimum and maximum objective. The minimum objective was to stop them

tearing us to piece, and the maximum objective, was to open the

way to support. But, Mr Blair insisted, there was no deal with

urd -- Rupert Murdoch's -- Rupert Murdoch or anyone else? I wouldn't

have gone if I hadn't had a strong interest in us legislating on the

media, absolutely, but im plied deal of media interest, absolutely

not. I don't think we will miss you. During his decade in power, Mr

Blair said he saw countless examples of the press trying to rip

someone apart. Not least, he said, what amounted to a vendetta against

his wife. Who, he revealed, has used lawyers to challenge stories

about her on 30 separate occasions. Powerful people within these

positions will say, right, we are going after that person, what

happens is, they will go after you. As I say, it is full on, full

frontal, day in, day out. That is not journalism. In my view. That is

an abuse of power, actually. those tuning into Mr Blair

expecting to hear revelation, well, it was something of a

disappointment. We learned very little that hasn't already come out

in numerous inquiries, and countless biographies and

autobiographies of the Blair era. And part Lewis because he was in

office, and partly because of his technophobe character. Mr Blair

never had a mobile phone or e-mail while in Downing Street. So he

didn't have to explain any of the chummy messages that other

witnesses have been confronted with. This was n many ways, a classic

Blair event. Whilst he looked very, very relaxed, others got very, very

excited. He held up the Iraq Bank for �20 billion. A protestor some

how found his way through the judges' door into the court....JP

Morgan, after he left office, the man is a war criminal. Mr Blair

deed nationwide the man's accusations, and the inquiry

promised another inquiry as to how he got in. Mr Blair was famously on

kissing terms with News International, today we learned

that Rupert Murdoch and he had three telephone conversations in

the days before the Iraq War. So what's the solution? Well, Mr Blair

says the press are so soufrl, because when they turn it is not --

so powerful, because when they turn it is not just their opinion and

leader columns that get poisonous, but also their news coverage. He

said they should be given a duty to separate the two. Three problems,

according to critics, who decides where that line s who polices it,

and what is the sanction for those who cross it.

As he left pl, Blair knew he hadn't been tripped up or ripped --'s left,

Mr Blair knew he hadn't been tripped up or ripped up by the

inquiry, although he had got to say his side of things. But someone did

get to throw an egg at him. Tessa Jowell and Stephen Glover,

who has devoted a fair number of column inches to criticising the

former Prime Minister. A man with land slight majorities in Downing

Street, and the power to send troops to war and all the rest of

it, complains about the press? don't think he complains about it,

he was setting out throughout the whole of today and his evidence, a

very clear strategic judgment, that you would reek havoc by trying to

intervene and regulate the -- wreak havoc by trying to intervene and

regulate the press. Instead you would try to manage the press, and

get as much coverage for things as possible, but never live in hope.

That was a reasonable ambition? reasonable ambition to get on with

the press. The trouble was he thought getting on with the press

meant sucking up to Rupert Murdoch. And getting so close to Rupert

Murdoch, that within the eight days before we went to war in Iraq they

spoke many times on the telephone. Is there any modern country where

that would happen. He spoke to other editors at that very

sensitive time. Not to the same extent three days the Iraq War.

Telegraph, and the Mirror, in order that their readers could also

understand why this momentous decision had been taken.

anything like to the same extent. I mean, there were very few cabinet

ministers who spoke with Blair three times in the days before we

went to war. This was a relationship very much much closer

than any other editoral proprietor. You conceded when you were

appointed, Culture Secretary, you said you went to see the Prime

Minister, and said is there any deal with Murdoch to give him what

he wants on media regulation? wouldn't say I conceded, I wanted

to establish exactly what the brief was that I was taking on. Why did

you find it necessary to go and ask the Prime Minister whether such a

deal had been done? Because I needed to be clear that I had, as a

new Secretary of State, complete free rein to decide. Why should

you? In exactly the same as the other issue I sought assurance on,

if I was to sort out the position with Wembley Stadium, then the

Football Association wouldn't come and see the Prime Minister behind

my back. You had spae civic anxiety about Rupert Murdoch? -- a specific

anxiety about Rupert Murdoch? You must have done otherwise you

wouldn't have asked? I had a specific question about Rupert

Murdoch, which was a prerequisite to my doing the job properly.

you also ask him if there was a deal done with the Guardian, the

Independent, the mirror ob anybody else? I asked him -- Or anybody

else? I asked him specifically about Rupert Murdoch. The fact was

that the Prime Minister did not see him, and the legislation I took

through parliament, and concluded in 2003, gave Rupert Murdoch

virtually nothing that he had lobbied, or News International had

lobbied. You can make a face like that. I only wanted to know why you

wanted the assurance, or felt you needed to have the assurance?

wanted the assurance, in order that I knew the terms on which I was

going to negotiate, not just with News International, but all the

other media companies that I saw oifr that time. You didn't ask --

Over that time. You didn't ask any of the others, as you agreed today.

