:00:23. > :00:27.The Taliban take up scissors for their deant. But was it worth all
:00:27. > :00:31.the deaths of thousands upon thousands of Afghan civilians and
:00:31. > :00:35.coalition troops to achieve talks without preconditions. Should
:00:35. > :00:42.incompetent bankers face criminal charges. Will tomorrow's Banking
:00:42. > :00:50.Commission report really revolutionise financial services?
:00:50. > :00:54.Normally I would throw in some white wine now. Nigel la Lawson's
:00:54. > :00:59.husband has accepted a caution for assaulting her. Is this the real
:00:59. > :01:09.picture of domestic violence. We meet the oligarch reputed to be
:01:09. > :01:11.
:01:11. > :01:15.Russia's richest man. Good evening, almost 12 years after the US
:01:15. > :01:20.coalition forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan, at least one
:01:20. > :01:23.faction of it is to hold direct talks from the delegation from
:01:24. > :01:27.Hamid Karzai's Government and US official as early as Thursday, in
:01:27. > :01:31.their first overseas office in Qatar. The announcement was made on
:01:31. > :01:35.the day NATO formally handed over all security to the Afghan
:01:35. > :01:43.Government forces. It has been a long and bloody battle. Tens of
:01:43. > :01:47.thousands of Afghan civilians have died. 2,238 US personnel, and 444
:01:47. > :01:49.UK servicemen and women. President Obama has cautioned against
:01:49. > :01:54.expectations of quick progress, anticipating a lot of bumps in the
:01:54. > :02:00.road. First of all, these bumps in the
:02:00. > :02:04.road, what are the pitfalls we can expect? All sorts of things, really,
:02:04. > :02:09.there has been an unhappy history of trying to get these talks
:02:09. > :02:13.together. Many false starts. One incident that happened in 2011 was
:02:13. > :02:20.the head of the high council for reconciliation in Afghanistan, the
:02:20. > :02:23.same job holder, if you like, who will go to the talks in Qatar, was
:02:23. > :02:27.murdered by a bomb placed by somebody who he thought was a
:02:27. > :02:31.Taliban leader coming to talk to him. Many false starts. Then there
:02:31. > :02:40.is the issue of how many people fighting in the countryside are
:02:40. > :02:44.really loyal to this group who have today announced these talks. The
:02:44. > :02:48.called Quetasura of the Taliban. NATO have said 75% of the people
:02:49. > :02:51.they were involved of fighting with live within five miles of their own
:02:51. > :02:54.home. They are not foreign Jihadists, they are local people
:02:55. > :03:01.with a local sense of grievance. There are other groups other than
:03:01. > :03:09.this, the called Hakani network and other Islamic groups. Would they
:03:09. > :03:16.come along with a deal? These are all big questions and they have to
:03:16. > :03:20.be answered as soon as these talks begin in ernest. The G8 summit
:03:20. > :03:25.ended in Northern Ireland with a distinct feeling of being upstaged.
:03:25. > :03:31.As the leaders had just about managed to sketch broad consensus
:03:31. > :03:36.on topics from tax to Syria, news was coming in of a dramatic turn in
:03:36. > :03:40.the long-running Afghanistan campaign. Peace talks opening with
:03:40. > :03:44.the Taliban. I have long argued that we need to match the security
:03:44. > :03:49.response in Afghanistan with a political process to try to make
:03:49. > :03:53.sure that as many people as possible give us violence, give up
:03:54. > :03:57.armed struggle and join the political process. And that is
:03:58. > :04:02.exactly what I hope can happen with elements of the Taliban. That is
:04:02. > :04:05.the point of the Taliban office in Doha in Qatar, and that is the
:04:05. > :04:10.point of the discussions that the Americans will have.
:04:10. > :04:16.Across the world in Qatar Taliban representatives chose this day to
:04:16. > :04:21.open their new office, complete with ribbon cutting. Previous
:04:21. > :04:24.attempts to start a peace process with this gulf emirate hosting
:04:24. > :04:32.negotiations had failed. But the objections have finally been put to
:04:32. > :04:37.one side. TRANSLATION: Now you know that Afghanistan's problem has two
:04:37. > :04:40.aspects, foreign and domestic. The most important important aspect is
:04:40. > :04:44.foreign, because they are under the control of the occupation, when
:04:44. > :04:54.occupation ends, goodwilling, things will move forward.
:04:54. > :05:04.
:05:04. > :05:08.movement went as far as to say it The Americans' reaction was
:05:08. > :05:13.positive, if a little brusque. is good news, we are very pleased
:05:13. > :05:17.with what has taken place, thanks. While in Kabul it was announced
:05:17. > :05:22.that NATO troops had handed the leadership of combat operations to
:05:23. > :05:26.President Karzai's Government. TRANSLATION: From tomorrow all
:05:26. > :05:29.forms of security from around the country will be led by our own
:05:29. > :05:32.security and defence forces. I'm announcing this to my countrymen
:05:32. > :05:38.that in the next month the fifth and final step of security
:05:38. > :05:43.transition will start. It has been apparent for months that NATO
:05:43. > :05:45.forces were moving into the background. Indeed, during a visit
:05:45. > :05:50.to Helmand Province earlier this year, we found that British
:05:50. > :05:53.soldiers were quickly pulling out of their bases, hardly patrolling
:05:53. > :05:59.outside the wire and effectively considered their combat mission to
:05:59. > :06:05.be over. What we have moved to now is a situation where the Afghan
:06:05. > :06:10.security forces really are in the lead doing all this work for
:06:10. > :06:17.themselves. We have reduced our profile to such an extent that we
:06:17. > :06:22.don't do ground combat-type operations any more. This drawing
:06:22. > :06:26.down by NATO has given the Taliban the necessary signal that what they
:06:26. > :06:32.term "the foreign occupation" of their country, is indeed ending.
