25/09/2012 Newsnight

The battle of the badger cull turns nasty. Newsnight goes undercover in

the undergrowth. And learns how threats and intimidation towards

farmers could jeopardise the Government's plans. It was

harassment, they said you have fantastic garden, a fantastic-

looking farm, you must have a lovely lifestyle there. You enter

into the badger scheme, you will come up with some consequences.

Bill Oddie is against the cull, he is with us. We will ask if the

killing of these animals make scientific sense.

The budget for overseas aid will sore next year, the PM confirms his

commitment, but is he right. There are concerns that the aid budget is

growing so fast that the civil servants in here are having to do

the equivalent of shovelling money out the door to get it out fast

enough. The Liberal Democrats are telling us why we should vote for

them in the next election. Tomorrow Nick Clegg will try to rival the

speech made by Vince Cable, he will say there is no turning back on

deficit reduction, and tell the country he's still strong enough to

make the tough choices. How does your brain respond to information,

pictures, number, words? Welcome to the art of data visualisation.

Good evening. Will badgers be to David Cameron what hunted foxes

became to Tony Blair? A totemic, or toxic symbol of the curious

relationship the English have with their animals, and something that

does not welcome political interference. Since the badger cull

received its license, 100,000 people petitioned to stop it.

We look at the intimidation for farmers by protesters. Some say the

cull will have no significant effect against TB, but the

Government says it has to be tried. In the dead of night, disputed

territory in the latest clash between farmers and wildlife

campaigners. Using a night vision camera, we

were secretly shown one of the largest sets in Gloucestershire, a

pilot zone for the mass slaughter of badgers. This is one of the

first areas where the cull will begin, in the Seth behind me, bait

will be -- set behind me, bait will be laid to encourage badgers to

come out to eat, when they are in the habit of doing, that they will

be shot. Cattle farmers say the move will

limited endless spread of TB through their herds. But the plans

are provoking fury. Any day now, the silence of the Gloucestershire

night will be broken, as campaigners rampage around the area,

making as much noise as possible to scare the badgers away. They say

that if they see anyone with a shotgun, they will stand in the way

to stop the badgers getting hurt. Protestor and farmer, there is a

gulf in mutual understanding and sympathy. Both are certain they are

right. January has helped organised the Gloucestershire -- Jan has

helped organised the Gloucestershire cull, his own farm

lies out of the boundary. TB has laid siege to his dairy herd,

costing him, he estimates, half a million pounds. We have to do

something different now, to sit back and let farmers take the

strain. We know DEFRA's budget is coming under pressure, cutbacks are

likely, pressure will be ramped up again. There is a huge threat to

the cattle industry this the west of the country, if we doesn't do

something effective against the disease. This protestor co-

ordinates the group Stop The Cull. He's promising direct action, and

wants to remain anonymous, in case he's targeted. We will be using

megaphones to disrupt the cull directly, so if we see maxmen and

see badgers we will make -- marksmen we will make noise to

scare them off. He is one of three groups opposed to the cull?

largest group RSPCA, with Brian May, they are broadly politically

lobbying. We are a direct action group going in, and stop the cull

taking place. There is a much more extreme group, which I would guess

would be the Animal Liberation Front. What sort of tactics are

they threatening? The Animal Liberation Front have put out

communiques saying they will superglue the cashpoints of

Sainsbury's. If it stocks milk from cull areas? Yes. It isn't just

protests, but locals are facing economic consequences too, with a

possible consumer boycott. Areas like Tewkesbury rely on the tourist

trade, while some supermarkets are reassuring their customers they

went stock milk that comes from the cull areas. The protesters claim

that farmers in Gloucestershire are losing heart, and support for the

cull. With some even pulling out because of the pressure. That's why

they are not taking part in the cull? Yes, they initial low said

they would, now they are saying they won't. -- initially said they

would, now they are saying they won't. What has changed their mind?

It is the amount of publicity it is getting and the amount of public

outcry. We talk today one of those farm,

she told us there was another reason for they are change of heart,

a threatening phone call. It was harassment, they said you have a

fantastic garden and farm, you must have a lovely lifestyle there,

enter in the badger scheme you will come up with some consequences. I'm

subsequently thinking about it all whether or not to go ahead, because

this is rather frightening. Stop The Cull says it doesn't support

such tactics? We condemn the harassment and damage to property.