Mr Blair saw the Mail has being a real enemy of his, he said today,

he said he had an analysis done while in Downing Street of 100

stories printed in the Mail, and all 100 were hostile to him? That

may be, I don't know. The Mail was the only paper which new Labour

couldn't win over. They tried to win it over in the late 1990s, they

petitioned the propriety and the editor, and they didn't get very --

proi proprietor, and the -- proprietor, and they tried the

editor but they didn't win them all over. There was the time between

the 1996 election and the 2001 election where the whole press was

Blairite. Isn't the point conceded by Tony Blair, that there isn't any

distinction between fact and comment in the Mail? The Mail is

surely free to run comment articles, critical of Tony Blair, I have

written a few in my time. He's saying there is no distinction?

He's wrong about. That he didn't give any examples, he gave one

example. He said there were 100 stories and all hostile? I don't

know if 100 stories were, 100 pieces, articles, he didn't give

specific examples about how comment had crept into news. He kept going

on about it, but he didn't give any examples. An old fast,ed tabloid

campaign seems to have done for the budget, its plans to intro-- --

introduce a called pasty tax, and changes to the caravan tax. It was

thought this announcement was made while ministers were on holiday to

reduce embarrassment, according to the opposition. Pasty tax is dead?

And the caravan tax. This story is both frivolous and serious, because

talking about caravans and pasties isn't what any of us went into

political journalism to do. It is serious for a number of reasons,

this is a Government worried about its perceptions being out-of-touch,

and the damage on these two and a series of things has already been

done. It is also a serious thing because it looks like a Government

that doesn't know its own mind. A few weeks ago they were talking

about steadfast surety that they wouldn't backtrack on these, even

though there was opposition from the get-go. There is the squeeze in

how much life costs, when you can find �100 million to row back on

caravan and pasty tax, but you can't find money on things like

fuel duty, people will wonder about priorities. But it is the

consequence, is it not, of a newspaper campaign? It is the

consequence, but also of a series of MPs in the west of England who

are feeling this isn't something they want to go back to ahead of

the Jubilee weekend. I don't know if it is necessarily about

newspapers, but they amplify, don't they. We would have liked to talk

to a Treasury Minister, but no-one was available. But Stephen Glover

this looks like the media exercising power and

responsibility? It is comical, pasties and caravans, people say,

but it is what it signifies? think the media spointing out a

stupid an -- is pointing out a stupid anomally in the budget, and

90% of the British public is probably on the media's side, they

are reflecting what people think. The idea that the media will click

its hands and the Government will change its mind, it is wrong,

people are asking every day for the Government to stop doing what they

are doing. This was clearly a cock- up, and the Government have

sensibly stepped down. There is a massive area that is controversial

in the budget, that is the 50p rate of tax going, that remains, but

tweaks around the edges. What do you make of it? It is just a

shambles. I mean I absolutely agree with the analysis. But I would like

very quickly to touch on Stephen's point about newspaper campaigns, I

think newspapers are entirely free, and should run campaigns. I think

we, Stephen's paper ran a pretty ghastly campaign against the

licensing act, against gambling legislation, they didn't win on

either accounts. They won a campaign on Stephen Lawrence?

did, not all campaigns are won, and some campaigns, actually, have more

integrity than others. You don't dispute their right to do it?

don't dispute their right to do it. For one moment. It is perfectly

true that newspapers don't always win their campaigns, I must say the

Mail of completely right about gambling. Why new Labour fell in

love with gambling, God only knows. New Labour never fell in love with

gambling, it was in order to make the public safer at a time when

many more people were gambling. Shall we talk about this another

time. I think we better do that. Thank you very much.