:06:32. > :06:36.Now NATO commanders will look on as talks begin in Qatar with the
:06:36. > :06:39.Americans and the Taliban at the table, but with President Karzai's
:06:39. > :06:43.representatives in the driving seat. My perspective has always been that
:06:43. > :06:48.this war will have to end with a political reconciliation, and so I
:06:48. > :06:52.frankly would be supportive of any positive movement in terms of
:06:52. > :06:56.reconciliation, particularly an Afghan-led and owned process that
:06:56. > :07:00.would bring reconciliation between the Afghan people and the Taliban,
:07:00. > :07:05.in the context of the Afghan constitution. There is much that
:07:05. > :07:09.can still go wrong, and fighting is bound to continue in parts of the
:07:09. > :07:15.country. But today's opening offers the most important chance for more
:07:15. > :07:22.than a decade of starting a constructive peace process. Or is
:07:22. > :07:26.today's announcement an admission of defeat. In Washington is Kurt
:07:26. > :07:31.Volker the United States permanent representative to NATO from 2008/09.
:07:31. > :07:35.John Reid, a Labour former cab minister, who served as Defence
:07:35. > :07:39.Secretary from 2005/06, and Rudra Chaudhuri from the Department of
:07:39. > :07:42.War Studies at King's College London. He travelled as part of a
:07:42. > :07:46.group last year to meet former senior members of the Taliban and
:07:46. > :07:50.explore the possibilities for negotiations. First of all, we
:07:50. > :07:53.could have got here a lot faster if we were going to eventually
:07:53. > :07:58.negotiate without any pre- conditions. 2007 Gordon Brown said
:07:58. > :08:03.there was no talks and MI6 were talking. Why the delay? Two things,
:08:03. > :08:07.the first is the purpose of going into Afghanistan was to protect the
:08:07. > :08:11.British people. And for 1 years, and the people of the west, to de--
:08:11. > :08:15.11 years, and the people of the west, and they denied Al-Qaeda a
:08:15. > :08:18.base from which to launch attacks. It was the credit to our forces and
:08:19. > :08:23.those of the rest of the NATO forces in there that we have
:08:23. > :08:27.achieved that. The second thing is that all conflicts end in political
:08:27. > :08:31.discussions, but the timing is not predictable. It usually happens
:08:31. > :08:35.when one, or both sides recognise there is no military victory. I
:08:35. > :08:39.think it is significant that today the Taliban have been willing toe
:08:39. > :08:43.come to the table. You say there is no -- to come to the table. You say
:08:43. > :08:46.there is no pre-conditions, but the Taliban issued a statement thaiing
:08:46. > :08:51.in terms they wouldn't allow anyone on their soil to harm anyone
:08:51. > :08:54.outside the country. That seems to me like a big compromise. We can
:08:54. > :08:58.talk about what else they might come to the table with. When you
:08:58. > :09:04.say that negotiations usually happen when nobody wins, you
:09:04. > :09:09.admitting that we didn't win in Afghanistan? This is not, as
:09:09. > :09:12.General Rupert Smith once said the idea that these conflicts will end
:09:12. > :09:16.with a victory parade is to misunderstand the conflict. The
:09:17. > :09:21.victory was in defying and denying Al-Qaeda the attempt to that which
:09:21. > :09:25.they did in 9/11, we have done that. Kurt Volker is that your reading of
:09:25. > :09:30.the situation, is this the right time to be talking to the Taliban?
:09:30. > :09:33.Look there is never a wrong time to be willing to talk. If you want to
:09:33. > :09:36.try to resolve a problem it is always good to talk to your
:09:36. > :09:39.opponents. We are doing this from a position of weakness now. The
:09:39. > :09:43.Taliban has been willing to fight and die in order to control its
:09:43. > :09:46.country, or what it sees as its country for the last 12 years. We
:09:46. > :09:49.have demonstrated we are not willing to do that. In fact we have
:09:49. > :09:52.been getting out. So the Taliban knows it is going to get what it
:09:53. > :09:55.wants, one way or another. Whether we give it to them at a negotiating
:09:55. > :09:59.table, or whether they just continue to use the negotiations as
:09:59. > :10:03.a vehicle and keep fighting. What do you think the American people
:10:03. > :10:07.feel about that. Do they feel it was worth it to get Al-Qaeda out of
:10:07. > :10:10.Afghanistan? Yes. I think there are a couple of things. If you look at
:10:10. > :10:13.public opinion, one of them is they are tired of being in Afghanistan
:10:14. > :10:18.in general. We don't see the point of being there any more. Secondly,
:10:18. > :10:22.I think that they feel that, yes, indeed, Al-Qaeda is no longer using
:10:22. > :10:27.this territory, why should we be there, Al-Qaeda has moved on to
:10:27. > :10:33.Mali, to Somalia, to Yemen, why be tied down in Afghanistan. Plus we
:10:33. > :10:37.have work to do at home. The dang, I feel, is there is a great risk --
:10:38. > :10:42.danger, I feel, is the great risk is despite what the Taliban say, is
:10:42. > :10:45.they will impose their rule on Afghanistan in the minimum if not
:10:45. > :10:51.the entire country, and it will be very difficult for them not to
:10:51. > :10:55.provide a home to the Pakistani Taliban. Rudra Chaudhuri you were
:10:55. > :10:58.an outrider or an early group talking to a faction of the Taliban.
:10:58. > :11:02.That point there that they will take hold in southern Afghanistan
:11:02. > :11:06.again. There is that, secondly, are the Afghan forces sufficient to the
:11:06. > :11:10.task of making sure they don't. Thirdly, if I can do that, are you
:11:10. > :11:13.sure that some of the Afghan forces won't turn any way towards the
:11:13. > :11:17.Taliban? If I take the questions, the first point is we need to be
:11:17. > :11:22.very clear that we are dealing with a very slim minority within a very
:11:22. > :11:26.large majority of what we call the Taliban. That is danger in itself?