Scientists agree killing most of the badgers in the pilot areas will

have an impact on cattle TB. If the full programme goes ahead, as many

as 100,000 badgers will be culled. Reducing cattle TB by 16%. The

argument between farmers and campaigners is whether that

reduction justifies the slaughter. I think the emotion and sentiment

about the badger is probably most of the problem. I think when, it is

very difficult, as a disease, to tell people all of the problems

with it, and how the badger is central in maintaining the

reservoir in it. Until we deal with it in a significant way, as yet

that may be vaccines and that is not ready for use, we have to look

at other ways of getting on top of the disease.

Vaccination, promoted as cure, not kill, is being tried over the

boarder in Wales. It's labour- intensive, with each badger being

trapped and injected. An oral vaccine will be more cost effective,

but is still in development. Another approach, the vaccination

of cattle, is banned by the EU. With no technical fix, the conflict

is moving towards difficult terrain, to be played out in darkness and in

anger. The badger minister, David Heath,

has gone underground, we are now joined from Leicester by the bird

watcher and broadcaster, Bill Oddie, who has campaigned against the cull,

and by Peter Kendall, President of the National Farmers' Union, David

Bowles from the RSPCA, and the Government aide Daniel Kawczynski.

Thank you for joining us. If I start with you, Bill Oddie, if

people are pulling out of these pilots, through intimidation, as

you heard in the piece, is that a good thing? I think I would

probably say it's the right result for the wrong reason. Because the

thing that bothers me most, I think, it never seems to get a mention, is

that we have, as conservationists, had an ever-improving relationship

with farmers for a considerable time now. That was very important,

because the British countryside and farmland in particular was losing

its wildlife. Not just badgers, losing wildlife all down the way.

And it's going to be very sad if we're now being set up against one

another. Because believe me, there are plenty of farmers, not just in

the cull areas, who have chosen not to go in with the cull. And it

would be very detrimental to British countryside and wildlife in

general. I certainly don't condone any kind of guerrilla violent

tactics. Although, I have to say, the practicality of carrying out

this cull is another big problem. I have watched enough badgers and

filmed enough badgers to know you only have to crack a twig and Mr

Badger is down in his set and he ain't coming out for several hours.

How on earth marksmen are going to wander round in pitch darkness and

shoot badgers, I simply don't know. There is bound to be confrontation.

Let me pick up, first of all with you David Bowles, the RSPCA, you

have heard Bill Oddie saying he condemns guerrilla violence tactics,

this is the way it is going to happen, people will be intimidated

out of participateing? We agree with Bill, we condemn violence on

all sides. There has been, what we are trying to do is to highlight

the fact that actually badger culling is not going to achieve

what we all want to achieve, which is a reduction in bovine TB in the

cattle herd. What we have seen is the Government saying to farmers,

if you go down this route your problems will be solved. They are

not, as you said in the piece, we could see reductions as little as

3% in the cull areas, and around about 16% as an average. That is

diney in terms of the fact you are wiping out 7 -- tiny in terms it of

the fact you are wiping out 70% of an animal. The reason for the

judicial review and the way the Government presented its figures,

it shows over the average nine years of the I -- scientific

reduction unit, if you go to those areas there is a 30% reduction, if

you go to Ireland, where they are doing a cull of badgers, there is

already over a 30% reduction. This isn't just one solution, we know we

have to work on cattle movements and vaccination as well. But,

reluctantly, and this is a big reluctant, because of exactly what

Bill said about the relationship with the countryside and everybody

who loves the countryside. Reluctantly we have to start and

wind back the reservoir of disease in badgers. Bill Oddie, I'm going

to let you come back. You said this was a friction between the farmers

and the conservationists, surely you want to wipe out that disease?

