25/09/2013 Newsnight

building of the Olympic Park, now he has been put in charge of

another hugely costly bit of public spending. There is a new chairman's

weight on the dead man's handle at the HS2, but is the fate of the

train now passing from the realm of management to that of politics? The

chief executive of this massive project is with us.

We report on the persecution of Christians in Egypt, and one of the

first foreign journalists to enter the town liberated from Islamist

control. Too young to buy a drink and too

young to drive, yet Ed Miliband thinks they are quite old enough to

vote. Are 16-year-olds? I don't necessarily think 16-year-olds

should have a vote, simply because we are not taught enough about

politics. Lots more to come in the programme. HS2 the railway line

that has achieved the remarkable feat of being endlessly complained

about before it is built has a new boss. The new chairman is Sir David

hiinggin, a man who moves from one public sector birth as effortlessly

as a Bedouin travelling from oasis to oasis. In this case the oasis

could turn out to be a mirage. The high-speed line is looking

vulnerable. David Grossman explains why this is a new story rather than

one for the business pages. By now the mood music surrounding HS2

should be something like this, calm, harmonious, efficiency.

Unfortunately it sounds more like this. (claanking noises) The

Government has struggled to keep this project sounding sweet amid

damaging reports and damaging headlines and defections from the

cause. Tonight the Department of Transport took decisive action, out

goes the chairman and in comes someone with Olympic experience.

Out goes the man with experience as an engine and CrossRail. But there

were doubts about him being an effective noise voice for HS2, his

were doubts about him being an replacement, Mr Higgins was the

chairman of the Olympic delivery authority. Personal lie I think the

case for HS -- personally I think the case for HS2 is pretty weak. He

has been uphill task, his background is with the Olympic

has been uphill task, his delivery authority, and Network

Rail, both difficult jobs. If anyone can do it he can do it. It

is the last throw of the dice. If he can't turn around public views

about HS2, I some what suspect the next Government will quietly drop

it in some way or another. One big problem is the cost. Recently

raised poun 10 billion to -- £10 billion to £42 billion, add in

theing stock, and it is £50 -- the rolling stock and it is £50 billion.

The public accounts committee of House of Commons have ridiculed the

business case produce. Sir David needs to make the case far more

robust. An updated business case is due in

weeks to answer criticisms made by others among those the National

Audit Office. Some say they are confident, but it is not too

dramatic to conclude if this business case isn't bulletproof,

watertight and utterly compelling, the whole project could be in

jeopardy. There needs to be a better case made for HS2. It needs

to shift on capacity, the public and politicians have to buy in to

it, and David Higgins is an advocate, but it needs to be

managed much better. The costs are not as high as people are saying,

there is no doubt that Whitehall and the Treasury in particular need

more confidence on how the project is managed.

Although Labour originally proposed. HS2, tfs the Conservatives that

leapt on it, as -- it was the Conservatives that lept on it, as a

way of not expanding Heathrow and positive messages on regeneration.

But there are signs of fracturing. On Monday Ed Balls made a marked

move away from the project. It is not just whether a new high-speed

line is a good idea or a bad idea, but whether it is the best way to

spend £50 billion for the further tour of our country. The politics

of this has evolved, it used to be broadly speaking north of England

in favour, south of England less keen. However, there has been a

growing realisation among some northern cities that once the new

line is built their regular train service will become some what less

regular. Added to that there are various academic studies that

suggest that the real economic benefits will go to the south and

not the north. For example, today at the Labour

Party Conference in a BBC Daily Politics survey on HS2, Lord

Prescott gave us his view. Why Politics survey on HS2, Lord

cancel it? Because it isn't going to do anything for the north. The

Government says it is still completely committed to the project.