:11:26. > :11:29.It is dangerous but optimistic, you would rather be speaking to
:11:29. > :11:33.somebody rather than nobody. That needs to be tempered. The work we
:11:33. > :11:36.did with former Taliban figures of a political variety, politically
:11:36. > :11:39.motivated within a big movement, that today's largely controlled by
:11:39. > :11:42.the military, from what we understand. That needs to be taken
:11:42. > :11:47.in measure. On the question of will the Taliban come back to
:11:47. > :11:50.Afghanistan the way they did in the 1990s? I think the Taliban, or at
:11:50. > :11:55.least the ones we are speaking to are clear that is not going to
:11:55. > :12:02.happen. They are a slim faction of the Taliban? They are, from what we
:12:02. > :12:08.can understand. Absolutely. I just think, are they in any position to
:12:08. > :12:12.deliver a guarantee that there will be no Al-Qaeda on the soil, or
:12:12. > :12:17.indeed that there will be equal rights for women given that last
:12:17. > :12:20.week we were talking about 150 girls being gassed in a Kabul
:12:20. > :12:23.school? It really is hope over expectation isn't it? I think we
:12:23. > :12:27.need to role back a little here. The negotiations haven't even begun,
:12:27. > :12:31.this is the beginning of a dialogue process. You have certain elements
:12:31. > :12:37.willing to talk. You have come it a position where both sides have
:12:37. > :12:42.recognised. The Americans included, that military victory is out of the
:12:42. > :12:44.options. What do they want?This slim representation would want some
:12:44. > :12:48.political control within Afghanistan, that is not
:12:48. > :12:52.necessarily a terrible thing, given there is a tacit recognition that
:12:52. > :12:56.the Taliban aren't going away. Dr Chaudhuri says, this is a slim
:12:56. > :13:00.faction of the Taliban, ones that are politically motivated, not
:13:00. > :13:06.militarily motivated? There is one, and there is the Hakani group and
:13:06. > :13:09.various other groups as well. They do have a degree of democratic
:13:10. > :13:14.legitimacy, in the widest sense of that word, in the sense of having
:13:14. > :13:19.support among the Taliban. Look the key question is this, would you
:13:19. > :13:22.have got an agreement with the IRA or anyone else, if the pre-
:13:22. > :13:27.condition was you will surrender and you will publicly announce that
:13:27. > :13:32.you will accept all our conditions? No. Secondly is it going to be a
:13:32. > :13:36.long process? Yes it is. Have they, in the course of this, sent a
:13:36. > :13:42.signal today, and I mentioned it earlier, which is no-one inside our
:13:42. > :13:46.soil will be able to hand those outside. That is their quid pro quo
:13:46. > :13:50.for the Americans saying we won't ask you to mention the Taliban.
:13:50. > :13:54.Kurt Volker, do you think that the American people are going to go
:13:54. > :13:58.along with this idea. President Obama's idea that there will be
:13:59. > :14:05.many, many bumps in the road. This may be very protracted negotiations
:14:05. > :14:07.and there may be further violence. I think unfortunately I would say,
:14:07. > :14:12.unfortunately the American people are prepared to go along with that,
:14:12. > :14:15.I think the conclusion has been reached here, we are more
:14:15. > :14:20.interested in nation building at home than nation building in
:14:20. > :14:24.Afghanistan. Whether it means a degradation in governance or an end
:14:24. > :14:28.to women's rights or children's violence, the public perception is
:14:28. > :14:32.that is not our problem. That is interesting interested that what
:14:32. > :14:37.America was fighting for was freedom for all. That has just gone
:14:37. > :14:40.out the window. This is a pure pragmatisim? It is, what I would
:14:40. > :14:44.say is we made great gains in Afghanistan, and you mentioned some
:14:44. > :14:48.of them over the last 12 years. The real risk is these are now all on
:14:48. > :14:51.the table to either be negotiated away, or taken away by the Taliban.
:14:51. > :14:55.I think that with a further commitment over a period of time we
:14:55. > :15:00.would have been able to stablise this, but that moment has probably
:15:00. > :15:03.gone. I disagree with that to some extent, for two reasons. Coming
:15:03. > :15:09.back to the original point, this may be a slim faction of the
:15:09. > :15:14.Taliban, but it is a very important faction of the Taliban. It is the
:15:14. > :15:18.old Taliban from the 1980s and 1990s, they have a great amount of
:15:18. > :15:21.spiritual power. That needs to be kept in mind. The window of
:15:21. > :15:25.opportunity sceptics would argue was 18 months, but the fact of the
:15:25. > :15:28.matter, and Lord Reid knows better than most is negotiations take time,
:15:28. > :15:33.pre-conditions need to be worked out. You have two sides on the
:15:33. > :15:35.table willing to talk. On the women's rights and human rights,
:15:35. > :15:39.you are absolutely right, I agree with the colleague from the United
:15:39. > :15:42.States, maybe it is all up for grabs. The optimist in me would say
:15:42. > :15:46.two things, there is evidence of senior former Taliban leaders today
:15:47. > :15:50.who have taken a reformist position, there are girls' schools protect, a
:15:50. > :15:54.women's college set up by a former senior Taliban minister. The
:15:54. > :15:57.Taliban is a different beast today, and they recognise that. It has to
:15:57. > :16:05.take on a certain liberal position because Afghanistan is not the same
:16:05. > :16:09.as in the 1990s. In a moment: I'm about to meet my
:16:09. > :16:16.first Russian oligarch. Russia's richest mantles us about his
:16:16. > :16:21.passion for Faberge eggs. Now the coalition Government promised to
:16:21. > :16:25.clean out the banking system after the failures of many senior figures
:16:25. > :16:29.from RBS's Fred Goodwin to Lord Denis Stevenson of HBOS. The
:16:29. > :16:36.parliamentary commission on banking standards, set up by George Osborne
:16:36. > :16:40.last July is due to report tomorrow. The report apparently contains a
:16:40. > :16:45.section about resistance to reform, and a series of recommendations to
:16:45. > :16:48.put a rocket under their governance. What have we learned tonight?