Of course, and conhave vaigsists have for years and years and years

-- conservationists have for years and years and years T has been

going on for many years. Proof in my hand of a publication from many

years ago from the Wildlife Trust, it is telling the members what the

problem is, and sympathiseing entirely with farmers and saying,

basically, we are trying to achieve the same thing. My argument,

frankly, if you want to put one set of people up against another set of

people, let's put the farmers aside, it is the conservationists against

this, flipping Government, who are showing a considerable ignorance

and arrogance in everything to do with the countryside and

agriculture. For the purposes of this debate you are the "flipping"

Government, you can respond? What Bill Oddie hasn't talked about is

the suffering of the badgers themselves, they suffer an

appalling death because of bovine tuberculosis. You are culling the

badgers so they feel better? limited cull of badgers, in hot

spot areas, in order to try to tackle this rampent disease, which

is blown out of all proportion against England. It is a bit

cynical to say the badge letters be feeling better, why not stand up

and say it is about industry and protecting those people who need

your support? Representing a rural constituency like slowsbury, I have

sat on many occasion -- Shrewsbury, I have sat on many occasions with

farmers in their kitchens and seen grown men cry when all of their

herds have been slaughtered. The devastation it causes to families,

to smie Shropshire farm -- my Shropshire farmers and my dairy

farmers, I would suggest it that Bill Oddie spend time with my

constituents and farmers, and see the devastation they are going

through because of the lack of action from the Labour

administration for many years? Is it not a political thing that you

want to be seen to be doing something, and that is what your

Government is about, we have done something. We have a duty and

responsibility, Sir, to ensure that there is, that England does

continue to have a dairy industry. And unless we take these steps,

thousands of dairy farmers will go out of business. That is not true.

Let's talk about the dairy question for a second, there is now a

campaign that others have signed to try to get supermarkets to register

the equivalent of dolphin-friendly tuna, for example, millk from

places badgers have not been culled. Is that workable and would you

support it, should people be buying milk that hasn't come from those

farms? To start off with you said the Number Ten petition had 100,000

signatures, one of the fastest- growing petitions in over two weeks,

it is still going up. It shows the depth of frustration and anger from

the public. We have known from the two Government consultations that

the majority of the public do not want to see culling. That is

specifically about the culling, would you like people to boycott

milk that didn't come from badger- friendly farms? We want people to

be given the choice, whether to buy milk from a badger cull area or not.

It is a simple consumer choice issue, it is not a boycott. At the

moment they don't have that choice. Modern dairy issues are incredibly

complicated, sometimes supermarkets buy an aggregated supply, and

sometimes from a few producers. You know the problems the dairy

industry is having in the UK at the moment, to try to bankrupt and put

people out of business and stop people being involved and trying to

save an industry. That is what I worry about this debate. In 1998

there were 9,000 cattle slaughtered, last year there were 32,000 cattle

slaughtered because of TB, this is an explosion of disease, we must do

something about it. To try to drive people out of business to stop them

tackling the reservoir of disease I think is an incredibly

irresponsible line to take. What we don't know, if we get the licenses

in both these areas happening, the Government has then said they will

go to ten additional culls each year, where do we stop, do we wipe

out 70% of the badgers in the south west of England, all over England.

This is a protected species. The ironic thing is, just across the

border from Daniel's constituency s the Welsh Government, looking at

the same science and statistics have decided to go down a humane

vaccination route, rather than a cull route. The most important

thing to remember here is the Government has had a consultation

on this. The scientists. The Government got rid of all its

vaccination trials when it came into power, it didn't want to spend

the money on it? Over 50% of the Government said they -- public said

they didn't want the cull, the Government ignored them.

Government line on this, to have a limited cull of badgers has the

backing of the High Court. The scam badgers' Trust took us to court and

the court ruled in our favour. What all of us have to remember is the

High Court has assessed, and taken a huge amount of time to look

through all the evidence and they backed us.