You can believe the United Nations or you can believe President Bashar

Al-Assad's propaganda machine. The former UN Secretary-General, Kofi

Annan, is trying publicly at least, to keep an open mind on who

murdered over 100 people, nearly half of them children, in the

Syrian town of Houla on Friday. The Russians, who have been Al-

Assad's main international protector shifted ground slightly

today, admitting that the regime was, at least, partially

responsible for the killings. Our diplomatic editor is here. Are

we any closer to finding out what happened in Houla? There have been

more details, and they are pretty shocking, really. In the initial

hours after the attack, we can look at a map over the region. It is an

I can't remember to the North West of Homs, a place where there had

been known to be a great deal of fighting and suffering already. Up

there in Houla, in the hours initially afterwards, a lot of

focus on state artillery, and after Friday payers and demonstrations

there was artillery fired into howl LA soon it progressed to a town

south of it Taldou an extended family clan, more than 60 of those

killed were killed at close range by gunmen, with shots to the head.

That is becoming clearer in the last couple of days from survivors'

accounts. TRANSLATION: I swear to God, they

killed my husband, they killed 12 members of my household. This baby

is my niece, they killed her mother and her sister. The thugs made us

come down stairs, they started their carnage, I lost four

daughters and other family members. The attackers were dressed in

military fatigue, and came in a white car, they stormed our homes

and started a shooting spree. baby did survive, but not the rest

of her family, of course. What's become clear from rebel accounts,

resistance accounts, is these people were unofficial

paramilitaries, murder squads, death squads, if you choose to call

them that. The Syrian Government denied, that blaming it on called

terrorists, US, and everybody else seems to accept that. These

international phrases have been carefully worded, in, for example,

the UN's statement over the weekend. The resistance seems to see this as

a moment of truth where they can began vanise public opinion. This

shocking image, a dead child, placed on the bonnet of one of the

UN vehicles as they went into Houla at the weekend. It is a horrible

incident. What has been the diplomatic response? Because of

what happened, there was this urgent UN presidential statement,

the Security Council presidential statement at the weekend. Now, some

people feel this is part of a pattern of Russia and China, who

had blocked serious action in the UN last year, coming closer to

being on side. The Russians point out that they, for example, have

agreed to the deployment of those monitor, they have signed up to the

two presidential statements recently condemning Syria. In that

spirit, William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary went to Moscow

today, to try to get more out of the Russians and see if there was

room to push this whole agenda forward of more robust action.

Instead he found Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, still

apparently apportioning blame equally in Moscow today.

TRANSLATION: We are dealing with a situation in which both sides

participated in the killings of innocent civilian, including

several small children and women. This district is controlled by the

armed militants, at the same time it is encirleled by Government

forces. -- -- encirleled by Government forces. Where does it

leave international mediation? of the reports seem to indicate

escalation. The fact that money and weapons do seem to be getting

through from Qatar, to the Free Syrian Army, the rebel forces, the

fact that there is a complete diplomatic past Tiel, there was

strong language at the weekend, but the Russians are still determined

to hold on to a transition arrangement they want to call the

shots upon. We must never forget in this the US presidential cycle

seems to be determining a US attitude not to lead a strong

international response to this, particularly if it might involve US

troops. Bashar Al-Assad is the sort of bloody tyrant who might have

been drawn by Shakespeare, Macbeth, Richard II II or tight Andronicus,

we are reflected this week in Britain through the writings of

three British authors, no better space to start with spaix peer --

Shakespeare, on the question of leadership. What does he have to

tell us about it, and do we care about it any longer. Two of our

leading actors and a foremost historian will try to answer those

"Be not afraid of greatness, some are born great, some achieve

greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them". "Uneasy lies the

head that wears the crown ". "Men of few words are the best men".

"The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on".

When we are not out on the street, calling for our leaders to depart

the stage at the first available opportunity, we are indulging in

other colourful traditions of our island story, like celebrating the

anniversary of a popular sovereign, coming to the throne.

Who would be a leader, at the mercy of our whims and appetites.

By being seldom seen, I could not stir, but like a comet, I was

wondered at. Sir Richard Eyre has been directing

Henry IV, as part of a Jubilee season of Shakespeare plays for the

BBC. All Shakespeare has become proverbial, it is there, thank God,

as part of the DNA of British life. Sketch writers, voters, we often

see politicians in Shakespearian terms, do you think they do

themselves? I think most of them aspire, and it is not a very close

reading of the play, to hen vee V. We few, -- Henry V. We few, we

happy few, we Band of Brothers. is the exemplary piece of political

rhetoric, they all see themselves, at party conference, standing up

and rousing the troops in that way. We are Conservatives, we will speak

of pride, of honour, of valour in battle, and yes, of glory.