But today conceded that the HS2 bill might not have cleared

parliament before the next election, which could make it a huge

political issue come polling day. If Labour were to scrap it, they

would have an extra £16 billion they could reassign to other

infrastructure projects in their manifesto. That may ultimately

prove an irresistable temptation. With us now is McAllister Munro,

chief executive of the H -- McAllisteren to Munro, chief

executive of the HS2 project. A bit of desperation to change chairman

like this? No I see it as confidence in the project, that we

will have the hybrid bill by the end of the year, and secondly that

we are seriously looking forward to the next stage of the project, the

build process and also moving forward into construction. Why has

your current chairman been replaced? Our current chairman has

done a fantastic job in getting us to this point, where we will be

ready to deposit the hybrid bill by the end of the year. That is a key

milestone, but we do then move on to a next phase. He has taken the

decision that now is a good point for him to stand down. I can't

think of a better possible successor to dough than Sir David -

- Doug than Sir David Higgins after the success of the Olympics. Moving

forward into now construction. When you say the new chairman's first

priority will be scrutinising costs, he's scrutinising fiction, isn't

he? I would expect him to be scrutinising costs. We have

obviously had a lost of debate about costs. You don't know what

they are? We would expect a new chairman to reassure himself on

costs. You don't know what the chairman to reassure himself on

final costs will be? We have made a thorough estimates of the costs and

final costs will be? We have made a looked at the various risks around

the costs, that is all allowed for in the contingency element, a large

part of the increase we have seen. We have looked again at the risks,

the Government has decided to set a budget that does cover the

foreseeable risks in the projbt. We know we can proceed -- project. We

know we can proceed with the cost envelope. Why is it then that so

many politicians have lost faith in you? We have still got strong

support among politicians. The Prime Minister is still very

strongly supportive, so the Chancellor, the Deputy Prime

Minister. If you actually listen to what Labour...This Was dreamed up

by Labour when in Government? And adopted by the coalition. And you

saw very clearly what happened this week when one person after another

in the Labour shadow team distanced themselves and said we're not going

to be behind this if the costs go any higher than they are now? I'm

not at all surprised they say that, we are not expecting the costs to

go higher. You probably weren't expecting them to go any higher

when you originally put in the wrong estimate? We have started

four-and-a-half years ago with a complete blank sheet with the

project. At an early stage there are obviously risks. As we have

gone forward we have done more work on the costs. We have a robust cost

estimate now. We have a more significant contingency allowance,

we are confident we can deliver within that. If you listen

carefully to what has been said within that. If you listen

this week, they are not actually saying they don't support high-

speed rail. They are saying it has to be value for money. They won't

speed rail. They are saying it has support it beyond £50 billion? We

are determined to deliver it beyond that. I'm sure one of the first

things Sir David Higgins will want to do is look closely at the

project and how we make sure we do deliver it within the cost envelope.

Isn't the truth of the matter that you some how took it for granted

that you would always have Government and the political class

generally behind you, and therefore failed to make the business case

for HS2? We have always recognised this is bound to be a hugely

controversial project, it will always be a political issue. There

has been a lot of debate up until now. It has increased recently. But

it has always been a political project. We do recognise, we need

to make the case for strongly, I project. We do recognise, we need

think the case is compelling, when you really look at it. When you

look at the growth we have seen in the railways, a doubling in the

number of people using the railways over the last 15 years, that growth

continuing, there is no alternative that will actually provide the

capacity this country needs in the future. And I think when you look

at it carefully that is the conclusion you come to, of course

we will have faith in it. According to you, what would happen to the

country if it weren't built? If it is not built the railway will

become increasingly crowded, hard choices would have to be made about

what services run, where the trains stop, that will be a break on

economic growth. If you look at what the OECD say, the World

Economic Forum, they come to the conclusion that strong economists

need a good transport infrastructure. That includes the

railway structure. How big a setback will it be for Britain if

it weren't built? It would be serious, what would happen is it

would delay it. You can do incremental improvements keeping

you going for a few years, sooner or later you get to the point where

you can't keep adding to the existing railway. We are currently

you can't keep adding to the working on a railway built in

Victorian times T has done us a very good service, but we can't

live on that through the 21st century and beyond. At some point

we are going to have to invest in additional capacity. We need to

really do it now, so that we have the capacity there in the time that

we need it when we meet that capacity crunch in the middle of

the next decade. If this project gets can I Bosched, because people

-- kiboshed because people decide it is too expensive, how long would

it set us back, you have presumably done all the sums? We and the

Department of Network Rail, all forecasts, it will need this

capacity in the middle of the next decade. At some point? Even

planning now, with the process West need to go through, the period we

need for con-- we need to go through and the period for

construction, we need to plan for the middle of the decade. Planning

now we have the new capacity when we need it. You could do

incremental improvements, but sooner or later you have to make a

incremental improvements, but really big increase in capacity.