If this turns into the equivalent of the fox-hunting ban for Tony

Blair, which he then said he regreted, would it be worth it?

very pleased that my neighbour, Owen Patterson, the new DEFRA

secretary, he is committed to this, I, and other rural MPs, who have a

duty and responsibility to our dairy farmer, will insist the

Government fulfils this obligation in this matter. Let me ask you

about the practicalities of this now, do you think they will be able

to stop this going ahead? Who was that question to you -- Who was

that question to? To you, Bill weeks ago and said I'm afraid this

was going to turn nasty. It didn't powers to say that. It is perfectly

obvious that it was. It will. It is police will be the next people who

guarantee the safety of people in an area where there are people with

guns, at night, in the dark, and other people wandering around

trying to interrupt them. on this, is more than the amount

It is not, the message Bill should be tweeting and the RSPB, is this

should not turn nasty, all of the organisations campaigning against

the cull should put out a really big signal that lady shouldn't meal

will turn nasty, I would like to see all the campaigners for

wildlife to say it shouldn't turn nasty, we should put a message out

saying this sort of behaviour is beyond the pale. We don't want to

there are people who also feel intimidated and scared to speak out,

actually against the cull, because they feel that they are intimidated.

Thank you very much all of you. It may have been clever once, but

does it still make political sense be going up by a third next year,

when every other budget is going the Conservative decontamination

project, might now look too much like a political gamble, when, say

many in the party, there is plenty of suffering close to home. Tonight

at the UN, David Cameron will restate his commitment to overseas

aid, despite hints that his development secretary has questions

of her own, she will be by his side. For all the high-volume campaigning

of Live Aid, the commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP is actually far

older, it goes way back to the UN in 1970. The United Nations

sponsored arrangement in 1970, it had no rhyme or reason, most

countries now don't bother about it at all. We are giving now, in this

country, more aid than any other country in the world with the

exception of the United States, which, of course, is immensely

richer than we are. Progress towards this goal has not

been very impressive. Only Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden and the

Netherlands manage it, according to the OECD, with Belgium not far

behind, and then comes Britain on 0.6%. We are committed to hitting

the target by 2013. The Prime Minister arrived in New York today,

his first stop was to meet a group of young entrepeneurs, but tomorrow

he will address the General Assembly of the UN, and tell them

that the 0.7% commitment is more important than ever, and he will

reaffirm Britain's commitment to it. This is where David Cameron's

pledge gets made into reality, the Department for International

Development in London. But there is, though, scepticism within Mr

Cameron's own party, that this huge increase in Britain's aid budget

will be well spent. Peter Bone is a Conservative MP, who almost

singlehandedly attempts to get the 0.7% enshrined in British law.

are talking from going from �7 billion a year to �12 billion in

aid. In other words you could have �5 billion of tax cuts to get the

economy going, without affecting any level of overseas aid, just

keep it at the same level we have inherited. When we came to power we

said overseas aid was poorly spent f we spent it better rather than

increasing it, we are hooked on the 0.7%. The rise in the international

development budget is spectacular, when set alongside other

unfortunate Government departments. It has a rise of 34% over the next

few years, the NHS is just about keeping pace with inflation. Wheen

mile defence, education, the Home Office, communities and local

Government, almost every other Government department is taking a

big hit. Some influential Conservatives think this sends an

important message about the Government's priorities. There are

a number of things that David Cameron did to try to show that the

Conservative Party was different from the Conservative Party of old.

And things like committing to the poorest people of the world, things

like maintaining the NHS budget. Things like gay marriage, are

absolute signs that he is still the modernising Tory that he presented

himself to the electorate before the election. As Britain's aid

budget has increased, critics say all we are doing is spending more

money on more marginal and questionable project. Indeed the

Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons has concluded that

the Department of Development doesn't have the capacity to spend

all this extra money on its own projects, instead it is having to

funnel it through outside organisations with lower levels of

accountability, it is doing this, say MPs, not because this is a

smarter way of spending public money, no, they are doing it, they

say, because it is easier. The way the projects are described is

extremely vague, for example, �3020 million has gone to improve the

Kenyan Government's accountability to its citizens. �94 million is

going to improve the quality of life and opportunity for 2.4

million in the Kolkata Metropolitan area. If you are worrying that all

this is adding to our national debt, you might not like to know that

�1,-- �1.4 million is to improve the economic debt of the Government

of Jamaica. The House of Lords has admitted that British aid is often

counter-productive, with much of it lost to corruption and middle men.

It is a bonanza of consultants, it is these who are employed at large

costs by the department to help them do their job. It is the

consultants who are the main beneficiaries of the aid programme,

rather than the poor people in the poor countries one would like to

see benefiting from economic growth and economic development.