The voice of the real people, with real needs, is louder than all the

boos. Education, education, and education. As with Henry V, it is

quite cynical, and it doesn't solve the problem of how to govern. How

to govern is the constant preoccupation, in play after play,

after play, after play, of Shakespeare's, it is how do you

manage a society that has internal dissent.

Shakespeare is brilliantly perceptive about the virus of power.

The laughable in British politics, it is always in the House of

Commons you see aggressive opposition. That is absolutely

endemic. If we listened to the muttering idiot sitting opposite

me... I'm taking the Shakespeare Way, which goes from Stratford to

London. And passes through Chipping Norton. It has been one of the most

important centres of power in the country, home to David Cameron and

his influential friends. The whole Chipping Norton set thing is so

interesting, it is something that would have been unremarkable 50 or

100 years ago, when Harold Macmillan was swaning around

clubland or something. Nobody thought anything of it. Now we live

in this populist, individualistic, democratic age, where people almost

slightly resent the idea that everybody at the top knows one

another, there is this pat tricks world that ordinary people are shut

out of. The idea of leadership has become quite suspect. We live in a

completely different intellectual world from the one that Shakespeare,

or even someone like Gladstone inhabited. We live in an age of

universal literacy s mass education, and so on, where your opinion is as

good as the next man's, you won't be talked down to and led, that

kind of eno sir makes it hard for somebody to -- -- that kind of

ethos makes it hard for somebody to stand up and say I will lead and

guide you. The Shakespeare Way runs from Chipping Norton to Oxford,

David Cameron travelled in the opposite direction. But in common

with many frontline politicians, he likes to play down his prestigious

education, preferring to advertise his taste for a humble snack, which

was around in Shakespeare's time. In search of further clues about

Shakespeare and leadership, I have come to the historic city of Oxford,

to a hallowed spot, forever associated with the Bard. An

absolutely steeped place in his offerings, it is just above the

bookmakers. Believe it or not, this was once a

hotel room, and the swan of Avon himself once stayed here, scuffed

and partially hidden behind a sliding panel, these walls are

thought to be largely unchanged since his time. Shakespeare bedded

down here with the common man and woman. He understood their desires

couldn't always been indulged by a good leader.

Leadership is sometimes about uncompromising, and other times it

is about a dialogue. I'm very struck in the case of David Cameron,

that he has this extraordinary valuation of friendship, that he

will standby his friends, whatever happens. But an essential part of

leadership, has to be being a good butcher. Henry V is a good butcher.

If it comes to it, he chooses the right course for his country, even

if it that means betraying, destroying, his friends.

This is London. And so is this. the Second World War, another

leader, who understood the rallying power of Shakespeare's prose,

commissioned this famous version of Henry V, from Laurence Olivier.

Once more unto the breach. Prime Minister Churchill wanted to

inspire the troops serving on D-Day, the film was even dedicated to them.

Charge, cry God for Harry, England and St George.

Motivation when it works is like an adrenaline shot, it pumps people up,

so that at the end, when he says "cry God, for Harry, England and St

George". They are saying, let's go. Olivier's son, Richard, uses the

same ringing oratory to teach management skills to business

leaders. Many leaders, in our experience, on day 90 of the

campaign, given Henry's situation, do not say, "Once more unto the

breach", they come in with a detailed report of the performance

indicators of the first three months of the siege.