:16:48. > :16:51.report is under embargo for midnight plus one minute. But the
:16:51. > :16:55.newspapers which we have here have printed the gist of it. And the
:16:55. > :17:00.gist actually is something that will probably raise a cheer in many
:17:00. > :17:06.a pub. But not a cheer in many a bank boardroom. It is simply
:17:06. > :17:09.bankers who do wrong should be jailed. It is the idea that you
:17:09. > :17:15.give specific responsibility to specific people in banks, so you
:17:15. > :17:18.are the guy who is there to stop us rigging LIBOR, if we do that you
:17:18. > :17:22.get sacked, banned or in the Washington Post case go to jail.
:17:22. > :17:25.This is one massive change of focus. This is just a committee in
:17:25. > :17:30.parliament. I was going to say, there may be a cheer in the pub,
:17:30. > :17:33.but it may be a hollow cheer, because will any of this actually
:17:33. > :17:39.happen? It is this committee has actually gone rogue. It wasn't set
:17:39. > :17:45.up to do a lot of this, it is chaired by a prominent Conservative
:17:45. > :17:49.MP, it has set an agenda about naming and also bringing what you
:17:49. > :17:52.might call a Conservative agenda to this, for example, personal
:17:52. > :17:56.responsibility. We focused for five years on structure and restructure
:17:56. > :18:00.in the banking sector. Has I have been finding out today, this change
:18:00. > :18:03.of emphasis is in the air because essentially many people think that
:18:03. > :18:11.the structural changes that we have done so far just won't work on
:18:11. > :18:15.their own. A brief history of British banking in the last ten
:18:15. > :18:19.years would include the following, banks mis-sold payment protection
:18:19. > :18:23.insurance and now us about �12 billion. Then a series of
:18:23. > :18:26.catastrophic management errors led to the collapse of Northern Rock,
:18:26. > :18:32.Bradford & Bingley, and the nationalisation of RBS, HBOS and
:18:32. > :18:37.Lloyd's. The taxpayer bailed them out to the tune of �133 billion,
:18:37. > :18:42.the Bank of England printed �375 billion, which it gave to the banks,
:18:42. > :18:45.but they didn't lend very much to British business. Then they were
:18:45. > :18:48.found out manipulating the world's most fundamental interest rate,
:18:48. > :18:50.LIBOR. If, surveying the recent history of
:18:51. > :18:55.banking, finance and insurance, you come to the conclusion that the
:18:55. > :19:01.whole thing might be something of a scam, perpetrated on its customers
:19:01. > :19:04.by an unaccountable elite, then from tomorrow you are not alone.
:19:04. > :19:09.MPs and peers look set to go further than any Government has
:19:09. > :19:13.ever gone in stating that the industry has failed and needs even
:19:13. > :19:17.bigger reform. At the heart of the problem is what to do about bankers
:19:17. > :19:21.who fail. Fred Goodwin walked away with his pension, Sir James Crosby
:19:21. > :19:31.kept his Knighthood until forced to hand it back. Bob Diamond, the boss
:19:31. > :19:31.
:19:31. > :19:37.of Barclays departed after the LIBOR-fixing scandal cost the bank
:19:37. > :19:41.$340 million in fines. The report will call for bank bosses to serve
:19:41. > :19:44.jail time if they fail to run their businesses correctly that goes way
:19:44. > :19:48.beyond Labour or the coalition has demanded and will change the
:19:48. > :19:53.culture of the City big time. Would jailing people do any good? Banking
:19:53. > :19:58.is a trust business, it is important that customers see that
:19:58. > :20:02.individual responsibility is held to. But, this isn't and never was
:20:02. > :20:06.about a few bad apple, and jailing a few misbehaving bankers, this is
:20:06. > :20:09.about a whole system that was going wrong because of add incentive and
:20:09. > :20:13.structural problems. And the more important question is are those
:20:13. > :20:17.going to get addressed as well as holding individuals to account?
:20:17. > :20:20.the meantime there is the sticky problem about what to do about the
:20:20. > :20:25.banks the taxpayer owns. Tomorrow George Osborne is set to announce
:20:25. > :20:31.his plans for RBS and Lloyd's group to be privatised and where else to
:20:31. > :20:35.announce it but at an invite-only audience of bankers in bowties. But
:20:35. > :20:39.parliament too will want a say. The MPs' report tomorrow is likely to
:20:39. > :20:42.call for RBS to be broken up. They will call for a new effort by the
:20:42. > :20:45.competition authorities to break the stranglehold on the high street
:20:45. > :20:49.of the four big banks. To really improve the structure of the UK
:20:49. > :20:52.industry we need to have many new entrant banks coming in, that is
:20:52. > :20:55.beginning to happen. We need to grow the community banking sector,
:20:55. > :20:59.including Credit Unions, that is beginning to happen. To really have
:20:59. > :21:03.an impact at scale we have to ask ourselves a question, what is the
:21:03. > :21:07.best thing for the whole UK economy to do with RBS. That might include
:21:07. > :21:12.breaking it up into regional banks, it might include keeping it in
:21:12. > :21:15.public ownership and giving it a mandate to focus on SMEs, we have
:21:15. > :21:18.to focus on all those options. until now the solutions proposed
:21:18. > :21:22.for the British banking industry have been structural, separate this
:21:22. > :21:26.bit from that bit, impose new capital controls, but if MPs'
:21:26. > :21:32.recommendations tomorrow are acted upon, we could see, for the first
:21:32. > :21:35.time, a top banker being jailed. Though whether the fear of ending
:21:35. > :21:45.up in Wormwood scrubs would have stopped the sub-prime crisis is
:21:45. > :21:46.
