18/04/2013 Newsnight

Tonight, the murder that shocked the country, shook up the criminal

justice system and resulted as being institutionally racist, now

20 years on from the killing of Steven Lawrence, we look at what

has changed. The police are the people you go to when you are lost,

the police are the nice people who will help you on the street. But

after you have experienced stop- and-search your perception of them

changes. We will hear from the Metropolitan Police and ask how

British society and our views of race have changed. Also tonight, we

have the very latest on the Boston bombings, the FBI have said they

have identified two suspects. And it has taken 118 years. But now the

American Marin Alsop will be the first woman to conduct that great

British institution, the Last Night of the Proms. So why are there so

few women conductors in top orchestras. We remember the artist

who designed Pink Floyd's album covers.

It was the moment that was supposed to change hout police in Britain

look and behaviour, a moment that shocked the realities of racism.

The murder of Stephen Lawrence 20 years ago next week saw a black

teenager killed because of the colour of his skin. It also saw the

Macpherson Inquiry into the competence of the police at the

time. And the Metropolitan Police was accused of institutional racism.

We want to devote a large part of the programme to explore what has

changed in our institutions and society in those 20 years. First is

some voices giving their answers and observations on relations

between the police and part of the communities they serve.

I don't feel the police are on my side. The police have almost

severed their ties with us. They are not trusted and so the police

will be expecting operation, but you don't co-operate with people

you don't trust. If you have never had positive interactions with the

police and you can't necessarily trust them, why should I or anyone

else put my trust in you? There are a lot of good police officers, I

have come across quite a few myself. I have also come across some who

abuse their powers. I believe one of the things that changed the

relationship between the and the community is that they were ready

to listen. Le # I went to the house # Where I was.

I was at university when Stephen was murdered. I identified with him

because it absolutely could have been me.

It took the experience of black communities and part of what were

very often private conversations about how those communities felt

about the police and it took the lid off that and showed it to white

society. In such a way that was It was a moment in which a page

turned on race relations. The quest for justice began. It took too long,

but that has been a huge opportunity that still has to be

seized. Here at Life magazine we deal with a range of youth issues,

anything from music, fashion, news, politics. But one of the issues

that keeps coming up is policing and how the police deal with the

community. One of the issues that we are always discussing is the

issue of stop-and-search. I can recall the first time I got stopped

and search. I think I was 13. I was 11 I had been to go and see

Harry Potter with my friend in Sutton. Because my school is where

it is I have a season ticket to get there for the whole term. It was an

expensive ticket. And when I came back from leaving the station the

police were doing the ticket checks and the oyster card checks to make

sure everyone had paid for their journey, when I gave the officer my

ticket he was asking me where did I get the money for the ticket? He

got me to empty out my pockets. can be quite humiliating for a

person just to be put out in public while we are people are going about

their business. It is not a great dealing. I think just my many times

experience in that and the way the police interact with me it is

tainted my relationship with the police. I was quite upset about the

whole thing, it was quite scary, I didn't see what I had done wrong.

In some ways I think that's when your innocence gets lost because,

you know, it is the police, the police are the people you go to

when you are lost, the police are those nice people that will help

you on the street. But after you have experienced stop-and-search I

think you are perception of them You have to look at stop-and-search

in the context of the investigation of street crimes. That's the issue

that you are looking at. You are either trying in the immediate

aftermath of a crime to find a suspect and find evidence by

flooding an area with police officers and then searching

everybody that you come across. Or you are doing it in a way that you

have had information that a certain group of people are selling drugs

and you are hoping to intervene in that and maybe get the drugs

recovered and get evidence for a prosecution Everything is that we

know about policing requires the co-operation of the public. If the

public are alienated, and the public aren't alienated just bus of

police, but if the police are engaging with the public in ways

that adds to that sense of alienation and humiliation, the

public will not come forward and co-operate and not act as witnesses

and give information in the same way they would. That is the life

blood of policing. In 1993 I don't recognise collect a remember --

recollect a serious concern about gang violence and gangs. There were

not young people being stabbed in our streets, or gunned down. So I

think that the political pressure to do something about that led to

an increase in stop-and-search. And that stop-and-search was badly,

badly mishandled. My cousin was murdered in October 2007 and the

case was not solved. It was a situation as to where he was, I

guess it came across that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Someone must have seen something, someone must have heard something.

