28/08/2012 Newsnight

Beset on all sides by advice, which way is the Prime Minister going to

turn on the economy? Tonight, the Deputy Prime Minister,

Nick Clegg, calls for an emergency tax on the rich.

While this morning, David Cameron was asked by a senior Tory to

prove's a man not a mouse over a third runway at Heathrow.

Still in a double-dip recession, we will ask whether all this shows the

coalition is increasingly desperate to turn the economy, and its own

fortunes around. If you knew for certain your child

was to be born with a disability, would you, should you, still have a

baby? It is sometimes said that because the Nancys embraced

eugenics, that it must be wrong for us, at least to take the idea of

improving human beings seriously. Now, it seems to me just rather

silly to think that things are wrong because bad people do them.

We will debate whether eugenics is making a covert come back. The

patent wars of the high-tech giants, is there anything in it for the

customer, or does it stifle the creativity it seeks to protect. The

end of publishing, the Booker Prize-winning novelist, Howard

Jacobson and his new novel Zoo Time, and is the reader disappearing.

Good evening, the nation's politicians have returning from

their summer holidays, mainly with one thought on their minds, what

can be done to turn the economy around. The Deputy Prime Minister,

Nick Clegg, has joined that debate tonight, in an interview with the

Guardian, calling for an emergency wealth tax. And warning that

prosperity and social cohesion are at risk, unless the richest make a

bigger contribution, to what he calls a long economic war. It was

the second bit of uncomfortable advice for the Prime Minister,

after one Tory MP called for him to prove his political manhood, rather

than mousehood, over the third runway at Heathrow Airport. What do

we think Nick Clegg had in mind? Speaking to people tonight who know

Nick Clegg's mind, they make it clear we will not get any more

detail on what form this tax might be in the very near future. But,

they are very clear, if the recent bad economic news means that those

further down the economic pecking order are asked to make more of a

sacrifice, for example, there are more cuts to come, then those at

the very top should be asked to increase the burden on themselves.

What form that takes, they are not clear yet on the exact detail. But

it would be something like the mansion tax that was in their last

manifest at the moment the mansion tax you can't shift your house in

west London worth �2 million offshore, you can't pretend it

doesn't exist or it is not there or it is a shed. Something like a

mansion tax that is on wealth and not income. Now, speaking to

Downing Street tonight, they make it very clear, this is not

coalition policy S several times during a conversation it was

pointed pointed out to me, that this is the head of the Liberal

Democrats speaking ahead of the party conference. It won't be

necessarily welcomed on Downing Street, coming on day when Mr

Cameron was receiving advice on the expansion of Heathrow as well.

It is an obvious metaphor, soaring planes leading to, it is argued,

soaring growth, or some growth would be nice. Why Heathrow?

Because supporters say it would be the quickest and cheapest way of

expanding airport xasty. The reason airport capacity is important to

all of us, is we are in a recession f we want to build our way out of

economic problems wrecks need better links with economies around

the world that are growing, Brazil, India, China and others. We can't

do that sitting here. We need to fly out as business people making

deals, and people flying in to make deals, and be more connected to

those parts of the world. But, this is all bound up in politics, down

there in west London, or what would be west London f this fpsn't a

simulator, are millions of people whose lives are blighted from the

noise from Heathrow. Many of the seats down there are marginal. Even

the safe ones would probably turn marginal if the incumbent came out

in favour of a third runway at Heathrow.

Take one MP, for example, Justine Greening, the MP for Putney pro-

claimed her opposition 0 to a third runway, from her election leaf --

opposition to a third runway from her election leaflet, she even

quotes David Cameron saying "no ifs no buts no third runway", as well

as an MP, Justine Greening is the Transport Secretary, and not in any

mood, clearly, to change her mind. Thepm has been clear cut that we

have a coalition agreement not to have a third runway that we are

planning to stick to. There is cross-party consensus, even the

Labour Party have now accepted their push for a third runway was

wrong, and they have dropped that. There will always be people who

hold different views in any mind of political debate. There is a broad

consensus now. Many think that promise is now out of date. Writing

in the Telegraph, the chair of the Energy and Climate Change Select

Committee, Tim Yeo, says that he's changed his mind on the issue, and

thepm should too. He writes -- PM should too. He writes that the

Prime Minister should ask himself if he's a man or a mouse.