Human beings need purpose and leaders who tell a good story, hold

that for us. There does seem to be a contempt for leaders, can

Shakespeare help us out of it? biased, I think Shakespeare can

guide us through pretty much anything, if you find the right

play and look at it in the right way. There is that absolute sense,

in people, that we want better leaders. Unfortunately, I would

probably also say we tend to get the leadership we deserve. What are

we not doing, what are we not developing in our leaders, what

permission are we giving them to be greedy, or rapacious, who is

rewarding them? The good news for today's politicians is that they

rarely have to settle their differences as they did in

Shakespeare's plays, and the worst they have to fear is a clash of

personalities. Rile royal rile, as well as

starring in the smash hit, Jerusalem, has played more

Shakespearian characters than most of us have had hot dinners, he's

here with fellow actor, Tom Hiddleston, who has just finished

shooting a new production of Henry V, and Simon Schama, historian,

whose latest series, Shakespeare and Us, broadcasts next week. What

does Shakespeare teach us about leadership? They are all human

beings, and he so loves opposites, that even in a character like

Richard II I, he gives him a remarkable speech of conscience,

Macbeth has a large speech of conscience, Henry V is a very

responsible leader, but there are two plays before where he's most

irresponsible, doing the equivalent n my mind, of taking ecstacy, and

going out every nightclubing. He shows is humanity. I wonder if we

expect our leaders to be perfect in all fields. A leader in another

area, like Dogg ery, in Much Ado About Nothing, a village constable,

so was the plot, he finds, through ineptitude, the evil going on. Is

it right, I have been thinking, is it right to expect our leaders to

be very strong in every area. If Martin Luther King had been alive

now, under the scrutiny of the press now, and we learned about his

infidelties and misbehaviour, would he have ever got to the capital and

made the speech. Would we have been better off to have known everything

about him and rejected him. This question of the humanity, that the

person is not only the office but they are a human being, is

something, as Mark remarks, is something that has been, until very

recently, is something very hard for people to deal with? It was an

issue for the Elizabethan, because the Queen, Elizabeth I, very

unusually, in the Tilbury speech, for example, her entire authority

was predicated, not on her remoteness, but actually the

illusion, at least, that she was one of everybody else. So already

that dilemma of how do you actually be familiar, and yet Auguste, and

the two, those two -- aug ust, and those two role models, endlessly

grinding against each other, goes through Shakespeare all the time.

He lived in both world, he's an actor, he roughs it a bit where he

lives, but he also plays abefore the court. You have played the most

inspirational of the lot, Henry V? The thing is it dramatises the

tussle between the responsibility of public office, and the private,

almost torment, of personal accountability, are very aware. One

of my favourite lines from the play, is on the eve of ago again court,

Henry V, disguised under the cloak of one of his captains, gets into a

debate with a soldier with kingship and responsibility, and this

character Williams is casting various aspersions about, it will

be a black matter when all the arplgs and legs chopped off in

battle said they would died in such a place, it is a black matter for

the king who led them to it. Henry's response is every subject's

duty is the king's, but every subject's soul is his own.

How do you think, you have just played it now, for this BBC series.

Did you think about how the mood of the times made it a different sort

of person you were portraying, to, for example, Olivier there in 1944?

Yes, I did. I was in no way going to match or compete with Olivier's

portrayal, I think. I think because, and I have discussed this a lot, I

think in our society, we don't trust rhetoric in the same way. We

are all used to seeing. This is interesting, Dominic Sandbrook, in

the piece there, talking about society now, we are not willing to

indulge a belief in the magical properties of leaders, in the way

that perhaps some leaders Oregan rations were, or we think they

were? -- or generations were, or we think they were? The thing about

Henry V, that distinguishes him from contemporary leaders, that the

men and women in the highest positions of power, were also the

men and women physically leading their armies to battle. Henry V is

able to give the speech, and thump on the horse and ride into battle -

- jump on the horse and ride into battle himself. I live in America

all the time, and whether or not Obama's rhetoric, who is a master,

is an asset or liability, it was a grey asset in 2008, we don't know,

he has the ability to produce rhetorical rabbits from the hat.

Rhetoric does change power, Churchill's rhetoric changed what

the cabinet said it would do. It is in Shakespeare's own time, that

regular kids in village grammar schools were taught rhetoric, books,

The Garden of Eloquence. You could be a lower person from a lower

middle-class background, and suppose you could not get through

school unless you spoke. This is why my dad, when I was nine, forced

me to do a speech, standing on chair in my mother's lounge, as we

called it. I never did that, did you? No. That is why you are actors,

and I'm not. Do you think it is hard to be a leader, we live in a

very, very different time, where people are much more inclined to

make their own judgments about more or less everything, everything

become a more difficult people to lead? I always think, Jeremy, when

I was a young man I used to drive too fast sometimes, people would

tell me slow down, and I wouldn't. One day I was driving too fast in

Kent, and someone in the back, a young woman said, look, I had an

accident six months ago, would you please slow down, because it is

frightening me. And I slowed down. Because she spoke from experience.