What is the feeling reason the organisation, you can sniff the

wind, there has been a change of mood about HS2, do you feel that it

is definitely going to happen? I'm very positive it will happen. I

think there will continue to be debate, and we have to continue to

show that we can deliver it for the cost. We have to continue to make

the case for the benefits. As I say when you look at the case carefully,

when you look at the alternatives, you believe that even if it got

delayed people would decide sooner or later this is actually the only

long-term solution. I don't think anyone would actually thank us in

10-20 years time and look back and say why didn't they actually invest

when they could. You are making the case but not talking like a woman

who is certain it will happen? I believe very strongly it is going

to happen, yes I absolutely do. That is why I'm doing the job. I'm

sure that is why Sir David Higgins, coming in as chairman, he believes,

he has made clear himself that he and his role in Network Rail does

he has made clear himself that he not believe we can continue just to

patch and mend the existing railway. That we do need to make this step

change and deliver some new capacity and new railway lines and

he's fully supportive of HS2 and sees that as a solution.

Thank you very much. Sir David Higgins's on Radio 4's Today

Programme tomorrow. The Archbishop of Canterbury has called the 80

victims of the suicide bomb attack in Pakistan martyrs, since they

were targeted because of their beliefs.

They are not alone. Police in Egypt say they are pursuing Islamist

extremists who have incited attacks on Christian targets there. The

army has now retaken one town south of Cairo, Dalga, which had been

under Islamist control. Some Christians are still afraid to

return home. We have the first foreign reporter to enter the town

its recapture. The film contains graphic images of victims killed in

the vie lnt attacks. 1600 years of Christian history, reduced to a

blackened ruin. This is what's left of the monastery of the Virgin Mary

in St Abraham in Dalga, after a Muslim mob attacked it last month.

On the 14th of August. Came to the Muslim mob attacked it last month.

front door and they were calling for Jihad. They broke through the

main door and they entered the monastery. They went everywhere

here and they stole everything in the church and the building, and

also they when they finished stealing they burned the place.

Christians here say it was revenge for the Coptic church's support for

the overthrow of the Islamist Government. Payback for the killing

of hundreds of Islamists by the police. Relations between

Christians and Muslims here have often been uneasy, but the

upheavals of the last two years, both in Egypt and elsewhere in the

Middle East have now led to a much deeper fracturing of society, that

many feel won't easily be repaired. A horrifying video shows the body

of one Christian from Dalga, a local barber, killed and later

reported to be dragged through the streets behind a tractor. The

victim's cousin, a lawyer, has now fled to Cairo, fearing the same

fate. TRANSLATION: They attacked his

house, he tried to defend himself. They killed him inside the house.

They dragged his body out, they stole everything in his house and

mine. For two month after the police were chased out in early

July this dusty backwater between the Nile and the desert became an

independent outpost of Islamism, or simply anarchy. Christians like

this farm worker who fled with his family to live on a building site

on a nearby village describe the climate of intimidation where they

were robbed or forced to pay protection money.

TRANSLATION: There was this coffee shop that opened at 11.00, all the

thiefs and thugs went there and afterwards they roamed around,

opening whatever doors they could, or jumping over walls. If they

found any of your belongings they took them. Another refuge, also too

scared to show his face says the criminals have political backing,

he has no proof. TRANSLATION: The thugs in the town were supported by

the Muslim Brotherhood, they were giving weapons and money, because

it was in their interests to loot our houses and spread chaos.

Now order has been restored. Troops and police recaptured Dalga with

little resistance last week, making a series of arrests and

confiscating guns. Their job is not over yet, suddenly

there is an alert and we're off with police Special Forces on the

trail of more armed arsonists or looters. They stake out a house.

There is distant gunfire, and soon another suspect has been rounded up

for questioning. The state's finally stamped its authority on

for questioning. The state's this town, trying to prove there is

nowhere in Egypt where its writ does not run. But the crackdown may

simply provoke a violent insurgency that will rumble on for many years.