:21:46. > :21:50.anybody's guess. I'm joined now by Martin Jacomb, a former Barclays
:21:50. > :21:53.Deputy Chairman. Elissa Bayer the senior investor, and Laura
:21:53. > :21:59.Willoughby chief executive of the campaign Move Your Money.
:21:59. > :22:06.Sir Martin, this is coming because of an avalanche of disaster,
:22:06. > :22:09.billions of pounds of tax-payers' gone. Manipulated LIBOR, man lip
:22:09. > :22:14.lated key rates and mis-selling, nobody held responsible. The
:22:14. > :22:19.banking sector has itself to blame hasn't it? To say that nobody is
:22:19. > :22:22.responsible, nobody has been found responsible is incorrect. But for
:22:22. > :22:28.your talking about yesterday's disasters, all the banks, all the
:22:28. > :22:33.major banks now are run by different people, with a different
:22:33. > :22:37.ethos and the bad apples are no longer in charge. You say it is
:22:37. > :22:42.yesterday's crisis and the bad apples are no longer in charge,
:22:42. > :22:45.presumably then if there is indeed in this report a recommendation
:22:45. > :22:49.that charges be brought against bankers who are incompetent and
:22:49. > :22:54.they would then going to jail do you think that would be a fitting
:22:54. > :23:00.pun --ment if there are further problems? I haven't read the report.
:23:00. > :23:04.None of us have it is midnight? don't know what it says. I'm all in
:23:04. > :23:08.favour of people who make big mistakes with other people's money
:23:08. > :23:12.getting into personal liability. And going to jail? Going to jail is
:23:12. > :23:17.completely out of the question right now. Because first of all you
:23:17. > :23:22.have to find an individual guilty of some crime. So let's talk about
:23:22. > :23:27.liability rather than going to jail. Which is well overdramatising it.
:23:28. > :23:31.Would you like to see, as it were, bad bankers going to jail?
:23:31. > :23:34.Certainly bankers should be taking responsibility for their actions,
:23:34. > :23:37.we believe that very strong loo. We have seen huge numbers of people's
:23:37. > :23:41.lives affected by their decisions. You can take responsibility for
:23:41. > :23:44.your actions and just resign, it doesn't help people get their money
:23:44. > :23:47.back, if there is the threat of incarceration that would bring a
:23:47. > :23:52.chill and actually would perhaps make sure that some of the boards
:23:52. > :23:55.and some of the individual bankers and committees don't act
:23:55. > :23:58.irresponsibly? Absolutely, there should be prosecutions and for the
:23:58. > :24:01.mistakes already made, people should know when they are making
:24:01. > :24:05.big decisions with other people's money there is a responsibility and
:24:05. > :24:10.there are consequences. actually I'm right in saying
:24:10. > :24:14.recommended the Co-Op bank? We did, it is one of many banks. It was top
:24:14. > :24:18.of your list, and look what's happened to them, that model isn't
:24:18. > :24:22.right, the Mutual isn't right either? Mutuals are better, Co-Op
:24:22. > :24:25.has found its own solution, more importantly it shows just growing
:24:25. > :24:28.and growing and growing our banks until they become so big isn't the
:24:28. > :24:33.answer. Actually what we need are local banks committed to growing
:24:33. > :24:37.the local economy, lending. The five big banks aren't lending to
:24:37. > :24:40.businesses at the minute, or not offering much to the economy. If we
:24:40. > :24:44.want to change banking in Britain we need to change the structure in
:24:44. > :24:48.banking and get them lending locally again. Small banks will be
:24:48. > :24:54.our saviours. Do you think there is a different structure, a new model
:24:54. > :24:57.perhaps we haven't thought of yet? Probably we are going back in time,
:24:57. > :25:00.having spent as much time as Sir Martin in the City. You grew the
:25:00. > :25:04.bank the way you move your joint clearing banks, our ordinary high
:25:04. > :25:08.street banks and moved them together with the investment banks.
:25:08. > :25:12.What I think has happened is it is not working, it hasn't working, you
:25:12. > :25:16.are looking at two different cultures and two different ways of
:25:16. > :25:19.operating. Separation is the answer? To some extent you have to
:25:19. > :25:22.get back to what ordinary banking is, people in the street they need
:25:22. > :25:27.it, someone to talk to. We have gone away from that. Do you think
:25:27. > :25:31.separation is the answer? No I don't, first of all let me say when
:25:31. > :25:34.people talk about prosecuting bankers and sending them to jail,
:25:34. > :25:41.that's a last resort. What's really important is they are responsible
:25:41. > :25:47.with their own money to repay some of the liability. So talking about
:25:47. > :25:52.personal liability for people running banks is much more relevant
:25:52. > :25:55.about talking about jail? What about separating investment?
:25:55. > :25:59.don't believe that, if you talk about separation in this economy,
:26:00. > :26:03.and money isn't flowing to business because banks are not lending. The
:26:03. > :26:07.reason is because they are required to hold masses of capital and they
:26:07. > :26:11.can't get any new capital and therefore they have to restrict
:26:11. > :26:14.lending. So what you need to do to substitute for that is what happens
:26:14. > :26:17.in the United States which is that the capital markets provide the
:26:18. > :26:23.funds for business, and that comes from the investment banking
:26:23. > :26:28.operations. And if you want it working really well, you get the
:26:28. > :26:33.commercial bankers and the big banks to say to their investment
:26:33. > :26:36.banking colleagues and the investment banking division this is
:26:36. > :26:40.an opportunity for you to issue bonds on behalf of a company that
:26:40. > :26:43.need money. Is that a solution for you? No. At the moment the big
:26:43. > :26:46.banks have Government money to lend to businesses, they are still not
:26:46. > :26:50.doing it. There is something fundamentally wrong with our system.
:26:50. > :26:54.We need banks to get back to where they should be, which is keeping
:26:54. > :26:59.people's money safe and listening to customers. At the moment there
:26:59. > :27:02.is no proportion. People put money in accounts to see it grow, and if
:27:02. > :27:06.it is not growinging perhaps they think actually having some of the
:27:06. > :27:10.investment bankers doing a lot of work with the money they can lend,
:27:10. > :27:14.what would be wrong with that? balance has tipped in the wrong way.