And so many, like that wonderful quote, and that wonderful scene,

that these leaders were able to go amongst the people, and get

experience. Not like Diana and Fergie, going out to have a party,

but you think of the Duke in Measure For Measure, so many, Ross

land, and all these Princesses, are able to go into a situation in

disguise and find out about it truthfully, and they learn from

that. Or live wildly as Henry V do, part of his experiences mean that

now we couldn't elect him. understands who he is leading.

Because of the rough experiences he goes through. The fact is s I don't

want to harp on the Virgin Queen, why not, she's the only one who has

done it. She did go on progress, and she did this in great carriages,

trundling along, surrounded by courtiers, but she had the common

touch. When there was a little geezer in Warwick, at that progress,

who couldn't barely get the words out of greeting to the between. She

said come hiter, whatever his name was, she absolutely, whatever it

was about her, that has never happened since in that way. She was

taught by a tutor, who taught her rhetoric, it was a hard thing to

pull off. When I came into the profession, I had a real aversion

to actors who sang Shakespeare, I think it goes hand-in-hand with the

kind of rhetoric people do believe, in the case of someone like George

Bush, who can't even put a sentence together, the man can't be pulling

the wool over our ears, because he can hardly speak. That is a form of

reverse rhetoric, that convinced a lot of people that he was honest.

But eloquence, the meaning in the dictionary so to speak in way that

affects the mind and moves the emotion, with force, fluency and

appropriateness. "appropriateness" is the remarkable and hard thing

that it is hard for politicians, speakers, not just politicians, but

leaders of corporations, the manager in your shop to learn,

unless you learn it through experience. Do you, as people very

familiar with the text, when you hear politicians speaking, there

was a clip of Michael Portillo there, there were a couple of other

things. Do you detect the resonances of Shakespeare in the

way our political leaders behave? Richard rightly said there, that

often Henry V is quoted with a rather lazy reading of the play.

The play itself is an incredibly brutal, shocking, violent piece of

work. Examining the nature of warfare through the eyes of one man

as he experiences it. The Cripins Day speech on the morning of ago

again court comes out of despair, he's on the brink, he has nothing

left, the men are dying of starvation and dysentery, they are

going to lose. It is an amazing piece of pragmatic genius, turning

weaknesses into strength, we are out numbered, we happy few. And a

second stroke of begin yu, to say "He who is with me will be my

brother", the illusion you are democratically promoted by sharing

your wounds with the king, that is total, political genius. Do you

think the modern equivalent of that, is the demotic, that our

politicians effect now? Alas it is. It is partly because Shakespeare

had so many lives, he was a fantastic listener in the pub. It

wasn't like an Eatonian chomping on a pasty for the sake of effect.

Steadty of, we have one. I hold my hands up. He lived that Russian he

had a voice for the gutter in a way -- he lived that, he had a voice

for the gutter in a way, when deployed in the play it had

credibility. I was only making faces. Making faces for fun? I'm an

actor. I thought you wanted to speak. You wanted to say something.

Only that Shakespeare had enormous empathy, compassion and wisdom,

about not just the man of the gutter, but every man. That is why

he's so extraordinary, he's able to think and feel himself into the

hearts and minds of an entire people, so kings and queens are

represented, seemingly truthfully, as are men of the gutter, Falstaff,

and Mistress Quickly. On tomorrow's programme we will consider what

Charles Dickens has to tell us about modern day Britain with the

help of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. What

one of Shakespeare's least happy political role models, Macbeth,

calls vaulting ambition is a prerequisite of power. The last

time I asked Boris Johnson if he wanted David Cameron's old job, he

was all cripes andia radio, and he was warning off any moves towards

another runway. But the Government seems to be tiptoeing back to the

idea. He has been speaking to our political editor.