They might have had the smallest bit of information but perhaps fear

made them keep quiet. So because of that the police didn't really have

enough to go on to solve the situation. The police kind of

expect you to co-operate with them and tell them everything, but once

you do that, they go back to their station and stuff, but it is you

who still has to stay in the community. You have to deal with

the aftermath of that. So if you were to tell them something in

confidence and it comes out that it was you that told them, and they

are not there to actually protect you then it is bad situation.

often the police rely on reference groups and ways in which the

community can speak to the police. In the end what we need is for the

police to be the community. So that we have a Police Service not a

police force. The 20-year-old was shot three times, the police say

they have no motive for his killing. He was driving his car along this

road in nearby Hulme. In 1999 I had a call one evening to say that my

son was shot. And by the time I had reached the hospital he was dead.

My son was shot three times in the back. One of the bullets was fatal.

We have never actually heard anything about the case. We have

heard rumours on the street. But I think rumours are just rumours. I

don't like talking about them. I did not believe my son was part of

a gang and no-one has ever said that before his death or after his

death. I went out trying to find out where the gangs were hanging

out, what I could do to meet them and talk to them. One of the things

that happened quite a lot and was complained about a lot with young

black men was the police and the way they treated them on the

streets. Sometimes for no apparent reason they would be stopped and

searched. I felt that what the police were doing, the relationship

with the police and black men wasn't really very good. It was

getting worse, really. The high proportion of murders, shootings

has dropped drastically. That is all because the police and the

community has come together, the police has listened to the

community and now we are working together. Whenever you come

together and work together then things will change. I think it is

niave to believe that there aren't communities where the police are

hated. If you start talking about trying to build trust in those

kinds of areas you have a long way to go before you even get to the

starting line. This mistrust has been built up over many, many years,

with problems on both sides. Maybe problems on insensitive policing on

the one hand, but also problems with a very high crime rate on the

other hand. The fundamental question today is a question of

trust. All public authorities actually, there are big questions

of trust. We have seen this with MPs. We have seen this with the

journalists, all sorts of sections of community there are questions of

trust. But I think if policing by consent is to survive, then there

need to be considerably more trust between young people and the police,

and between parts of, not all of, but parts of the black community.

I understand the police do have some difficult jobs to do. I

understand that they might need the support of a community. But in

order to get the support of a community you need the trust of a

community. It is a hand in hand. Your community will support the

police if the community trusts the police. And in order for the

community to trust the police the police need to show that they are

on the community's side and they are here to help. Stkpwhrfl for

their thoughts on what has changed since the Stephen Lawrence case.

I'm joined by Sean Leopold, a graduate who is a marketing

executive. The writer Dreda Say Mitchell, Pastor Bishop Wayne Brown,

the Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, chaplain to the Speaker of the

House of Commons and the Queen. Assistant Commissioner Simon Byrne

of the Metropolitan Police. I want to begin talking about the police

if we can. That was what much of the report was about. I just

wondered what your thoughts were when you hear young people say it

does change your perception of the police who we need, when you get

stopped and searched and you get angry? It was a really interesting

film. I take the cue from what you said in the introduction. You

talked about the police on trial at the time of Macpherson and the

Lawrence trial. We have been on probation ever since is my analogy.