Some Conservatives had hoped that the appointment of Jeremy

Greenstock as the new development secretary, and -- Justine Greening,

in the reshuffle as new Development Secretary, would help with the

downgrading of aid, she is with the Prime Minister in New York, and we

are told, fully signed up to the target.

Our guests are with us. Ian Birrell, former adviser to David Cameron,

now contributing editor of the Daily Mail is with me too. Adrian,

when you look at the figures and see the jump in real terms, when

every other department is getting cut, it is unjustifiable, isn't it?

I don't think it is, firstly because it is affordable, the

figure you didn't hear there, and which the British public rarely

hears, that actually this costs just over a penny on each pound of

Government revenue, Government spending. A penny on the pound, 99p

goes elsewhere. Just a penny going towards the outcomes we are seeing

from British aid. You are still talking about a jump from �7

billion to �12 billion. These are substantialal sums of money at a

time when things are not affordable? Taking away that aid

budget, if you took it all away, you would barely make a dent in the

trillion-pound debt that we have in the UK today. But the difference

that aid is making is much more specific, actually, than your

report showed there. For the investment that Britain will make

in the next few years, the increase you just talked about, 16 million

children will go to school, who don't currently go to cool. 80 mill

-- school. 80 million will be vaccinated against life-threatening

diseases, 77 million will get access to things like bank accounts,

and things that help them work their way out of poverty. What kind

of place would we be if we said no to that? The other way of putting

the figure is it is �300 a household spent on aid. It is very

outdated policy, nothing to do with modernisation, it is anachronism

based on ideas around years ago. Educating children? The watchdog

said �1 billion was spent theoretically on educating children

in three African countries, and there was no improvement in

literacy or numeracy, it is about achieving targets and not about on

the ground. That is the biggest problem, I wouldn't object if the

aid was doing something to help. But it is not. I would have no

problem if it was going to help, it is corrosive, it is corroding the

connection between Governments and people. It is fuelling conflict. A

lot of the aid money, two-thirds of aid workers say the projects don't

work. This is in this huge great booming industry, where consultants

are getting rich. Let's not forget, for all the talk we hear about

education and health, actually �1.3 billion goes to the EU and improves

food labelling in Iceland and cleans up the EU. The whole thing

ising a fast thing, D of IFD don't know what to do with the money and

are shovelling out of it and lots of people get rich on the back of

it. No money that goes to Iceland does that, it does to accession

into the EU. That is the misunderstanding. It comes out of

the aid budget. It doesn't. It goes on food labelling. Address the

question of consultants which is a major one, �500 million last year,

paid to consultants, many of those sums of money go straight into the

pockets of the bosses who run them? I think it is absolutely right that

Justine Greening take as close look at it and goes through it line by

line and see where the money goes. It worries you? Absolutely. These

are big challenges, we need experts wrecks need people who have dealt

with these problems before to bring it to bear. Some of those will be

consultants. Of course she should go through and see is there money

to be spent here better spent in other ways. It is very convenient

just to say it will do more harm than good. It is very nice if it we

can turn around and say, let's keep all the money, there must be better

solutions than that? Take the former head. DIFD in Rwanda saying

it is the least effective public service there. You would like the

pledge to be dropped? It is meaningless and the target

ridiculous. It attacks welfare dependency at home and encourages

it at home, it says that it distorts targets, and it is based

on figures from the 1940s, when the UN looked at the figures six years

ago and said the target should be 0.44%. Does it matter to you if it

is just about a political strategy of decontamination, does it make

any difference to how you see this? In a sense it doesn't matter. It is

the policy. I don't believe it is just about that. I understand the

argument that is being put across there. It is the policy, it was the

policy of all three major parties at the last election, and so,

what's happening now is simply the enactment of democracy, in fact,

actually when you go out and talk to people. 77% of people oppose it.

Not really. A year ago when people were asked in a fair way, not given

the recession do you think we can afford the aid budget. Lots of

people supported Live Aid? Most recent surveys show support is

falling. It is veryiesy for an organisation founded like One, who

is founded by rock stars not paying their full whack in tax, shown up

for that. To advocate that people struggling in this country should

pay out a lot of money on projected that don't work, and shown time and

time again that they don't work, and not wanted by ordinary people.