January this year, greenhouse gas emissions from flying were brought

within the EU cap for the first time. Never happened before. And

the effect of that is that, however many runways we build, the total

greenhouse gas emissions, across the whole of Europe, will not

increase by a single kilogram. That very important environmental reason

for opposing the third runway, has now been removed. Given that is the

situation, we should respond to the business imperative, from the

business imperative that clearly is we need more runway capacity at

Heathrow. One of David Cameron's problems is he has already made

some pretty startling changes of political direction already during

his term as PM. Think of the pasty tax, charity tax, and fuel duty. So

his MPs know, well, he's open to persuasion. And what's one more U-

turn, they argue. As well as upsetting many of his MPs who have

seats down there, he would also upset one of the huge political

figures of our time, who has grown even bigger in recent months. So

big, in fact, you could almost see them from up here. What you can't

do is endlessly cram a court into a pintpot at Heathrow, put hundreds

of thousands of more flights into London's western suburbs, making

sure people in the city have much worse noise and traffic pollution

in west London, when that solution, a third runway, won't even deliver

what you want in the long-term. And that's why I hope they go for a

bigger, bolder, better option. there are those Conservatives who

think that, although it would be wrong to go for a third runway now,

it shouldn't be ruled out forever. We have to respect the fact that we

were elected with a mandate not to put a third runway in. And I would

be disappointed to see us go back on that, even though I regard it as

absolutely vital we still get the process under way to determine what

we want. I think the two can sitcom for theably together. And let it be

at the next general election that this issue, hopefully, will form

part -- two can sit comfortably together, and let's hope at the

next general election it will form part of the mandate. This could all

get lift off tomorrow, in the Guardian, there is the Deputy Prime

Minister giving his idea of a tax on wealth, might be as nice as

sound as a low-flying jumbo. My guests are with me now. Emma

Duncan is deputy editor of the economy economy, and joining the

anti-Heathrow expansion campaign, but changed her mind, and Ann

Pettifor is a fellow of the left- leaning economics foundation. We

are joined by Lord Oakeshott, whoa might be able to tell us what Nick

Clegg is up to. Is this a bit of cheering up the troops before the

party conference, or is this serious business of squeezing the

rich until the pips squeak? This is seriously pushing Lib Dem policy.

It is well established, it is very popular. The mansion tax is the key.

Because, as your int tro said, the key way you make sure the wealthy

pay their fair share of tax is by taxing their houses, that is the

one thing they can't move to mount Monoco. It is more than that. It is

the emergency stealth tax? Nick is saying we will be pushing for the

mansion tax, you can do that quickly. Let me just say, I'm

delighted Nick has come back radicalised and refreshed from his

holiday. There was a serious push inside Government, and outside, to

get the mansion tax through in the budget. It made very good progress.

So, indeed, some of the things that were done could help lead the way

in, there was actually a tax of 15% in, there was actually a tax of 15%

on people who keep their houses in companies. This is now the time, as

the economy pain has to be shared more, through having a real push

next year to get the mansion tax. If he wanted to do that he wouldn't

have vote today reduce the top rate of tax to 45%, you are all over tax

on the rich? We are not. It is very clear democrat policy, we were

pushing very hard inside. Let me say. But not on income tax, that is

something collected from the rich. Let me explain it, I'm not the

greatest admirer of George Osborne, but he was open minded in the

budget. But the problem was David Cameron. We will have a serious

push and try to get that. In addition, obviously there are other

things you can do to take longer, but we are delighted to hear Nick

Clegg coming out strong on tax for Liberal Democrats. It is a bit of

cheering? Nick has had a pretty hard year, we are happy to see him

coming back and fighting for Lib Dem policies. I don't suppose you

are quite as cheered up with the mansion tax return prospect?

think this is pre-conference gestureing, in a way. This is not

about something that is Government policy. This is Nick Clegg saying

let's try out a few ideas before party conference. It is not

Government policy. It is Lib Dem policy. We are working in a

coalition. There was a serious push for it last year, and a bigger push

this year, this is not a vague idea, this is in our policy, central, it

is a very popular policy as well. What Conservatives need to learn is

they should push popular policies like the mansion tax and the banks.