:27:14. > :27:17.They are more interested to use money to make more money. We are
:27:17. > :27:20.saying at the moment there is no competition in the market, there is
:27:20. > :27:23.no incentive to be nice to customers at the other end, treat
:27:23. > :27:26.them well, make sure that they are lending, make sure that they are
:27:26. > :27:30.helping people save. Making sure they are growing the local economy.
:27:30. > :27:34.Is there a moral position the banks should be forced to take about that,
:27:34. > :27:37.that they should be doing good deeds, as it were, for their
:27:37. > :27:41.customers? I don't think they would put it quite like that. You need
:27:41. > :27:44.money going back into industry and customers. What you have got at the
:27:44. > :27:48.moment is a terrific lack of confidence in your bankers, that I
:27:48. > :27:52.think is veryed bad. That is undermining what is going on.
:27:52. > :27:56.do you restore confidence in bankers, the same breed as other
:27:56. > :27:59.people, and yet they are not trusted? I think what they have
:27:59. > :28:02.done has made people mistrust bankers, I think what they do
:28:02. > :28:07.essentially is a good job. The idea is to put money into the economy to
:28:07. > :28:12.lend to businesses, that is all very positive. But in what's
:28:12. > :28:15.happened since say 22008 they have lost confidence in their bankers.
:28:15. > :28:20.You have the same bank since you were 16 haven't you? I have had had
:28:20. > :28:25.an account with the, what's now the NatWest bank, part of RBS, I have
:28:25. > :28:29.had it since I was 16 years old, which is a very, very many decades
:28:29. > :28:34.ago. Why do you trust them?If I could just interrupt you, one of
:28:34. > :28:40.the things I would like to see improved comes from right here and
:28:40. > :28:45.the other media. Mervyn King the retiring Governor of the Bank of
:28:46. > :28:50.England said last month, and not a moment to soon -- too soon that it
:28:50. > :28:55.was time to stop demonising bankers, as long as people do that they
:28:55. > :28:59.can't behave like bankers. If more senior bankers would come on
:28:59. > :29:01.television programmes and explain themselves they would appear more
:29:01. > :29:04.transparent? I don't think transparency is particularly
:29:04. > :29:08.important, what happened is a lot of very big mistakes were made,
:29:08. > :29:18.they were made in the past, the changes in management have been
:29:18. > :29:19.
:29:19. > :29:23.made and it is time to get on with lending money to business. Charles
:29:23. > :29:26.Saatchi, advertising mogul, gallery owner has been cautioned for
:29:26. > :29:31.assaulting his wife, the famous TV personality, Nigella Lawson, his
:29:31. > :29:37.hands on her throat. We don't know if they very public display of
:29:37. > :29:41.domestic violence goes on in private. The disturbing images will
:29:41. > :29:45.resonate with women who have had to suffer abuse at the hands of their
:29:45. > :29:49.partner. This is beautiful.What some people found so shocking is
:29:49. > :29:53.Nigella Lawson is portrayed and portrays herself as a woman very
:29:53. > :29:59.much in charge of her life, her work and her image, confident and
:29:59. > :30:02.happy, a par gone of domestic police. But pick -- paragone of
:30:02. > :30:07.domestic bliss. But pictures give a lie to that. She is said to be
:30:07. > :30:10.abroad considering her future. The assault, like that of Rihanna and
:30:11. > :30:16.Cheryl Gascoigne, has raised the profile of domestic violence again,
:30:16. > :30:21.and demonstrates that the rich and famous are not immune. According to
:30:21. > :30:26.the 2011/12 crime survey, 1.2 million women were victims of
:30:27. > :30:31.domestic abuse last year in England and Wales. The same survey found
:30:31. > :30:38.that 31% of women experienced domestic abuse at some point after
:30:38. > :30:45.the age of 16. Joining me now is the research manager scat ap
:30:45. > :30:52.respect Charity working with perpetrators of domestic violence
:30:52. > :30:56.and Hadley Freeman, an author on domestic violence. Is it shocking
:30:56. > :31:00.because she, Nigella Lawson, is the domestic violence, and how could
:31:00. > :31:04.somebody so rich and successful be in such a shocking position?
:31:04. > :31:08.much of her career has been presenting this image of domestic
:31:08. > :31:12.bliss, she can bake cakes with the beautiful house, the Aga and happy
:31:12. > :31:18.children. It is not shocking it has happened to her because she's rich
:31:18. > :31:23.and famous, there are many women throughout history, Tina Turner,
:31:23. > :31:28.Lana Turner and now Rihanna. Domestic violence is not for women
:31:28. > :31:32.in a certain class, there are no limits with religion, ethnicity and
:31:32. > :31:36.class, it happens across the spectrum. Would it be fair to say
:31:36. > :31:41.that for women who are rich or middle-class there are places they
:31:41. > :31:45.can go to hide it more than people who do not have that financial
:31:45. > :31:49.wherewithal? Certainly. But women stay with their abusers for more
:31:49. > :31:52.reasons than just practicalities. Interesting, we must be clear about
:31:52. > :31:58.it, we have no idea what else has happened in their relationship,
:31:58. > :32:03.what we do know is Charles Saatchi took the caution. But he also
:32:03. > :32:07.called it "a playful tiff" what signal does that send out? One of
:32:07. > :32:11.the depressing things about that comment is how common it is. Most
:32:11. > :32:16.men that I have worked with and my colleagues who I spoke today would
:32:16. > :32:19.confirm with, saying it was a tiff it didn't matter, it was nothing, I
:32:19. > :32:24.it didn't matter, it was nothing, I was just pushing against the wall,
:32:24. > :32:31.was just pushing against the wall, it was fall -- up against the wall,
:32:32. > :32:35.that was just that. Saying it was just a tiff is a common pattern of
:32:35. > :32:39.justification. So people we work with will typically minimise, deny
:32:39. > :32:43.or blame somebody else for the things they have done. And they
:32:43. > :32:47.will very often do this even today when the behaviour they have used
:32:47. > :32:52.is quite dangerous. You work with perpetrators of domestic violence
:32:52. > :32:57.generally, you know about some of these often repeated phrases. When
:32:57. > :33:00.we have a case and this could be a one-off we don't know, which is
:33:00. > :33:05.quite as startling as this, what impact does it have on the
:33:05. > :33:08.conversations that you have with people? I expect one of the things
:33:08. > :33:15.that will happen over the next few days, which often does, when there
:33:15. > :33:18.is a case like this, is calls to the Respect phone line, where
:33:18. > :33:24.people can phone if there are concerns about behaviour will go up.