If the same amount of money was paid, not in the way it is now, but

to disasters and emergencies, you wouldn't have a problem? There are

issues, there is so much money, when you have a disaster you have

1,000 aid groups turning up and chaos on the ground, and the cost

of housing and food soaring. And many of those saying there is a

huge problem with aid groups because there is so much aid money

sloshing around. Those campaigning every day on the issues snow it is

an investment we can afford, it is cheaper than people believe, and it

is making a bigger difference than people believe and we should

continue with it. Are current Lib Dem tactics working, Nick Clegg

will set out how he intends to attract voters in his loader's

speech tomorrow. Documents leaked today claim there is no real

evidence their current strategy is working. Our political editor is in

Brighton now. Take us through the documents, what happened? While we

have been on air the Lib Dem leader and his wife walked past us, he has

been practising his speech all night. He takes the speech

incredibly seriously. Some documents came out today, they told

people what they knew here already, that it is very difficult to see

what message is working, particularly well for the Lib Dems,

in either the south or the north of England. But back to that speech.

That speech is why he made that apology last week, to much mirth

and muttering from people. He wanted to clear the decks, so

tomorrow he would be listened to with a message that they think can

last the next two weeks and put them in a better place than the

documents do suggest. The trouble is, lots of people here, activists

and MPs, wonder about the strategy. The strategy is to carve out a new

role for them in the centre of British politics. In the speech

tomorrow he will talk about British politics being about three parties,

not two, and they will being a small third party. With that he has

messages on the deficit. At the start of the week we had soft

language for his party, who were worried about the economy and

deficit reduction. Today and tomorrow we will start to see them

hardening up again as they send their delegates on their way.

Saying we will have to find lots of cuts, just like the Conservatives

will. So there is that message, there is also something to make

them happier. There will be a policy on education and language

around the environment. What he's trying to do is position them on

the centre. Many MPs and activists are not sure that necessarily works.

It may work in 15-20 years time, that is a generational struggle,

that doesn't necessarily get them through the next general election.

One more thing, people are quoting David Lloyd George, he said if

you're going to jump across a chasam, it is best to do it in one

step. Thank you very much. The magic of television being what

it is, you might, indeed, recognise the next backdrop, the one you have

just seen for our guest, the Lib Dem Home Office Minister, Jeremy

Browne, who is, as we speak, swapping a quickstep with Allegra

to speak with us now, about those issues she has been raising. We

will go to him now. Let's start, first of all, Jeremy Browne, with

this issue of the leaked document, showing "very little valid evidence

that tactics work". I don't know about the leaked development, I

don't think that is central to the big choices the party is facing.

Nick Clegg will lay out the big choices tomorrow in his speech. As

Allegra just said, there are two essential messages that hang

together, one is a Deputy Prime Minister message, and the other is

a Liberal Democrat party leader message. The Deputy Prime Minister

message is the country needs to make the transition from austerity

to prosperity. That will require some difficult decisions of us all.