It is not about popular decisions it is about governing. I think this

is a discussion pre-conference season to get the debate going in

the Liberal Democrats, it is not something the Government are

proposing at the moment. It is not something that is part of policy.

If Nick Clegg wants it to discuss it at his party conference, that is

absolutely fine. Do you think the wealthy pay their fair share of tax

in this country, Mrs Macleod? always for reducing. Do you think

they pay the fair share or not? have done the right thing. Do you

think they pay their stpair share or not? -- fair share or not?

Simple question? I'm a Conservative and believe in low taxation. You do

then. What do you think of this, and the reintroduction of this

Heathrow runway, with people worried about lack of growth and

cuts? The word "emergency" is always difficult, anything that

creates uncertainty is bad for the economy. Personally, I'm not at all

against property taxes, I think they are quite a good idea. Because

you can't move property? That's it, and also income is a bad thing to

tax, because you shouldn't really go around discouraging people from

working. You don't see a conflict in Nick Clegg saying we will sign

on to the 45p tax rate as opposed to 50p, but we should have a

mansion tax? I don't want to see taxes that, as I think you were

saying earlier, might squeeze the rich until the pips squeak, we need

the rich, we need their money. Pettifor what do you make of it, do

you think it is a good idea to squeeze the rich and it is fairer?

It is much fairer to be taxing the rich, and especially their assets,

which have grown massively, which have been inflated by the credit

boom. They have not been taxed on it. The point is, this is a sign of

desperation, because this coalition Government has increased taxes

before. They believe that by squeezing the economy and

increasing taxes and cutting spending, they will get growth,

economic activity, they are not. It is having the reverse result.

will come back in a second, I wanted to pursue the point about

Heathrow, some people would say that is what is really driving the

debate today. Heathrow Airport is important, but it is not as

important for the "are you a man or a mouse comment", this is about

real worries in your party about not being enough growth in the

economy, and things not going well, and you may may have to introduce

more harsh cuts? The Heathrow debate was about a few people

speaking up about what their concerns are about growth in the

economy. I think it is a fair point. The growth in the economy and jobs

is a top priority for us right now. And should be, so, therefore, there

is no issue with people exploring different options for what might be

some of the solution to that. But for me, certainly, a third runway

for me is absolutely no solution at all. You changed your mind on it,

presumably you find it noisy and irritating, but why did you change

your mind? Because I had to do some work looking at London's economy. I

came to understand how absolutely crucial international connections

are to London. London is the most international, great, global city

that there is. New York, essentially, is serving America.

London service the world. Companies need to be impecably connected with

the rest of the world. The problem is, if you look at the figures on

the connectivity of London to the big new, emerging markets, which

are the places our businessmen are going to need to get to, and where

we need investment from, other European countries are increasingly

improving their connectivity. Holland and Germany. This is

absolutely no economic case whatsoever for expanding Heathrow,

in order to improve the economy. The fact of the matter is, if we

want increased connectivity, I'm not against, that then the airlines

will simply have to adapt their routes. If they are not going to do

that, maybe Governments should regulate them. They may go

elsewhere? The airlines could adapt their routes to make the

connectivity. You don't need to expand the airport to make that

happen. You need to change the airline routes. Can we have a bit

of a reality check here. It is an interesting argument about Heathrow,

and whether you should have a third runway. I don't think you should.