The stories were very powerful. I won't pretend personally that a

police force and personally that we don't listen to those. The Police

Commissioner has been struck by the story around about 18 months ago if

you are a young black man in London your experience of stop-and-search

of not a good one. The best thing we can do is demonstrate by deed

rather than word. We have listened hard, I'm sure people have

experienced both in the room and outside the studio about what the

Met has done, I think we have done some significant things,

particularly around stop-search. There is more to do. We do less,

the number of stop-searches have fallen, we do it more effectively,

one in five people we stop we get a result on. We either arrest them or

find evidence. We do it more fairly because the number of complaints

have fallen. If you take all that together in a context where serious

crime in London has fallen quite dramatically. If you take the

example again from the film, going back to Greater Manchester, my last

force in actual fact. Serious youth crime, which affects young men

under the age of 25 has fallen by a third last year. Street robbery in

London, as I see it today is down by nearly a third. You presumably

accept the young man who said he was coming from a Harry Potter film

and he got stopped and searched, it changed his perception, that still

goes on, that is not just a problem for him but a problem for you. You

presumably want to police with his consent and the consent of the rest

of the community? That story does not sound something I would be

professionally proud of. You go back, as much as we are sitting

hereed today, 20 years after an awful murder. We are also 200 years

after Sir Robert Peel founded the police force on that principle, I'm

a person in uniform, I get the authority to police the streets as

do my officers from the people of London. We have to listen. Would it

help you and the community if there were more black police officers,

Macpherson wanted 7%, it is 5% in England and Wales the Met figures

are different. You said greater man chest, the Chief Constable there

said it is not about political correctness, it is about

operational need. We need a more diverse Police Service, we haven't

got it? No, we have made some improvements right through the

ranks of the Police Service, over a period of time the number of police

officers on the streets in London is 10%, as your film showed that

doesn't reflect the population of London. The actual population of

London and the demographics is changing rapidly we need to keep

pace with that. How do you do that? I mean the whole question of

positive discim nation -- discrimination usually comes up,

and can you promote them. It is not just the police and other

institutions too who fail to put ethically diverse people in the top

ranks as well. That is certainly true of the police? Firstly, four

of my senior colleagues are black and minority ethnic officers that

is a lot, a team of 28 senior stprs. People will judge that from outside

the Metropolitan Police. Outside of London, despite the as you tert we

will bring in 5,000 officers into the Met. We will try to recruit

those from the population of London. We want to reflect how the

population looks. Be the community. You are a leader within your

community, do you find that you should explain perhaps to some

young people this is maybe irritating but it might cut down

gun crime, drug crime and so on, things we are all too familiar

with? I don't know if it is my duty to explain to those young people

I'm not always with them. Their experience is so real and so true

that I can't say it doesn't happen to them. I will tell you this

though outside of my church on a Sunday evening at church service

two guys were coming in who are members of the church and they were

stopped by six police outside and they did not accept that they were

coming into church. So what we do now as a church to combat that sort

of approach is to say well let us organise ourselves so our church is

maybe of the citizens UK, London citizens, and we work with the

Metropolitan Police and the City Safe programmes, we say let's

organise ourselves and get ourselves together. In truth we

can't expect an institution to actually cater for the needs of our

community. So you basically are saying the community has

responsibility, you have responsibilities as well, it is not

just pointing the finger? It is twofold, two prongs of a fork as it

were. There is a job the police have to do. There is also a job

that we as a community have to do, we have to organise. I wondered

what you felt, the Assistant Commissioner is talking about

things have changed in all sorts of ways. Do you see that stop-and-

search is still a major irritant or something less of an irritant?

is an irritant. I have to say. When you look at the Macpherson Report

and the recommendations. He talked very explicitly about institutional

racism, you have to keep the spotlight on the institution. In

that instance you are talking about the police. I can talk about and

search it happened to me four years ago when I was on my way to the BBC

to be a guest on the show. It was interesting, it was a knife search

at a tube station, I got searched, he didn't mind, I was really for

that, I want to join in helping to fight knife crime, just like

anybody else. However, when I got to the BBC, there was another guest

there, she was white, similar age to me, she said what happened to

her at the tube station was that the police waved her around the

metal detector, you have to ask yourself why is that happening. She

looked very different from me, I looked very much like I do today

with my Jeannes and boot on. You have to ask yourself is there a

type of look that people are looking for? But I have to say I

was encouraged by this, when I phoned the police to complain I was

actively advised to complain. were advised by the police to

complain? Yes, and I don't think that would have happened years ago.

But I have to say we were talking about complaints going down in

relation to stop-and-search. When I spoke to my family a lot of them

said they wouldn't have even bothered to phone the police.