It is a building made to be seen from the sky. But this site, the

one from the air, is the one the current mayor believes too many

people see. London's airport set up is all wrong, Boris Johnson thinks,

too much traffic comes in over the city T he tells Newsnight he would

move things east. If you land at Heathrow, you have to come in,

because the wind is coming this way, you land like this. So you approach,

your approach over west London there are two great walls, and they

approach like that, and go in like that, there is an approach like

that. There is a north and south stack. The map in the basement of

City Hall proves rather useful. Where would a third runway go?

would go, basically through here. Instead he wants a new Heathrow,

double its size, in Kent. It is very nice that your idea is

completely off the map. There is no votes to lose. There are fewer

human beings. His idea, he believes, would see

fewer people move home. But it is expensive. Look, I'm open to all

solutions, I don't think you can avoid having, there has to be a

fight now, and they have got to grasp the nettle. If we had a bit

of get-up-and-go in this country we would be done in six years. That is

how long it took in Singapore and Hong Kong. You just need...Doesn't

The Prime Minister have get-up-and- go? Of course he does, of course he

does. The Government is consulting on new airport capacity in the

south-east, the problem for it, is it is ham strung by its own

pronouncements in this area. They have ruled out in the coalition

Government the expansion of a third runway at Heathrow. They have also

ruled out more runways at Stanstead and GATT which, they are left

looking at the -- Gatwick, they are left looking at a an idea that was

seen as fantastical, Boris Island. It needs a stop-gap solution,

looking at ideas once completely off the able. There is now a risk

that the Government will tip toe behind the back -- -- the electric

fence of the third runway. You can see ministers are testing the water,

to mix my metaphors. Water and electricity not good? When they get

to that electrified fence, they will have a most powerful shock. It

is not deliverable, now, or in the future, the third runway is, as

they say in Brussels, kadook, it is dead, over, move on. Is that your

message to George Osborne? It is. But the coalition Government rules

out another runway at Stanstead and Gatwick, you have ruled out a third

runway, what is the solution? Though you have excluded some

options there which I don't think are necessarily excluded. They are

excluded in the coalition agreement? There are other options

as well. Don't forget the -- forget the coalition has moved some way in

the last couple of years. They began with the policy of no more

runways anywhere ever in the south- east. That was not economically

sustainable. This place used to be covered with docks and cranes and

whatever, that all collapsed because capacity died. There was

not enough capacity for the docks to accommodate the new containers

that came. It all moved out to other ports, Felixstowe, Rotterdam,

that kind of thing, London lost out. OK, we get it t what's his plan?

London, the UK, would have a 24- hour hub airport. This is the key

point, that would allow us to communicate with the big growth

cities of the Far East, particularly, of Latin America.

What your idea is this huge expansion of capacity, more than

actually we need? I don't think. Familiar with these arguments?

understand that point, but there again, don't forget we're only now

upgrading the sewers that Basil Jet put in, he had the foresight to

make them twice as big as he thought was going to be necessary.

If you went up to the capacity that four runways would allow you, that

would take you over the carbon emissions line that you are so keen

to stay in? I'm not sure that is the case. I think you can have

another 80 million passenger movements, without getting over our

commitments under Kyoto. Grand plans may be, but they are not

speedy plans? In reality you are looking at something like ten to 15

years. That is with the planning laws as they stand, and the

Government being a bit lackadaisical? I think that is with

a certain amount of electroconvulsive shock therapy to

the whole system. Without shock therapy, what does he think the

Government will do? Let me explain what is happening, they are trying

to long-grass it. The strategy is this is too difficult, it is

difficult because they have to appease their environmentalists,

ideolgical wing, some in the Tory Party, some in the Liberal

Democrats, they want to keep every ball in the air until past 2015,

that is the strategy, as I understand it. That is my hunch,

OK? We find out whether the grass is long or short fairly soon. The

Government publishes its airport strategy in the summer.

That's it for now, I could tell you some more of what's in store

tomorrow, actually I couldn't, any way, it would spoil the surprise.

Here's what happened when the light projector artist of urban screen

were let loose on the Sydney Opera House. Good night.

# In the velvet darkness # Of the blackest night

# Burning bright # There's a guiding star

# No matter what or who # Who you are

# There's a light # Over at the breaking star

Good evening, the heat and humidity set off a few thunderstorms today,

they are easing away across East Anglia. Most into the morning will

be dry. More cloud across central eastern Scotland and the eastern

coast of England. Some bright and sunny spells, ease lated showers

burning through the day. Temperatures in the North West with

sunny spells, down the eastern coastal counties, a good deal

cooler, with the cloud coming and going all day. An isolated shower

with a rumble of thunder. Most staying dry, fairly bright with

sunshine, the vast majority of England and Wales. On the coast of

Devon and Cornwall, around good parts of Wales. A risk of some

misty sea fog, coming in on shore every now and then. Coming and

going throughout the afternoon. Northern Ireland, dry and bright,