It is completely irrelevant to the current economic crisis. Whatever

we do at Heathrow, it is years and years away. This is where I agree

with my coalition colleague. It is not irrelevant, it is not

irrelevant. We are in a serious recession here, we are going

backwards what we have to do is get the banks lending and get houses

built. This is long-term. We have to encourage private sector

investment in infrastructure, the Government has been saying it wants

that, there is a whole lot of money that is sitting there, ready to

build, another runway at Heathrow, which we need for our economy in

the long-term, and that would do it. Please, please. When you have got

quite a senior backbencher talking about a "man or a mouse moment", it

suggests it is a policy issue, but masking something deeper in that,

which is discontent with David Cameron's leadership. Is this some

kind of Westland moment, people saying it is a policy moment, but

it is something else, lack of leadership? I don't think it is

lack of leadership. I think the Heathrow debate is something today

everybody is speaking about. It has been about Heathrow, to a large

extent. But largely also about jobs and the economy. It is also about

leadership? I don't think so. I think David Cameron has shown

really strong leadership, throughout the time in the

coalition Government. And prior to that. When you are asked "man or

mouse", that suggests a lack of it? That is one person, let's get it

into perspective. One person made the comments and I think he was

wrong. I think David Cameron has shown strong leadership in trying

to take the country forward, putting new initiatives in place to

turn the country around. He has said strongly with Nick Clegg, no

third runway, and there will be no third runway. On that cross-party

agreement we will leave it there. Now, the Olympic motto of higher,

faster, stronger, has always had one obvious theme, better. The

London Paralympics games are thought to be the best ever and

feature the best athletes in the world. Former British table tennis

champion reports, there is a new debate about an issue raised in

London 100 years ago, what should the role of science be in improving

human life. Should it include interfering with the process of

evolution itself, the name of it is a dirty word "eugenics". Here is

the report. Eugenics.

It seeks to apply the known laws of hereditary. Taking control of the

evolutionary process to improve the human condition. That is the

rational of eugenics. It would have been better by far for them and for

the rest of the community if they had never been born. But the most

henous crimes of the 20th century, the Holocaust, the mass murder of

the disabled, the enforced sterilisation of anyone considered

inferior. It all took place in the name of eugenics. But can we

embrace the promise of eugenics without its totalitarian

conotations. A modern, humane eugenics, driven not by coercion,

but by individual choice. The world is about to descend upon London for

the Paralympic Games. More than 4,000 athletes will compete in 20

different events. These British athletes are preparing for the goal

ball competition. The games are a celebration, not merely of sport,

but of the human spirit, a celebration of the greatest

disabled athletes on the planet. But 100 years ago, London welcomed

a rather different gathering. Disability was at the top of the

agenda, but with a very different twist. It was here, on the banks of

the Thames, in the summer of 1912, that the first international

eugenics conference took place. This was no fringe event, many of

the world's leading politicians and scientists descended upon London to

debate, amongst other things, a very simple issue. How to rid the

world of physical and mental disability. The media coverage

hinted at a brighter future, taking advances in our understanding of

genetics and breeding, to enhance future well being, and reduce

disease, and disability. Churchill attended the coverage, as did the

former Prime Minister, Lord Balfour, notable advocates included Bernard

Shaw, HG Wells, and John Maynard Keynes, a cricketor of the British

eugenics society. In many ways, eugenics united left and right.

Professor James Moore of the Open University, is an expert on the

history of eugenics and its consequences. The professional

middle-classes were the interested, with a bee in their bonnets. The

interest was future generations, the unborn. Eugenicists devoted

themselves to future generations and those who ought not to be born.

You are making a constituency of a voiceless unborn future was really

quite easy to convince people, that some people would be an infliction

on posterity. But from these seeds eugenics grew into something quite

different. In the hands of the Nazis, it became a project, not for

improving lives, but for destroying them. The effect of the environment

on human traits was virtually ignored, eugenics became a pretext

for eliminating anyone considered intellectually, physically, or

Asianly inferior. Consultants to this German exhibit, were many

people who later were honoured by the Nazi, and who wrote the

textbooks quoted by Adolf Hitler and the founders of German racial

policy in the 1930s, no-one saw that coming then.

But eugenics survived the end of the Second World War. Sweden

performed more than 6 2,000 sterilisations of the mental low

and physically disabled, right into the 1970s, and often, by force.