Complaints may have gone down, is that signifying that complaints are

going down or people can't be bothered. Did you find out why?

did, it was, you could take this as a compliment, they thought I was in

the 18-30 age range and that I might have been a gang member's

girlfriend carrying their weapons for them. But you have to put that

alongside somebody else, similar group, different ethnicity gets

waved around the metal detector I get stopped and search. That is a

very good point. Going back four years a going through the facts and

figures and you quoted some on the film. The most experience of stop-

search with the Met is driven by two powers. One comes from when we

generally want to look for people behaving suspiciously, and looking

for stolen goods or drugs, that causes an sie. But the example you

talk about is something we call a section 60 search, where there has

been violence in a particular location and we fear it. That power

which has to be signed off by a senior officer gives officers the

permission to randomly search people. I'm guessing that's what

happened to you. Randomly, I think you have to think, if you are going

to do that, why not let everyone go through the metal detector, surely

that is the fair thing. When you see somebody similar to you but the

race is different? There must be profiling going on out there.

it is a very interesting issue, I would say a few things, it is four

years ago. Those powers that were probably used in that example, I

don't know specifically, but they have reduced by nearly 99%. So that

when it used to be almost a tick in the box and confetti, we don't do

operations like that routinely any more. I have gone through this

training myself. The guidance to frontline officers, we have an on-

line training package that every officer in the Met has been asked

to complete, it talks about no hunches and no stereotypes. We are

learning from experiences like yours to be far more intelligent

about it. I'm convinced some of the dramatic falls in crime this year

is targeting the right people. help from the community I want to

bring in everybody else, briefly do you think that is true, there is

more help from the community now that things have changed or not?

I'm not sure when I talk to the young men in my family so many are

stopped and searched. They wear suits and drive cars. When I talk

to people at the grassroots people are reticent about helping the

police. We began by talking about how institutions have changed, you

are part of various institutions, do you think that has changed and

people see much more of a stake in society and there is more

opportunities within various black communities to get on? There have

been some changes over the 20 years. But not enough. If I was writing a

school report I would say there is still a lot more work to be done.

That is the reality. The police is only a small section of society so

to speak. And they are from the community. I think that there is

still profiling going on not just in your institution, but in other

institutions. 17 years ago I approached a group, a religious

group, church group, I said to them if you have a vacancy and I apply

for it would you accept me? Would you offer me an interview and this

wonderful beautiful Christian woman looked at me and said we don't have

any black people here, so why would we think of having you! I smiled

and I said isn't that interesting. So you can go to the inner city or

Africa et and work with black people but -- et cetera and work

with black people but we can't work with you. There is something there

still in people's mind, that was 17 years ago. I can guarantee that

there is still that mentality today, it hasn't gone very far. There is

an issue still in society in terms of racism. You broke into one of

the great British institutions, Oxford for a start. Did you feel

when you looked around at the other students, did you feel you fitted

in, you don't fit in, you fit in intellectually but you are

different? It is really interesting point. I have never personally

experienced overt racism, never at my time at Oxford for example.

However, you do have to stop and think every now and again, you look

up from your books as it were and you realise there aren't all that

many people around me that look like me. You ask the question why

is that? Is it me who is overachieving, is it because this

is normal or I got lucky. Going into Oxford I went to a state

school and state secondary school, I live on a council estate. I did

for most of my life, I was raised by a single mother. From a

demographic perspective, I live in central London, from a demographic

perspective it shouldn't work, I did achieve T I didn't overtly feel

problems while I was there in terms of racial tension. From a

statistical perspective, statistically black males who get

into Oxford are less than 1% of the population. In your professional

life do you have the same thing of looking around and saying where are

the people who look like me? It is something you don't say or bring it

up. I have never felt uncomfortable. It is the sheer numbers, when you

stop and think it is just you and maybe one other person, it makes

you ask questions, that is all. was pointed out that everybody has

a responsibility here, including communities. Where is the problem,

do you see this as a problem, or do you see this as the beginning of

opportunities that might take a long time? I'm not sure I agree

with the whole premise that it is a two-way thing, that the community

has to do along with the institution. We have a clear signal

from the Fiorentina report and recommendations, institutional

racism. For the first time in society we had to wake up to racism

is not about one individual, it is not about a few rotten apples in a

barrel, you are talking about institution, and particularly in

that instance public institutions that are there to serve everyone.