The Liberal Democrat leader message is the party needs to make the

journey from opposition to Government, protest to power. That

will require some tough decisions as well. Those two journeys are

interlinked and the suck he is of the Liberal Democrats and the

success of the country depends on them both working out what. I want

to go back to these reports, that came from. Don't worry about the

trivia, worry about the big central message. That's the big central

message. Is it trivial. I have just told you what the big...I Have just

told you what the strategy is, I have just told you what the

strategy is. Because something is leaked doesn't make it inherently

interesting. That is for me a side show. The party leader, the Deputy

Prime Minister of the country, is talking about what we need to do as

a country to ensure Britain's future prosperity and quality of

life and standard of living, and about how the Liberal Democrats can

make the journey from being a party of opposition for 75 years, to one

of the three governing options in this country for the next

generation those are really crucial messages right through and beyond

2015. As you said before. If your tactics are working and your

strategy is getting through to people. Why, on a central issue,

like universal welfare, very rich mentioners receiving benefits and

Winter Fuel Allowances and all the rest of it, why do we have that one

policy, one day, five different views from all the Lib Dem

ministers at the conference here. Different views from David Laws,

Vince Cable, Nick Clegg, and Mr Foster, you can't even centrally

agree on something like that? Government has made the policy

completely plea -- completely clear. There is a question for the future

if it is a good use of reforce relatively poor people in work to

have their taxes used to give a lot of money to people like Alan Sugar

and Peter Stringfellow. I would have thought, intelligent people,

watching this programme, would be interested in intelligent debate at

a party conference about whether poor people in work should

subsidise the lifestyle of Alan Sugar, that isn't an issue for the

Autumn Statement or budget. There is a big message here, when the

Government says we are all in it together, that is true. Maybe

people think it is a Conservative slogan or they don't like the

slogan. The central truth of it remains, which is we are borrowing

as a country a billion pounds every three days. That is not sustainable.

If we are not make the journey from austerity to shared prosperity, we,

as a country, will have to face up to difficult but hard truths. And

he as a leader of a party right in the centre ground of politics will

be able to talk about that some. -- tomorrow.

Was the apology of Nick Clegg a success. I know you are hoping for

number 40 in the UK charts with a turn around of it. Was it a

constructive use of the message? There is a serious point here. We

are half way through the parliament, the question for the party is

whether we spend ages analysing decisions made in 2010 or go on for

2015. There are two groups of people, knows who won't give Nick

Clegg a hearing whatever he says. Those people will say they don't

like him or agree with what he's saying. There are other people out

there, those less likely to phone into talk shows and express their

views in vosive rus terms, they understand that Nick Clegg hadn't

been in Government and the party hadn't been in for many generations

and accept that it is a place to make mistakes in politics, and

accept that he made the mistake, and are willing to accept the

things he has done and give him a fair hearing tomorrow. As minister

for state for crime reduction, do you think when a police officer is

sworn at by a member of public, do you think that person should be

arrested? That is an artful way of asking yesterday another Andrew

Mitchell question, which has been a theme of the media through the

conference. I think the Prime Minister got it right when he said

that what Andrew Mitchell was reported as saying was wrong and

inappropriate, that's the point of view put by the Prime Minister, all

the people watching will agree with that. Does he have to say more to

explain himself, or has he done enough, according to you? I think

people watching the programme will agree that if what he is report to

have said is what he said, or anything approximating to that is

what he said, and of course, Andrew Mitchell denies that he said what

the police officer claimed he said. Well, that whole way of talking to

a person like a police officer is clearly an inappropriate way, let

alone a Government minister. I think for people to behave

generally, it is not a question of the law but a question of good

planners. Are you an image person or a word person, do you remember

voices from the radio or faces from the television, if you had had to

learn something off by heart, how would you do it. The science or art

of data visualisation, is the growing philosophy of how best to

project the material on to our brains when information is

screaming at us all the time. The most successful in their field will

be recognised at an award ceremony from London's ICA, we will hear

from two Evangelists in the field in a moment. Here is a little of

what we are talking about. The war is currently costing us �12 million

a day. That is the same cost as employing 100,000 nurses and

150,000 care workers. How did you feel about what you just heard from

Tony Benn, now let's hear it again with the right pictures. The war is

currently costing us over �12 mill kwhron a day. That is the same cost

-- �12 million day, that is the same cost as 100,000 nurses and

150,000 care worker. To theal cost of civilian Afghans dead, like the

cost of war is unknown, but cautious estimates exceed 40,000

people. Did the visuals heighten the impact. The theory of data

visualisation, a sin they sees of story telling, regurpblg station

and design, hits different parts of the train, maybe more analytical.

Take this one, what American voters care about. You can click on

"climate change" and see how attitudes have changed year by year,

Democrat and Republican. Then click on terrorism instead and do it all

again. The process makes you feel stimulated and informed, is it

meritricious. In the data bank of power plants and factories around

the world, 20 -times more complex than any previous virus code, it

had an array of capablities, the ability to turn up the pressure

among nuclear reactors or switch off oil pipeline, and they could

tell the system operators everything was normal. It looks

beautiful, but the visuals are just glorified subtitles, is data

visualisation truly a new art form, or the pop culture offspring of

real analysis. I'm joined by two data

visualisation specialists, the founder of Information Is Beautiful

awards, and Kenneth Neil Cukier, the data visualisation expert from

the Economist Magazine. Do you have a sense that we are taking more in,

or we are just taking it in a different way? It feels there is a

lot more data and information around. We are looking for some

kind of solution that allows us to gobble that information and

understand it on the fly. When we are moving fast. Data

visualisingation seems to be able to translate that understanding

quicker than text. Is it more polemic, sub blimal messages, the

way that used to -- subliminal information in a way it used to?