:33:24. > :33:26.That happens when there is storylines on soap opera or real-
:33:26. > :33:30.life incidents. Although it can seem strange it is a good thing, it
:33:30. > :33:32.is a positive step to recognise you have a problem with your behaviour.
:33:32. > :33:38.What is interesting about this particular case, which we won't
:33:38. > :33:42.comment on in detail, I know, but being able to minimise it as just a
:33:42. > :33:44.tiff is very common, but also one way of evading, being able to take
:33:44. > :33:48.responsibility for it is not take advantage of the help there is.
:33:48. > :33:53.There is help available for men and the some women who want to stop
:33:53. > :33:57.being abusive to their partners. It is not the only way and people can
:33:57. > :34:01.change. What will be the impact on women and children seeing that
:34:01. > :34:05.image? I think it is terrifying. I'm amazed that some columnists
:34:05. > :34:08.have expressed amazement that this could happen to middle-class
:34:08. > :34:13.successful woman. The idea it is limited to the working-classes is
:34:13. > :34:17.disgusting and snoby, it is a very snoby attitude of some middle-class
:34:17. > :34:24.columnists and media commentators thinking this is an "other" problem.
:34:24. > :34:30.It is a widely held belief? Part of the problem is you don't see
:34:30. > :34:35.middle-class women in popular culture being abused, we see it in
:34:35. > :34:38.EastEnders, and the odd novel we see middle-class and upper-class
:34:38. > :34:43.women being abused but rarely TV shows. Because this is a public
:34:43. > :34:48.event, let's move away from this one and talk with Rihanna and Chris
:34:48. > :34:50.Brown, they went back together. What messages do people get from
:34:50. > :34:54.society? They are always very complex situations, but that was a
:34:55. > :34:59.straight down the line, he beat her up, she went back? That is a very
:34:59. > :35:03.common thing. As I'm sure you will agree. You look at history, Tina
:35:03. > :35:08.Turner stayed with Ike for years and years, women stay with their
:35:08. > :35:14.abusers for years for a whole shrew of reasons. The idea I found
:35:14. > :35:20.upsetting when women would get upset with Rihanna for staying with
:35:20. > :35:24.Chris Brown and as if she should be better. It doesn't place
:35:24. > :35:27.responsibility on the person causing the problem. The blame gets
:35:27. > :35:30.placed on the victim, as an organisation we try 0 make sure
:35:30. > :35:35.responsibility lies where it should, with the cause of the problem. So
:35:35. > :35:38.too often we see this, we see people, women who are victims of
:35:38. > :35:45.domestic violence being blamed and held responsible, Rihanna is a good
:35:45. > :35:48.case, she got a lot of vitriol from female fans or not fans, rather
:35:48. > :35:52.than responsibility placed on Chris Brown, which is extraordinary. One
:35:52. > :35:56.of the things we do when working with guys who have maybe never
:35:56. > :35:58.admitted it properly before, we try to make it possible for them to be
:35:58. > :36:01.able to say they did it, it was bad and they need to take
:36:01. > :36:04.responsibility for it. Thank you very much indeed. Before the end of
:36:04. > :36:08.the programme we will have tomorrow's front page, first we
:36:08. > :36:15.know three things about Russian oligarchs, one, they are incredibly
:36:15. > :36:20.rich, two, they sometimes end up in exile or jail, and three, possibly
:36:20. > :36:24.connected to one or two, they almost never talk. But Viktor
:36:24. > :36:29.Vekselberg, called the richest man in Russia, with a fortune estimated
:36:29. > :36:34.$18 billion, has given a rare and exclusive interview to Steven Smith,
:36:34. > :36:37.he talked about Putin, being unbelievably rich, and the
:36:37. > :36:44.oligarch's passion for the lost treasures of the Tsars, the Faberge
:36:44. > :36:50.Eggs. In a strong room, somewhere in
:36:50. > :36:53.London, the lost treasures of the - - Tsars. Faberge Eggs, some of the
:36:53. > :37:02.most priceless pieces in the History of Art. The Tsar of Russia
:37:02. > :37:08.gave them to his wife and mother as Easter gifts. But these imperial
:37:08. > :37:15.eggs, as they are known, aren't mere historical curiosities,
:37:15. > :37:19.centuries after they were created by July Carl Faberge, they are
:37:19. > :37:25.symbols of wealth and prestige in the new Russia and the oligarchs.
:37:25. > :37:29.Their new owner has been called the richest man in Russia, he paid a
:37:29. > :37:35.fortune for them. His people have let me look and touch, now I'm
:37:35. > :37:40.going to Russia to find him if I can.
:37:40. > :37:47.He is based here in Moscow. He bought nine imperial Faberge eggs
:37:47. > :37:52.from the Forbes Foundation in New York, in a private deal in 2004.
:37:52. > :38:02.One of his people told me if I came to this hotel in the city centre in
:38:02. > :38:02.
:38:02. > :38:04.one hour he would see me. I'm about to meet my first Russian oligarch.