That is what we should be really talking about I feel. An American

politician once talked about the bigotry of low expectation, that

does affect the community, if people think you are not going to

achieve you might not achieve? There has to be something to be

said. And I'm not disagreeing with you, I understand your point. There

has to be something said about what we are doing for ourselves. Are we

educating ourselves. Are we mentoring ourselves. And that quote

that you said from the report, there is another guy called Dr

Woodson, he wrote the book The Miseducation of the Growing negro,

he said if you train someone to use the back door they will never seek

to use the front door. What has happened over a generation is

unfortunately we have not as a community not taken hold of

ourselves. What do you think about that? Racism is about having the

power over an individual, it is not just about I don't like you because

of the colour of your skin. What we are dealing with today is a legacy

of empire that says the black person is of no worth is of no

value. So for example every time we talk about why don't we have more

black people in the police, in the church in the BBC for example, then

we get to oh but we need to have the right person as implying that

we haven't got the skills and the ability et cetera to do it. We are

capable of being trained just like you are. You know, and so there is

a real issue. We need to change the tunes in our head and stop

impacting on the lives of people. We have just a couple of minutes

left, you give one definition of racism, the one thing that probably

strikes all of us is the football chants, the overtness of it is

still there, but it is much, much diminished? It is but I think we

keep talking about that too much. That is not what we are talking

about, it is an issue about power, institutions, there is only so much

a community can do. At the end of the day if they are blocked what

more can they do it is the institution that has to change.

also need to look, it is interesting sports, interesting

music, those fields, loads and loads of people from ethnic

backgrounds because there is an expectation. There was a time when

institutions like education used to channel our children into those

areas. And what we have seen is that young black people growing up

have seen reflections of themselves in those areas, so they know they

can do it. But they are not seeing reflection of themselves in other

areas. I think that is a very interesting point. Of yesteryear,

particularly from ThatGrapeJuice perspective, in the music industry

you will find in the 1990s we went through an era of rappers, it was

very bling, and the black people represented were flamboyant and

uneducated, they flashed their money. It wasn't the best

representation of black people. I feel like what you have seen over

time the perfect example is rapper Jay-Z, he has been around for a

long time and made the transition to the modern day. I believe he has

been respected more as a businessman and entrepeneur. All

that previous culture of what it meant to be successful and black

has diminished. Your sense from the start of the conversation is the

Met has a long way to go? It has some way to go in some things. The

best people to judge are the people in the room and the people we

police in London. If I'm inside looking out I will be tainted by my

own personal experience. In terms of optimisim, we are listening, the

last bit of the discussion, the Met is on the cusp of ideas around

direct entry. If you are looking at the point about having role models

and encouraging people there is a future in policing for people from

all sorts of communities across London. There is probably some

people in the room to look at the direct entry scheme when it is

launched. Thank you. Coming up, music to the

ears of the Proms fans, Doctor Who and the Daleks will return. The

last night will be conducted by a woman! We will be composing an

interview with her. Barack Obama returned to the city where he and

his wife went to university. Boston, to more on those who lost their

lives and consoled those injured in the marathon. The FBI have been

speaking and released images of two suspects. We're in Boston.

For the past 36 hours it has been known that the FBI had images from

surveillance cameras around the bomb sites of people they had taken

a strong interest in. But they haven't shown them to us, and last

night a press conference where it was expected that would happen was

cancelled, leaving the field open to rampant speculation from all

quarters as to who these individuals might be and what they

might look like. Tonight the FBI tried to regain control of the

initiative in this information campaign with this announcement.

They are identified as suspect 1 and suspect 2. They appear to be

associated. Suspect 1 is wearing a dark hat, suspect 2 is wearing a

white hat. Suspect 2 set down a back pack at the site of the second

explosive, just in front of the Forum Restaurant.

Now we have seen them, the men were described by the FBI as being

potentially armed and dangerous. And they urged the public not to

approach them. To what extent does this fill some of the pretty big

gaps. Let's assume the FBI is correct in

naming these two people as suspects, it hasn't been a terrible mistake.