Virginia sterilised 8,000, California 21,000, other programmes

existed in Korea, Japan, Canada, and beyond. This is the covert

history of 20th century disability, and it hasn't stopped yet. In the

last two decades, there have been involuntary sterilisations amongst

gypsies in Europe, and the native peoples of Peru. The legacy of

London 1912, hoifr unintended, has been hor -- however unintended, has

been horrific, not just the eugenics of Nazi Germany, but the

programmes of sterilisation that have taken place throughout the

world. Perhaps the most shocking thing of all, is that these kinds

of programme continue to exist today. Many of the paralympians

will be celebrating in London, and have the same disabilities as those

whose rights have been violated. Does this mean we should write off

eugenics in its totality. We stand at the dawn of a new era, where

advances in genetic engineering, and embryo selection, could permit

parents to take far more control of the genetic make up of their

children. Should the prospect of designer babies be ignored, just

because of its associations with Nazisms. It is sometimes said that

because the Nazis embraced eugenics, that it must be wrong for us, at

least, to take the idea of improving human beings seriously.

Now, it seems to me just rather silly to think that things are

wrong because bad people do them. So, if it is true, which I think it

is doubtful, that the Nazis made the trains run on time, it doesn't

mean it is wicked to try to have a punctual railway system. There are

powerful, moral reasons to enhance human beings. And indeed human

beings are inveterate self- improvers.

This conception of eugenics has nothing to do with violating the

rights of the disabled, it is about allowing parents to do the best for

themselves, and their children. But critics see dangers. I think

sometimes having a disability can make life harder, but it doesn't

necessarily mean it is a bad thing. It just means that some things in

life are more of a challenge. Sharky, a British paralympian, has

a genetic condition that causes partial sightedness. I wouldn't

want a designer baby. I think you then take on the responsibility of

how that child is when it is born, if you have made that decision, it

is on your head be it. When you start meddling with that and

playing God within that situation, you are then responsible. We don't

want nature to take its course. Nature is a killer. We could not

practice medicine if we believed in letting nature take its course.

Because one of the best definitions I know of medicine is the

comprehensive attempt to frustrate the course of nature. The debate

over eugenics hinges on an even deeper question. Perhaps the

deepest question of all. What gives value to human life? Life all ends

the same way for everyone. We all finish this life at some point,

what did you do with it along the way? Eugenics has taken humanity

down many dark roads and caused untold suffering. But could a new

eugenics, enlightened by empathy, lefrpbed liberty, finally be about

to fulfil its promise. We have our guests here, some of our guests

views were in the film. We have a newspaper columnist who has written

about the apartheid some people with disabilities face, and cares

for his own daughter. And Kerry is a BBC presenter with the lower part

of her right arm missing. What do you think of the moral argument

that we have the duty to prevent disease and science has a moral

responsibility to prevent disability? It is a human

responsibility rather than a moral argument, all of us are responsible

for the future of the human race, in one sense. If you go down the

road and say we can create the perfect person, what you are doing

is saying well, unless we match up to this, therefore everyone else is

imperfect in some way. It's very foolish to think that we can create

an almighty human, because we're human beings, as long as we have

war we will have disabilities. People are coming back from

Afghanistan maimed in some way or other. It is like saying are they

also imperfect, the same way as people born with a disability.

Actually, no, none of us are imperfect, we are different from

what the suggested norm is. This has a human face, this isn't just

an abstract issue. I don't dissent from anything Kerry has just said,

of course, she's absolutely right. I have no interest in the idea of

perfection, it is a serious question, as to whether we should

try to improve the health of human kind, and to improve the health of

our children, and if we can do that, at a very early stage, if we can

make people more resistant to disease, longer living, healthier,

I think that is something that a good person would try to do. I will

come back to you Kerry, asking Ian about, that do you think there is

something wrong with that vision, that because you can do it you

should do it? It is an obscene vision we have seen before in

history. On one degree we should give credit to Professor Harris

because he's showing science is going faster than society can cope

with. And we are seeing grotesque views coming before us. There is

this view that disability is a medical issue, and there is a

secondary status to disabled people and we should eliminate that. There

is a perception that a disabled person has a worse quality of life

and should be stopped from living, in every single way it is

extraordinarily grotesquely so damning, and horribly superiorism

over disabled people. I suspect every parent is watching what would

I have done in your position, had I known, if I could have done

something about it, would I have chosen another way? Is that

something you thought about? There is presumption behind that, that a

childlike mine has a worse than inferior way of life. For all her

medical problems that bring her pain, she has a very happy life.