Today though it is mainly donkey carts that are rumbling on. One man

gives the four-fringeered salute that symbolised opposition to the

military leaders. You will find no Islamist representatives here,

those accused of inciting violence on Christians have fled or melted

back into the crowd. And prominent on Christians have fled or melted

Muslims here deny the Muslim Brotherhood or anyone else ordered

the attacks. TRANSLATION: They were thieves stealing for their own

benefits. They didn't have any other motive, no-one was supporting

them. TRANSLATION: Some mosques called for Jihad at the Muslim

Brotherhood protests in Cairo, because many people were killed

there. But thieves and thugs here took that as a license to go and

get what they wanted for themselves. So the message was misunderstood,

get what they wanted for themselves. we have always lived in harmony

with the Christians and we work together.

# Mor circumstance -- Morsi The Islamist challenge

terrifies many Christians, it hasn't been suppressed here but the

Brotherhood has been banned. A movement that was the legitimate

leaders of this country has been res duced to flash mobs in villages

like Dalga, but they turn out nightly at the provincialal

governor's house up the road they are taking noens chas. The security

is as tight as in the 1990s, when the Mubarak dictatorships was here.

I'm going to see the former police chief and now the governor, who

believes now as then Egypt is facing an international terrorist

conspiracy. We feel in Egypt there is this war against Egypt, the big

organisation, outside, the strategy comes from outside, using local

people by giving them money by giving them weapons. The fanatics

use this area because there is no education, there is no money, there

is no jobs. They try to push fanatic principles. They make big

problems between some of the Christians and some of the Muslims.

Christians, a third of the population in the province have

long lived side-by-side with Muslim neighbours. Poverty unites them,

illiteracy here is almost 50%. Even after weeks of living out of bags

and baskets, the Christians who fled Dalga are refusing to go home.