:38:05. > :38:10.From the outside the hotel does little to advertise its connection
:38:10. > :38:16.with the city's new rich. Unless you count the idling motorcade of
:38:16. > :38:20.police 4X4s. I'm meeting my oligarch in a bunker, two floors
:38:20. > :38:26.below street level, surrounded by some of his art collection. His
:38:26. > :38:32.name is Viktor Vekselberg, he is said to be worth more than $15
:38:32. > :38:40.billion. Just between us, how much did you pay for those Faberge Eggs?
:38:40. > :38:44.There is a slightly more than $100 million. Was it worth it?If you
:38:44. > :38:50.ask me what price for that, really for me it is absolutely difficult
:38:50. > :38:55.to say to you what it is. Do you have a warm glow inside? Absolutely,
:38:55. > :39:00.I have this warm glow, yes. Vekselberg controls one of Russia's
:39:00. > :39:07.largest oil and gas companies. And negotiated the biggest joint
:39:07. > :39:11.venture in Russian history with our own BP. I would like to take the
:39:11. > :39:15.opportunity to say thank you to BP because I used part of that money
:39:15. > :39:17.for cultural, art facts and collections. Other people in your
:39:17. > :39:24.position might have bought something else, I don't know, like
:39:24. > :39:30.a football club in London? I don't see it as negative for some Russian
:39:30. > :39:36.rich men to buy a football club, why not, but Faberge Eggs, this is
:39:36. > :39:43.part of Russian history and culture. And culture is something that
:39:43. > :39:49.Vekselberg likes to invest in. He created a foundation, The Link of
:39:49. > :39:52.Times, to look after his artwork. Do you live fairly modestly,
:39:52. > :39:59.because you could obviously indulge any whim you have, you could have a
:39:59. > :40:08.dozen helicopters if you wanted to? Absolutely, but I don't have time
:40:08. > :40:13.for toys. It is I'm a busy man. Vekselberg prefers reading and
:40:13. > :40:17.collecting. In living memory, many of his art facts of preSoviet
:40:17. > :40:23.Russia would have been despised as the play things of the ruling class.
:40:23. > :40:29.Now we are seen as part of the the story of the Russian nation state
:40:29. > :40:34.rediscovering her history. As President Putin -- has President
:40:34. > :40:41.Putin thanked him for buying back Faberge Eggs? Yes I see it is
:40:41. > :40:47.emotional for our President, it is very important for for Russian
:40:47. > :40:52.citizens to bring back this huge collection. Russia has huge stories
:40:52. > :40:56.with a lot of art facts, big culture. This is a piece of that.
:40:56. > :41:03.Some may feel that Russia has come full circle in a way, and that once
:41:03. > :41:07.again the country is dominated by a small group of people who have a
:41:07. > :41:13.disproportionate share of the wealth? On the one hand you are
:41:13. > :41:19.right. If we compare with the situation in Russia 25 years ago,
:41:19. > :41:24.the socialist time, of course everybody was equals. My parents
:41:24. > :41:29.were ordinary people and lived in a small apartment, we broke one
:41:29. > :41:36.system and we just started to build a new system. And we Russians we
:41:36. > :41:43.are very young, the new Russia like 20 years, so it is only one
:41:43. > :41:45.generation. Of course today we have some negative results of that
:41:45. > :41:51.transition period. We will have some big gap between the small
:41:51. > :41:56.group of rich men and the biggest part of the population not being so
:41:56. > :42:01.wealthy. But this is a process, I believe, this is a gap that will be
:42:01. > :42:05.reduced and reduced, and small businesses, middle-sized businesses
:42:05. > :42:09.will grow and the gap will be smaller and smaller. But it takes
:42:09. > :42:15.time. I believe we are going in the right direction. What is it like
:42:15. > :42:21.being one of the world's richest men? You ask a very difficult
:42:21. > :42:25.question. I think all the times people ask what does it mean to be
:42:25. > :42:30.wealthy? A lot of us dream of having a lot of money, rightly or
:42:30. > :42:35.wrongly, and you are living the dream, as they say? It doesn't
:42:35. > :42:42.matter Russia or in another country, so people don't like rich people. I
:42:42. > :42:50.have money but the question is how I use this opportunity? It is not
:42:50. > :42:55.easy, believe me, it is not easy. I'm an industrialist, I'm a
:42:55. > :43:00.businessman. It is very critical and important for Russia to keep
:43:00. > :43:05.the Russian economy from the raw material industry, it is not easy
:43:05. > :43:10.of the. It has needed a lot of efforts and a lot of patience,
:43:10. > :43:16.because this takes time. I do what I can do. But this is all my social
:43:16. > :43:21.obligation, I put my time, I put my money and I try to do the best with
:43:21. > :43:28.what I can. This may be my answer for your question, how I would like
:43:28. > :43:32.to spend money. I tried to see my country better and my people with
:43:32. > :43:38.more happiness. Fair enough, but it is not always a safe thing to be
:43:38. > :43:42.the richest guy in town, is it also a bit scary. Does it make you
:43:42. > :43:48.vulnerable? Now in Russia it is reasonably a table country, it is
:43:48. > :43:55.not so hugely criminal. I don't feel the big, big risk to be in
:43:55. > :44:00.Russia now. At the Kremlin, where Stalin once
:44:00. > :44:05.ordered that the treasures of the Tsars were flogged off to raise
:44:05. > :44:10.cash. Faberge's finest are now proudly displayed a short walk from
:44:10. > :44:15.President Putin's office. Carl Faberge's hard-boiled eggs have
:44:15. > :44:18.become instruments of soft power. But the richest man in Russia,
:44:18. > :44:26.helping to restore them to the motherland is in the national
:44:26. > :44:30.interest and his own. Steven Smith told me to egg you on to see his
:44:30. > :44:40.full documentary, The World's Most Beautiful Eggs, on BBC Four next
:44:40. > :45:11.
:45:11. > :45:16.At the close of the G8 the group of the most powerful men and one woman