:00:13. > :00:18.They may have created the Labour Party, but the trade unions could be
:00:19. > :00:25.on the eve of losing their role of choosing the party leader. A change
:00:26. > :00:30.could be on the way but will it give the unions less power or more. We
:00:31. > :00:34.talk to the cartoonist who drew the caricature of Jesus with the Prophet
:00:35. > :00:38.Mohammed, and which caused a Liberal Democrat to get death threats. I
:00:39. > :00:45.can't see that it's my problem. I can't be responsible for the actions
:00:46. > :00:50.of bad people. The writer Alain De Botton on what's wrong with the
:00:51. > :00:54.news. We hear about terrible catastrophes all the time, and yet
:00:55. > :00:58.in our hearts we often don't much care. The news doesn't help us to
:00:59. > :01:06.care. Because it parachutes us into places only when disaster strikes.
:01:07. > :01:16.He's here with Alistair Campbell and Samira Ahmed. Now in an
:01:17. > :01:19.ever-changing world the ability of the Conservative Party to taunt the
:01:20. > :01:26.opposition with the cry that it has been bought by the trades unions and
:01:27. > :01:31.had its leaders chosen by the trades unions has been a constant theme
:01:32. > :01:34.more or less since the dawn of contemporary politics. Ed Miliband
:01:35. > :01:37.has indicated while he's happy to take the money the arrangement needs
:01:38. > :01:41.to change. We understand we are about to learn how he plans to
:01:42. > :01:45.change the system which gave him, rather than his brother, the
:01:46. > :01:49.leadership of the party. What have we learned this evening? I sense
:01:50. > :01:53.this is a pretty significant moment for the Labour leader. These plans
:01:54. > :01:57.are being finalised as we speak, we will know more about them on Friday.
:01:58. > :02:01.It feels like a big moment and crunch time. At the heart of this is
:02:02. > :02:04.that rather complicated and close relationship you were decribing
:02:05. > :02:09.between Labour and the trade unions. We understand that Ed Miliband is
:02:10. > :02:12.going to radically transform the way Labour chooses its leaders,
:02:13. > :02:19.including the way he was chosen. Some in his party are even calling
:02:20. > :02:23.it his own clause IV moment. At the moment leaders are chosen through
:02:24. > :02:29.the Electoral College. This is how the college is shared. One third of
:02:30. > :02:33.the vote for MPs and MEPs, another third for party members, and the
:02:34. > :02:37.controversial third is given to the trade unions. Under the reformed
:02:38. > :02:45.plans, from what we are learning, it would move to one-member-one-vote.
:02:46. > :02:49.Each Labour Party member, some 200,000, gets a vote. That sounds
:02:50. > :02:54.like fairer system and pretty simple. With one bound he was free!
:02:55. > :02:58.Sort of, we understand that within this package is the introduction of
:02:59. > :03:03.a new kind of membership, possibly one they are calling the "associate
:03:04. > :03:07.union member". They would be able to exercise their own individual vote
:03:08. > :03:12.at greatly reduced annual fee, maybe as little as ?3 a year. This goes to
:03:13. > :03:16.heart of what Ed Miliband was saying in that rather forceful speech last
:03:17. > :03:20.summer. He promised to put more power into the individual members of
:03:21. > :03:25.the union, and not as it were to the union leaders. But here is the rub,
:03:26. > :03:32.the unintended consequence of what might happen is if just one in ten
:03:33. > :03:37.union members signed up to become a new associate member, you can see
:03:38. > :03:41.what happens, that as group could potentionally wield more influence
:03:42. > :03:46.that the rest of the Labour Party. Although, voting as separate
:03:47. > :03:51.individuals rather than a block-style vote and what the unions
:03:52. > :03:54.prefer to call a "guided vote". The question is, would these reforms, as
:03:55. > :04:01.we understand them, give the unions more power or less and how would the
:04:02. > :04:05.MPs and MEPs feel about that amount of power coming from a different
:04:06. > :04:07.source? What about the highly controversial matter of the
:04:08. > :04:12.political levy, which he did talk about a few months ago didn't he?
:04:13. > :04:16.Controversial, because assumed your membership of the Labour Party, when
:04:17. > :04:19.y joined the union, and it charged you for it. This is what Ed Miliband
:04:20. > :04:27.said last year. He couldn't have been any clearer about wanting to
:04:28. > :04:32.end that automatic opt-in livy. I do not want any individual to be paying
:04:33. > :04:39.money to the Labour Party in affiliation fees unless they have
:04:40. > :04:44.deliberately chosen to do so. Individual trade union members
:04:45. > :04:50.should choose to join the party through the affiliation fee, not the
:04:51. > :04:55.automatically affiliated. In the 21st century it just doesn't make
:04:56. > :05:02.sense for anyone to be affiliated to a political party unless they have
:05:03. > :05:06.chosen to do so. So he keeps using that word "choose". I understand
:05:07. > :05:09.there is a fierce debate, those close to Ed Miliband, some are
:05:10. > :05:13.saying they believe the reforms are a key test of his leadership. And
:05:14. > :05:18.some who are saying this puts the party's finances at massive risk by
:05:19. > :05:22.allowing union members to opt out of this political levy. One insider
:05:23. > :05:26.told me it is crackers, you can't just crater the party's finances.