Probably not. The visualisation will have the same shortcomings as

words. You can do more with it than words and less than others. It is a

new medium, there is a Rennaissance going on of the new tools we have

to show highly quantitative information, to say it is more poll

lem kal, probably not. Let's look at a few examples, you have brought

in favourites, and the viewers will know it as what we call chart porn,

a way to get people to look at things they like looking at it.

What is this? It is Denmark looking at survey results about Islamic

head dress. The designer has done a pie chart and used the medium

itself to express it. It is the way of opening up the subject, and

stopping the enwit that we have when we look at it. You have the

equivalent of the bar chart on the headbands? It is using a different

approach to visualise that data. Has more impact and is more

memorable. Take us through the next one, the 999 calls? In New York

they have 311 for non-emergency phone calls, the municiple services,

this, going from left to right is the frequency of certain types of

calls in a period. The noise is the pink bar going through the middle.

You have dead animal removal, road kill, a big issue in New York.

Noisy neighbours, graffiti, and so on. Why is that more effective than

a bar chart that could show meet same thing? It is depicting it as a

landscape. You can roamit yourself and find your own connections,

explore patterns. It is also showing lots of variables all at

once. It is showing a vast and extraordinary amount of information,

that you can take in immediately. Imagine if you worked in public

serves and you wanted to bring those who are specialists to this

type of complaint with the complaint that was made. With lost

property you want it in the afternoon. You know that now

through this. With the dead animal removal, you want to do that

quickly, because it could be a source of health hazard. You would

know when to put the person there who would be able to interact with

the caller better to get emergency people to clean it up. Looking at

your examples, they pick out the US map and the states, using it to

very different effect. This was a mind-boggle when I saw it, I

couldn't get my head round it? Great, it was not so great it was a

mind boggle, but it is an interactive map, if you could mouse

over it you could see more data. Russia is where Texas is. The map

in the United States, in the form of the GDP of the country, that the

state corresponds to. Texas has $1 trillion in terms of wealth in

terms of the size of the economy. So has Russia, we put that there

together. Who knew that Italy, the bot of Europe, should have an

economy about the second or eighth largest in the world, also the size

of California, $2 trillion. Greece we think is basket case because of

the problems they face. Washington state is a small but important

economy in America. You have the same in population. They stay with

this map and it changes colour, talk us through now. Saudi Arabia

has the same number of people as Texas? That's right. 25 million

people in Saudi Arabia, it is one of the geopolitically strategic

countries in the world. Mexico may not be strategic, depending on

butter reet toes, but you can see that Texas punches above its weight

in terms of those 25 million people having a presance if it was its own

state. Poland has large state, so too California has a massive state

for America. It is a way of reconcept actualising the United

States, for many people it is breath taking that this one country,

without one country in the UN, has the heft that it does. Fascinating,

thank you very much. That is all we have time for in Newsnight tonight,

Paul Mason is here tomorrow, from Paul Mason is here tomorrow, from

all of us, a very good night. The worst is nearly over, certainly

by Wednesday things looking better across the northern half of the UK,

in terms of the lack of rain out of the sky. Heavy showers further

south. A welcome return of sunshine in northern parts of England,

Northern Ireland and southern Scotland. One or two showers in

Northern Ireland, nothing like the intensity we have seen. Further

south a scattering of heavy showers, sunshine inbetween. Temperatures

into the mid-teens not feeling too bad. The south west of England,

South Wales, could be the focus of heavier downpour. Not the

widespread rain seen recently, the ground saturated, so more localised

problems maybe. For Northern Ireland it looks like staying dry,

temperatures around 14. A cool breeze flowing from the north. That

is the story across much of Scotlanded today. 1 degrees in

Inverness, and glos co-a fairly ples -- 14 degrees in innerves, but