The problems she has in the main are those put forward by society, a

lot of people in society have the views that the professor has, that

there is this apartheid that disabled people are exiled to the

fringes of society. There is a fear of disabled people, there is an

idea they are inferior and we don't want them in society. That is the

presumption about the question you are asking and the views put

forward by Professor Harris. think you don't know what my views

R I do know you have advocated infantiside in the past, that is an

interesting thing to advocate. have not advocated that, we are not

talking about infantiside. You have been quoted in the past saying you

have been in favour of infantiside. I may have been quoted in that way,

that is not the subject. Certain low, look, think about, don't think

about disability, but inhancement. There is a very thin line. I could

be better in all sorts of ways than I am, I would like to be more

intelligent and resistant to disease, I would like to have a

better life expectancy than I do have. That doesn't mean that I'm

unworthy to live now, that doesn't mean that I think people like me

are inferior. Of course I don't think any of those things, I don't

think your daughter is inferior or I am, but I do see a considerable

point in trying to make people healthier, longer lived, so that

they can have more productive lives and do more of the things that they

would wish to do. Kerry, you have also got a child. Was it something

that you thought about, is this going to be a problem for her as

well as for you, is that something that even? Would my disability be a

problem for her, I don't think about that, if it is, I don't care,

she will have to get on with it. There are millions of things life

with throw at you, having a mum with one hand is a tiny aspect. My

daughter is mixed race, have I made her life harder by having a mixed

race child? I don't know, all I can do is support her the best way I

can, give her love and all the creativity and imagination I would

give to any of my children and see what she does with it. Do you think

with the advances in science that this debate is not just inevitable,

but we will have more and more about it, and people will think

more about it? I think it is sad and unfortunate. Probably you are

right. I really hate the way that health and disabled is grouped all

into the same thing. You know, we would all like to have a cure for

cancer and AIDS, but that is a very different things to say someone who

is living with an impairment, that isn't necessarily making their life

harder, in a physical sense, perhaps in the sense of how society

views them, it is making their life harder. But impairments aren't

necessarily something that needs to be challenged or changed, they are

something that needs to be worked out. Professor, do you think in

that context it is morally wrong for some people to have children,

if they know the child will have a particularly severe disability s is

that the wrong moral choice for them? It may well be. I think it is

something that people ...According To whose morals? If you are using

IVF, for example, and you have six fertilised embryos awaiting

implantation, the law will only be permit you to implant two of those.

You know that half of them will be severely disabled and the other

half will be presumed to be healthy. You can't implant them all, you

have to make a choice. Would it be right for you to deliberately

choose to implant the children who will have disabilities. That is the

parents' prerogative. I agree with you about that. I agree absolutely.

I'm a strong believer and have advocated all my career, in

parental choice about reproduction. But the question is, how should

they exercise that. Do you think it would be morally wrong for them to

exercise it in favour of a child they knew would be born about

disabilities? Yes. Given that the child doesn't exist, they can

either create a life which will have difficulties or a life that

will have fewer difficulty. I think again that is the same issue, here

we are hearing someone who is advocating, essentially, that is it

is morally wrong to give life to a child that is different to others.

But the problems are not the problems of the disability, it is a

problem with society that won't accept disability and is scared of

disability, the reality is that a disabled person can have just as

good a life and happier life, it is complete luck and circumstances and

so many factors come into it. The idea, the arrogance that it is

morally wrong to give life to a childlike that is extraordinary. I

do agree it is an issue which society needs to handle. Society is

running ahead in many ways, science is running ahead of what society

can deal with and cope with at the moment. Thank you all very much.

Now, the battle of the smartphones between Apple and Samsung reached a

climax in a US court yesterday A knockout for Apple. What does it

mean for one of the world's most lucrative markets and our choice as

consumers. Joe Lynam has been called to the Genius Bar.