The police didn't protect them when the violence started here, and may

not protect them now from a further round of revenge. TRANSLATION: The

Government and the police are saying it is safe, but they will

not stay in Dalga forever, and the gangs are saying as soon as they

leave they will be retaliating. Back in Dalga, they say it will

take years to rebuild the monastery, one of the dozens of churches

attacked in Egypt in recent weeks. We had hoped to speak to the Muslim

Brotherhood, but we can't do so tonight. I'm joined instead from

Birmingham by my best who is chair of the United Cops in the UK. And

the political editor of Middle East Magazine. How frightened are

Christians in Egypt? Thank you Jeremy. The Christians had years of

threats and intimidation, coercion and killing which went unpunished

for years. There was a culture of impunity, and everyone is saying

that Egypt is an Islamic country and he's the leader of the Islamic

country. Since then the Islamists felt they had the upper hand. Then

Hosni Mubarak came, during his time he kept a tight rein on the

Islamists, but he overlooked their attacks on Christians. There is a

long history of fear and intimidation. Really there is a

culture of persecuting Christians by, I'm not saying by the whole of

the Muslim population, of course not. There is even a new

organisation in here in England which is the Egyptian Committee for

the Defence of the Secular State, including Muslims and Christians,

I'm part of it. I'm the deputy of the Union of the Coptic

Organisation in Europe. There is actually the fear from the

Organisation in Europe. There is Islamists coming from in societies

where there is poverty and where there is unrest as well. Let me

bring in my guest here, if you don't mind. Who do you think was

behind these attacks, or is behind these continuing attacks? It is

difficult when you collect evidence to pin it on an organisation. It is

always easier to stand in court for individuals, like we had with the

IRA and Sinn Fein. Circumstance standing evidence, the Muslim

Brotherhood have not -- circumstantial evidence, the Muslim

Brotherhood when they came out and they didn't renounce past

terrorists or give an instruction to their followers saying we

dislike that Morsi was overthrown, let's protest peacefully and hold a

vigil. It is, although there is no let's protest peacefully and hold a

hard evidence, but in one night you had hundreds of churches being

burned down and attacked. Sow the organisation is there. Do you think

looking back on it, it was wise for so many Coptic Christians in Egypt

to support what was effectively a military coup against the Muslim

Brotherhood? First of all this was not a military coup, this was a

response to the popular demand. I shouldn't have used the word Coup",

military intervention then, was it -- "coup", military intervention

military intervention then, was it then. Was it unwise? The Muslim

Brotherhood reduced the democracy to a pan tokcy. They used --

panatocracy, they abused the ballot. Before that this was the last step

in democracy, before that there should be a culture of equality,

freedom, freedom of all freedom. Justice for all. No-one should be

persecuting minorities because they are peaceful. The Christians of

course they never started a fight or retaliated in a fight. They kept

losing their property and families. Let me interrupt you then and bring

in my guest. Can Egypt be surprised this is what has happened? It is

not a surprise, I mean there is no surprise. I am a bit surprised they

took it out on fellow Christians rather than...but then it goes into

the pattern of thinking if you read the literature of the Muslim

Brotherhood, or the meetings, tomorrow there is an interesting

piece in the Egyptian Independent of a meeting of the global

organisation that took part in Istanbul this week and in Lahore

and Pakistan. Part of the thinking is if they have enough strife and

sectarian conflict, then the world will pay attention and they hope

for intervention, not quite Libyan- style, something like that, to put

enough pressure on an American-led intervention to pressurise the

interim Government and reinstate Morsi. Its not a coherent thinking

but that is exchanged in meetings with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Thank you very much both of you. In all the noise and heat generated

by Ed Miliband's declaration yesterday that if he was Prime

Minister he would cap energy prices. One thing seems to have escaped

everybody's notice, he committed the party to giving the vote to 16-

year-olds, they are already getting it in the Scotland's independence

referendum, and in Argentina and Ecuador they can vote. Are

teenagers more mature there, and if not why hasn't it happened here

before. The first time British voters will have been to the polls

on their way to school. 1969 and the last major change to our voting

system. I shall certainly be voting Conservative.

Harold Wilson cut the voting age from 21 just in time for the

general election. Which he then went on to lose to Edward Heath.

They are not satisfied. Now the Labour Party wants to have another

pop at extending the franchise, buried in Ed Miliband's speech

yesterday, plans to give all 16- year-olds their turn at the ballot

box. Friends, friends, let's give a voice to these young people in our

party. Let's give a voice to these young people in our democracy.

Let's give the vote to 16 and 17- year-olds and make them part of our

democracy. We're always told today's teenagers

are an apolitical lot, distrustful of those suits in Westminster. So

Newsnight took our own totally unscientific focus group across the

road to the pool club. At 16 you can pay taxes, join the

armed force, get married and have sex, if you can do all of this at

16 why are you not vote? I don't necessarily think that 16-year-olds

should have a vote, because they are not taught enough about

politics. But this is a generation barely alive in the year 2000, what

do they know and what do they want from the Government. This is going

to be way more fun I promise than a game of pool. What we have here in

front of us is a very rough idea about the amount the Government

spends. What we want you to do is take these chips and work out if

this is the way as 16 and 17-year- olds you would like to see

Government money spent, or if there is a better way of spending

Government money. The only thing we can cut and agree on would be

benefits, don't you think so? No. No. Benefits affects thousands of

people. One quick question, how much benefits would we cut and

where to put it. Not enough, we have to contribute more to housing.

Pensions are you going to use the healthcare any way, pensioners are

more likely to be using the healthcare than us any way. Exactly.

If you work for 60 years in the plek sector and you work day in day

out, you shouldn't have that money cut, you are entitled to that

amount of money. Pensions have been one of the simple areas not cut,

and I'm actually, sorry, I'm fuming for the simple fact that pensions

do need to get some sort of cuts on it. OK, OK. You will have to all

stop talking now. Can I have a bit of quiet, your time is totally up.

You guys have been brilliant, massive disagreement, I think it is

fair to say between you all. We are going to have to take a vote on it

and do it democratically. Who thinks money can come out of the

health budget? No. That is, benefits who round here thinks

benefits could be cut. So all of you, does no-one think benefits

shutd be protected. -- should be protected? I do. That is enough? Is

that an agreement. Where is it going? Health and education.

Housing? National debt, some to pay back the national debt. There we go,

who thinks money could come out of education anyone think that? No way.

Who thinks money could come out of defence? Yes. Take it all. We need

one gun. Where does this go? Education, health, housing. The

final one, who round here thinks money could be cut out of pension,

four of you. No-one else? Five don't think it should be cut. What

is the deciding vote? Of course. Money is coming out of pensions,

only just. Not that much. Too much? That much. Less than that.