Presumably this is what part of the delay was about, really trying to

drill and make sure they couldn't identify these people by the

methods. In the first place this dispels the Lone Wolf theory. They

talk about the two suspects, one of whom is seen to place a rucksack in

a place where one of the bomb went off. In the second place it will,

if you like give some clues as to their possible identity. This is a

difficult one though, you can look at those pictures very closely as

we have during the past 45-minutes, these people could be of middle

eastern origin or European origin. There are still many questions open

and there will be a continuation of a good deal of uneasiness and fear

and speculation of a kind that we have seen here in recent days.

sought to intimidate us, terrorise us, well it should be pretty clear

by now that they picked the wrong city to do it. Outside the

Cathedral of the Holy Cross, people listened to the service. Many wore

the black of mourning. They had been drawn there by an on-line

appeal to thwart anti-Obama protestors who might try to hijack

the event. I started a group on Facebook to get people to come down

to show solidarity and support for the victims. As of this morning

there is 7,000 people or so part of the movement. As you can see there

is several thousand people that showed up today for support. Inside

the President attended a multifaith service for the victims. An action

his adviser felt was best calibrated neither to reLuiz

Eduardo the perpetrator nor to arouse accusations of political

opportunism. Your city is with you, your

Commonwealth is with you, your country is with you, we will all be

with you as you learn to stand and walk, and yes run again, of that I

have no doubt you will run again. APPLAUSE

You will run again. This is a city in which many

versions of what happened on Monday, who did it and why now vie for

attention. Do you think there are dangers in the rush to look for

culprits? Surely there are, and the President is trying to be cautious

and say let as not point fingers until we really know. There is a

vigilante kind of instinct here, find the people and string them up.

On social media many theories are flagged up, and people pointed out

as potential bombers. Here we have blurred them, some look middle

eastern, and others an grow white men. The theories show shown in the

posters. Yesterday the feebbriel atmosphere could be seen, it wasn't

a lynch mob, more the crowd of the curious driven by rumour and

supposition. An hour ago rumours spread that a man was in custody

and about to be charged here at the courthouse. Run hundreds of people

have appeared -- hundreds of people have appeared and dozens of TV

crews. They are staying here even though now it has been officially

denied by the police and the Government that anybody at all is

in custody. It is a measure of how much the atmosphere is driven by

rumour, and in a way a secondary affect that a terrorist would have

wanted to create. Evacuate, I'm not asking I'm telling you to. Then the

temperature went up another notch, everyone was evacuated, including

the court's creche. Someone had phoned in a bomb hoax. This crowd

persisted for hours. Even when it ought to have been clear there was

no prisoner and no bomb. But people go by gut instinct and prejudice in

this climate. You have 300 million people in this country, you don't

need more than a few whackos to do something like that. They know the

heightened sense of security and their intention was to get

publicity and attention, what better time to do it. The forensic

teams combing the sites are still finding clues. It is their quest

for hard fact that provides the fuel that ought to resolve the

theories about who did it and why. Most Bostonians meanwhile are

trying to press on regardless. this town the three things we care

about most are sports, politics and revenge. But when I say revenge I

don't mean it in a violent sense at all. The best revenge we can take

against these people is to not let them change the way we live our

lives. With feelings still inflaipltd and little coming from

the inquiry, the -- inflamed and little coming from the inquiry, the

vacuum has been filled with speculation, and the affect

amplified by media old and new. There will be answers, but some

will choose to believe other explanations. Those that emerged

during these days of the aftermath. An American conductor, Marin Alsop,

will make history this summer as the first woman in more than a

hundred years to conduct that great British institution, the Last Night

of the Proms. This year's Proms begin in July and will include

anything from the Tardis, celebrating the 50th anniversary of

Doctor Who, to hip hop, Nigel Kennedy and Wagner's Ring Cycle.

The last night will include Rule Britannia, pomp and circumstance

and a lot of flags. This is the woman who will conduct

the Last Night of the Proms this year. Strangely it tends to be men

who wagle a little stick around in public. Is there a fraudian doctor

in the house! Freudian doctor in the house! Marin Alsop is the

conductor of the Symphony Orchestra, and has done a lot to bring music

to the underprivileged. But conducting a last night, some say

Proms director Roger Wright fears a backlash.