Within hours of their landmark court patent victory last Friday,

Apple's boss, Tim Cook, said the That is a different yd view to

originality held by Steve Jobs back in 1995. Picasso had a saying, he

said good artists copy, great artists steal. We have always been

shameless about stealing great ideas. Speed forward to last year,

and the saintly Mr Jobs declared thermonuclear war on other firms

who he felt had copied Apple technology. Now Apple appears to

have won a decisive battle in that war. A California jury, rather than

a patent expert panel, found Samsung had infringed several

patents and fined them $1 billion. Although the judge did a great job

of controlling the litigants, isn't an expert on patent law. Although

some experts might be on the jury, they are not experts, without a

significant technical background. There are always strategic issues

in looking where and who to sue. What are they squabbling about.

Many of the days we use every day in our smartphones, for example,

there is this pinch effect where you make pictures bigger or smaller,

then there is the elastic band effect, where you go to the top or

bottom of the page, it bounces back. Apple says it invented both those

technologies and Samsung nicked it and put it into their phones. Can

you patent a rectangular shape with a rounded edge? The District Court

in California said you could. Apart from Apple who are the winners and

losers from the judgment. Samsung is beige loser, we will know if it

will have to remove some of its flagship phones and tablets from US

shelves. The markets have wiped $12 billion off the company value since

the judgment. Samsung are set to appeal, but it might seriously

damage it. The real problem for them is how to deal with the

logistical fall-out. If appeals fail and they have to withdraw

products from the market place. That is a massive logistic kalhood

ache, pulling millions of hand sets out of the market. It is unlikely

it will happen, but it could happen, they could be forced to pull back

handsets already sold. That becomes an incredibly expensive and

difficult process. Going after hardware makers like Samsung, Apple

side stepped the battle with Google, which owns the software android. If

Apple had gone after Google, they could pick on a faux that could

bite back. They own MoT role la, and with it key patents d -- MoT at

that role la, and with it key patents.

What does the inventor of the first mobile phone make of all this?

Marty Cooper used to work for moat role la, and made the very first

call from a cellphone back in 1973, ironically to his then arch rivals,

AT&T. It is not Apple's fault it is the system itself. The patent

system was intended to provide a monopoly to make sure we would get

more innovation. Some how or other the system has become distorted

over a period of time. It is inhibiting us getting new

technology. We are still in the toy stage, most people in the world

still use phones for talking, and for texting. We have been doing

that for many years. The rest of the things we are just starting.

Some commentators are already warning consumers that this ruling

will create an Apple tax on all of them. As rivals will now have to

pay Apple to use its technology. Pushing up the price for many tech

products. Innovation may have been rewarded by the court, but

consumers may end up paying, once again, for that. They may secretly

be banking on Samsung's appeal. In a moment the ping-pong table. First

the death of the novel is a story almost as old as the life of the

novel. But what of the death of publishing? Or the end of the book?

Over the past few years the music industry has been in turmoil,

sometimes free or pirateed downloads sur planting CDs, which

you have to go out and buy. Could it happen to the book? Howard

Jacobson's new novel Zoo Time turns in part about the idea that maybe

reading itself is finished. One of the old jokes of literature is more

people write poetry than actually read it. So is the same also

possible about a generation which tweets and blogs, but may be

indifferent to the professional writers, who keep us entertained

and informed, and here is the shock, might actually know something.

Howard Jacobson's central character in his new novel Zoo Time, is a

writer called Guy Ableman, who reflects, on what he calls, the

The Finkler Question. Jacobson himself won the Booker Prize in

2010 at a point in his career where he was highly regarded, but how

well did he sell. Does it take a big prize to turn things around. Or,

as one of his characters put it, should he blag and twit, or as some

might say, blog and tweet. How much trouble is publishing in now?

Independent book shops are closing, and libraries are closing, and

publishers are all worrying and wondering how to deal with the

phenomenon of the electronic book and so on. My worry is, it is not

my worry, this is a novel and it is full of fun, I hope, it is full of

exhileration, and it is the story of a man in love with two enwomen,

his wife and his mother, that is the meat -- two women, his wife and

his her mother. It is full of meat. It is full of agents and literary

people in despair of the novel? He's a failed novelist. He isn't me.