No, no, no. Take it back, take it back. This is coming out of your

gran and granddad's purse. Where is it going? More on housing and

health. That's fine. Education gets it and one payback for the national

debt. You have just solved our deficit

problem, well done guys! But it is one thing to get teenagers like

this interested in politics, another to get them to the ballot

box. They might be angry, they might be passionate, but that

doesn't mean that given the chance they would bother to vote. Now to

the best known female architect in the world, in a traditionally male-

dominated profession, Zaha Hadid stands out. She designed the

Aquatic Centre for the Olympics. Her buildings are mainly abroad

which tells us something about Britain. Her first in central

London opened today a small yet remarkable addition to a Napoleonic

addition to the Serpentine. I guess it is a reasonable punt that it

would gave Prince Charles nightmares. I went to see her

latest creation this afternoon. There is no mistaking her buildings.

They are structures which sometimes hardly seem like structures at all.

My early work was influenced by the Russian avant-garde, the residue of

that work was how to liberate ourselves from certain things to do

with gravity. As an architect you have to have

with gravity. some idea about structure. The cafe

at the Serpentine Calgary is tiny in comparison with some other build

-- gall gree, is tiny -- gallery, is tiny compared to her buildings,

but it is definitely her's? What will people say about the gallery?

I don't know, I think it is very important to invest in the public

domain. For people to enjoy t it is nice to be in the park with

transparency with a light roof. I thought it was extraordinary. I'med

glad. Do you think in this country we have become more sophisticated

about architecture? I think there is more sophisticated opinions

about architecture, but I don't think the buildings are more

sophisticated. There are some. There are at least, there are some

towers you know, some high rise which you know 20 years ago it

would have been impossible. And so maybe that will, that investment

would allow for new models to be developed. But it is interesting

isn't it the way in which Prince Charles, for example, can tap into

what he knows to be an instinctive feeling among very many people in

the street that oh modern architecture, it is horrible? I

don't think people in the street feel that way. I think that the

modernity, and the modernism they know is based on what they have

here, which was never a great example. There is some good

buildings done by Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, others what I call

high-tech of that period very important buildings. Michael

Hopkins, people like that. I think that they respond to these

buildings which were done post-war, very quickly, social housing, which

was done you know not forgetting that time there were slum, this

there were people whose houses were bomb, they had to build quite fast

and they responded in that way. This is your first building in

central London? It is. You had this reputation for years and years for

designing buildings that weren't built. What was that like? It was

really not very nice. Because I always thought they were in the

realm of possibility. I think that is one of the reasons I persevered

and the people with me in the office obviously had amazing belief

toe stick it out. Because it was very hard times. In the 1990s Zaha

Hadid won the commission to design the Cardiff Bay Opera House, but

local politicians clocked it amid a predictable chorus from media

yahoos that her work was elitist. That was very bad. You know I have

to think about these things in a positive way. There was nothing

positive about it. The only positive thing about it is it made

people, who didn't know me or my work have an opinion. Good or bad.

And enormous support. People in the street, I mean you know, I still

have people coming to me in restaurants saying, that was a

terrible moment. If they are Welsh they are always apologising. One of

her more controversial projects opened this month in Azerbaijan.

The Haydar Cultural Centre is a remarkable build, but it is

dedicated to the personality cult of the autocrat who turned the

country into a family business. Building or designing buildings

which glorify regimes which are unsympathetic, the famous one is

the Cultural Centre in Baku, which glorfies a tyrant? It is a cultural

centre and open to the public, you know, people name libraries after

centre and open to the public, you American Presidents. You are not

compare? Not comparing them but I just think that, I think you have

to be very strategic about whether you deprive the public as well from

the public domain or you know, I'm not doing a private house for

everybody, I'm doing a public building with a concert hall or

library, museum. But it is in honour of a man with the most

atrocious human rights record? With his name, yes. I can't change that.

You could choose not to build it? Well if it was a private house

somewhere like that it is a problem. But I will choose for example I

think it is more contentious to But I will choose for example I

build a prison anywhere. I was reading about Shelter to

build nice housing, good work space. Good public buildings, because I

build nice housing, good work space. think that not everybody in the

world has the privilege of travelling and seeing extraordinary

things and I think it is very important to make things like that

and more immediately in their domain. Do you think as a nation we

are more receptive to that idea now than we used to be? I don't think

so. You don't? No. I think that the majority of work in the UK is

corporate. And it is very bad, America was build on amazing

corporate buildings. Office towers in New York and Chicago. So you can

do great things here as well. And housing, that dilemma is different.