It is wonderful to have McAllister all McAllister as the conductor for

the last night. It seems such a -- to have Marin Alsop as the

conductor of the last night. It seems a natural development, she

was loved by the audience and a big hit with the Sao Paulo orchestra

last year, and then arriving at the extraordinary moment at the end of

the festival. She's going to be a perfect conductor for the last

night in terms of the confidence and the range of music that she

conducts so magnificently. Proms will include a selection of

themes from Doctor Who. Would you like a cup of tea! It was fantastic,

and I did it a couple of years ago and I had a great time and I did a

little sketch there as well. I love the Albert Hall, I love the Proms,

I love classical music. Prom-goers love the eccentric character who

seems to have arrived from outer space. And violinist Nigel Kennedy

will be there too. And the Proms have gone punk. The

Stranglers will be likely to be swatting away Union Jacks rather

than dry ice on one of the nights. Is it true, punk as respectable as

Brahms, Beethoven, Sir Mick Jagger. With Proms audiences and with

audiences in general now, they are much less used to putting music in

particular boxes. What it is about is a quality music experience. When

Jamie Cullumwas at the Proms and Soft Machine was at the Proms many

years ago, it is about developing an audience for quality music.

the story making the headlines tomorrow, and who knows making one

or two of you fill your Mont Blancs with green ink is Marin Alsop's

turn on the rostrum on the last night. Things need to change, say

some. In the institutions we don't have very many women who are

teachers, professors and so on. And I think if that changed, if the

balance changed a little bit there, then it may help to inspire women

composers. In the sex war Miss Alsop's turn on the podium souoints

counts as a kind of baton round. Points as a kind of baton round.

Marin Alsop joins me now from Baltimore. Congratulations, how did

it come about, the first woman in 118 years? Well that sound quite

daunting doesn't it. But I have had the great privilege of conducting

at the Proms when I was the chief conductor of the symphony. I

appeared twice with that great orchestra. And last summer with my

orchestra from Brazil, we had an incredible evening at the Proms. So

I think this was just a natural outgrowth of that. It is great news.

I don't know if you could hear Dame Evelyn Glenni reflecting the fact

there is so few women and Musical Directors of major orchestras. Why

is that? It is a matter of comfort level. As a society we don't see

women in these roles frequently enough. It is changing but it is a

slow change. It is up to us, the women that are in these positions

and the men in these positions to create more opportunities for

audiences and the public to see more women in these roles.

Particularly as conductor, I mean, you really have to have more

opportunities to give it a try. are talking to us from the great

city of Baltimore, which musically people might remember Francis Scott

Key, a couple of hundred years ago composed The National Anthem after

being shelled by the Britain. I hope you are not going to play

something American at the end of the Proms? I have a lot of ambition,

let's just say. Are you really looking forward to it, audiences

are terrific, but the last night is extraordinary? I can't tell you

what a thrill it is, I love working with the British musicians and the

audiences have been incredible. I really feel as though the UK has

been a second home to me. I felt that way since the moment I

conducted. I can't wait. Tell us a bit about outreach and how, we

heard a little bit there about how people put music less in boxing

than they used to. But you are also quite influenced by the Venezuelan

system of trying to get people in poorer areas where they might not

be interested in classical music to get involved. Tell us about that?

feel strongly as do so many of my colleagues that music and art

should be accessible to everyone human being and include everyone.

Part of the issue is enabling kids to play instruments and be part of

a musical ensemble from a very early age. So here in Baltimore we

started an afterschool programme called Or-Kids, we started with 25

kids five years ago and now we have 600 kid. As a matter of fact

tonight I have a Scottish precussionists, Colin Curry

performing with me and my kids are doing an encore with him after his

concerto, you will be well represented tonight. We will expect

Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory and all the favourites. What

else can we expect? Absolutely, but as you say I will bring a little

bit of America with me. Doing some music by Len nerd Bernstein, the

wonderful mezzo soprano Joyce will be appearing, and others, we have

Wagner and something for everybody, a great evening. Just a final

thought, is this a big deal for you? Yeah it is a big deal. I think

people in America don't quite get it, but I have spent enough time in

Britain and especially in London. I get it. Thank you very much for

talking to us. That's it for tonight, we wanted to

leave you with the news that the artist whose album covers plink

Floyd's the Dark Side of the Moon In a way artists are intul gent and