I have won the Man Booker Prize, I started this before I won the prize,

but still, he is a failure. His sense of what is going wrong might

be slightly more gloomy than my sense of what is going wrong. I

write this as someone who has an inordinate love of the novel. I

believe the novel is more important than anything else. So when I see

the novel being ill-read, it bothers me, I don't want to go to a

reading group, and have people saying to me, as my hero Guy

Ableman does, I can't sympathise with your hero, I can't identify

with your hero, it is irrelevant. But, if it is the novel being ill-

read, there are obviously some great novels being written,

including Fifty Shades of Grey? Huge human for, yeah! But to go

back to the kind of novel I love, it seems to me a shame when all the

things that the novel exists to do, which is to dilute ideology, to

refute a political position, the value of the novel exists precisely

because it won't allow you to occupy any of those positions. But

we are reading novels now as though, if the novel is not politically, as

we believe it should be, it is a failed novel. If a novel doesn't

say the sorts of things we think it should do. If a offends against

gender or race politic, there is something wrong with it. The glory

of the novel is it offends. have a lady who gives a degree of

hand relief to a tiger in a zoo, which may offend some people, a lot

of readers might find it funny? hope they would, but if such a

thing happens in life, I'm assured by people who work in a zoo,

because I research my novels very carefully, you must write these

things. The glory of the novel is it will offend and upset and will

allow no political ideology or opinion settle anywhere. If we

don't like the characters it doesn't matter. That is what I

started this conversation, is it our fault as readers if we don't

get it, or identify with the character of something, are we

doing something wrong? I -- any reader who thinks he or she doesn't

want to go on with a novel because they don't identify with the

characters, then yes, there is something wrong with that the

reader. I hate the unput downable, put it down. I don't want it on my

book, put it down, get angry with it, open the window. You can't

breathe with the great books, the relationship you want people to

have with the great books can't be defined by nice attitudes, an

unwillingness to be upset by anything. The novel can do so much

for us, the novel teaches us what it is like not to be ourselves, to

read only from our own individual, the selfishness of our own

individual position, it is so miss what the novel is for. Sounds to me

as if the novel is still alive. What is also happening is there is

winners and losers, and some win the Booker Prize, and you have done

much better, I suppose, in temples of sales because of it, or there is

-- in terms of sales, because of it. Or there is things like Fifty

Shades of Grey, which do well, but it is not about whether it is a

good literature? My novel will not win the Man Booker Prize, and may

never do it, what of him. I see winning it as an extraordinary

stroke of good fortune, I had the perfect panel. What happens if you

don't. What happens if you are not read by people sympathetic to what

you are doing. We will leave it there. A quick read of the front

That's all from Newsnight tonight. At a time when despite the weather

we are inspired by the Olympic spirit and putting sport into our

lives, we notice our Booker Prize winning author, was a keen ping-

pong player, and having on the same programme, Matthew Side, former

number one, it was too good an opportunity to miss.

Hurricane Isaac approaches Louisiana, we have our own weather

system coming to the UK. Not on the same scale but making an impact.

Rain in the day ahead, following on with heavy showers, this is how it

looks like in the afternoon. Torrential downpours in northern

England, had heavy in the Midlands. The rain clearing away at this

stage. Sunshine will follow. The showers in south-west England and

Wales packing quite a punch, hail and thunder is possible. But it is

not going to be a constant rain at this stage. There will be spells of

sunshine inbetween the heavy downpours. Some of us may just

escape them and stay dry. The wind is lighter in Northern Ireland and

south-west Scotland. Slow-moving torrential downpours are possible.

Hail and thunder, you could get local flooding and possible

disruption. More persistent rain for the outer hebties in Shetland.

A lot of showers around, following the persistent rain tomorrow. As

for Thursday, still some showers around across central and eastern

parts of the UK. Particularly in the afternoon in eastern England.

It starts to dry up further west, particularly across Scotland and