You are relying on your no-how of the client, the developer, it has a

-- know-how of the client, the developer, it has a different

-- know-how of the client, the dynamic. It is a jolly building,

you should go. The United States has won the America's Cup, the

competition for one of the very oldest sporting trophies burst into

life yesterday as the United States team came storming back after a

series of defeats in which the New Zealanders had made their catamaran

look like a Lyle low with a serious -- lilo with a serious puncture.

This sort of racing is like tearing up £50 notes while standing fully

clothed under a full shower. Our reporter who has the slob's job of

writing what he has been watching on the telly with those in the

Guardian, shares it interest, he will explain why. Remember him?

Four-times Olympic Chancellor I don't know, Ben Ainslie, Sir Ben

Ainslie. Done it all, knighted by the age of 36, probably smoking his

pipe and telling stories by the fire now, right? Wrong. He has been

involved in one of the most remarkable sporting turn arounds

since Liverpool won the Champions League in 2005. Nine days ago or

kal team USA were 7-1 down to League in 2005. Nine days ago or

Emirates team New Zealand. The Kiwis needed to win one more race

and they would go home with the America's Cup, the biggest prize in

sail. Enter our Ben, brought in by the or kal team as tactition. --

They found another gear, outwigt the Kiwis and beating the Kiwis. It

is a game of chess on a boat, and the Kiwis and beating the Kiwis. It

Ben has learned how to be a grand chess master. He has an uncanny

ability to look at the racecourse and opposition and know how to put

them away. The America's Cup hasn't always been like this. It started

in 1851 as a race around the Isle of Wight. Since when it hasn't

bothered the public conscience too much, an alleged activity for toffs

with an awful lot of money. Too often it was about bending the

rules than the wave, when it made it out of the courtroom and on to

the waves it was slow and boring and no-one had a clue what was

going on. It is still about rich men indulging in their hoby, a

campaign is upwards of $100 million. But it has been good to watch. Men

in helmets drive catamarans with foils, flying above the water on a

racecourse at above 50 miles an hour. That is very, very fast for a

sailing boat. Now the boats are equallys, the race is tight and

short, and the setting, San Francisco bay is spectacular. For

the first time ever sailing is a spectacular sport. Formula One but

wet? Maybe. Joining us now is the BB cl.'s California correspond --

BBC's California correspondent, was it exciting? I'm not a man normally

watching a lot of yacht racing, but the fact it is right here in the

bay, the speed of the boats, the way they lift up in the hydrofoils

and going incredible speeds, 45 miles an hour plus. Very close

racing, all the reasons explain that, it is normally out to sea,

the boats have cameras all over them, TV has been involved. You can

hear the yachtsmen talking to each other about tactic, here Ben

Ainslie working with the skipper of the team USA, to talk about the

race and how it will go well for them. We are waiting for Team USA

to arrive and Team New Zealand is here already. The presentation will

be made in the next few minutes. Ben Ainslie took a job as tactition,

I have forgotten his title. How much credit is he being given for

the win? He has been given a lot of credit but not as much as the Brits

want to give him. They did a lot of tweaks to the boat, they made a

clear decision they were going to change strategy, that is when they

brought Ben Ainslie in. He was a skipper on the second boat, he was

here basically to race, to train, to get them up to speed. He was

never expected actually race on the yacht itself. Bringing him in was

like having three quarter back, yacht itself. Bringing him in was

they said, on the team. Three skippers, very experienced guys all

working to the. That is what a lot skippers, very experienced guys all

of people are saying made a big difference. Wait that they build up

their speed, get -- the way that they built up their speed, getting

faster and faster. It is an amazing win, everyone was writing off the

US, but you have to feel for the Kiwis, so close but so far.

Thank you,en joy the celebrations. Some of tomorrow morning's front

pages now. For the past two years a group of

20 photographers have tried to capture the most spectacular images

of British wildlife, here is some of what they managed to get, good

night.