:05:27. > :05:31.What they imagine would happen if you allowed people not to pay that
:05:32. > :05:36.sum. What I understand is, it will be an opt-in mechanism. What one
:05:37. > :05:40.union leader described to me as a standardising of a system that
:05:41. > :05:45.already happens in several of the unions. But in order to stop a
:05:46. > :05:49.massive and instant black hole in Labour's finances, the plan would be
:05:50. > :05:53.rolled out very gradually, possibly over a five-year process and one
:05:54. > :05:58.union at a time. So Labour wouldn't feel the impact of that negative
:05:59. > :06:03.effect so instantly or so bleakly. Thank you. Now it takes a bit of
:06:04. > :06:06.believing that someone could be put in fear of their life by a cartoon,
:06:07. > :06:11.but that's the world we are living in. When a Liberal Democrat
:06:12. > :06:18.candidate met a man wearing a T-shirt carrying a cartoon showing
:06:19. > :06:22.Jesus and Mohammed and then tweeted that image, he so irritated some
:06:23. > :06:29.members of the Muslim community that they demanded he be striped of his
:06:30. > :06:34.position in the party. He said he didn't feel threatened by the
:06:35. > :06:40.cartoon even though there is ban on any likenesses of the prophet. Majid
:06:41. > :06:45.Nawaz says he was standing up for liberal Muslims whose voices are
:06:46. > :06:52.seldom heard, when he tweeted an image of a cartoon showing Jesus
:06:53. > :06:55.saying Hey and Mohammed saying Hi. He said it was not offensive and
:06:56. > :07:01.he's sure God is greater than being threatened on it. He had just been a
:07:02. > :07:07.guest on the BBC's Big Questions programme, in the front were two
:07:08. > :07:11.students with T-shirts showing Jesus and Mo. A debate ensued about
:07:12. > :07:15.whether they have the right to wear them. Do they have the right to wear
:07:16. > :07:21.those T-shirts? No. Why are you trying to offend a religious faith.
:07:22. > :07:25.You are offending us. That T-shirt doesn't threaten me or my God or my
:07:26. > :07:28.faith, it doesn't threaten the Koran, it doesn't threaten any
:07:29. > :07:32.aspect of my religion, I do not feel threatened by these gentlemen
:07:33. > :07:36.wearing that T-shirt. It was the BBC's decision not to show a
:07:37. > :07:40.close-up of the T-shirts that prompted Majid Nawaz to send the
:07:41. > :07:43.tweet. Within days tens of thousands of Muslim, including members of the
:07:44. > :07:48.Liberal Democrat party had put their names to this on-line petition
:07:49. > :07:50.calling for him to be deselected as a parliamentary candidate. Some said
:07:51. > :08:14.he should be killed. Majid Nawaz's decision to tweet the
:08:15. > :08:17.image of the Jesus and Mo cartoon, hasn't just set up a debate about
:08:18. > :08:21.freedom of speech, it has also set the Liberal Democrats an important
:08:22. > :08:30.test. What does it actually mean to be a liberal? This afternoon the
:08:31. > :08:33.petition's organisers met with former leader of the Liberal
:08:34. > :08:36.Democrats Paddy Ashdown, and urged him to deselect Majid Nawaz. We are
:08:37. > :08:42.very clear, we don't believe his position is tenable, he has to step
:08:43. > :08:46.down and we have let the leadership, Paddy Ashdown in particular know how
:08:47. > :08:52.we feel, we believe he should step down. What do you say to people who
:08:53. > :08:57.say your position is very il-liberal in your view? I'm not that, I'm a
:08:58. > :09:02.liberal and Liberal Democrat who believes with liberalism with
:09:03. > :09:06.respect, freedom to speak out and freedom of expression. Except in
:09:07. > :09:10.areas where you don't like it? No, definitely, liberalism with respect,
:09:11. > :09:16.regardless of what area it is, it doesn't matter if it phoneds people
:09:17. > :09:20.or not, my argument is simple, liberalism with respect, thank you.
:09:21. > :09:24.So is Majid Nawaz's position safe, after the meeting Lord Ashdown
:09:25. > :09:31.didn't appear to be offering any guarantee? If members of your party
:09:32. > :09:34.keep calling for Majid Nawaz to stand down, what will you do? It is
:09:35. > :09:38.a matter for proper procedures for the party. In order for someone to
:09:39. > :09:43.stand down there has to be a clear case for that. He has express admin
:09:44. > :09:47.youth view, and he has used immoderate language in expressing
:09:48. > :09:53.it, he has apologised. How do you know it is a minority view, how do
:09:54. > :09:58.you know what all Muslims think about these cartoons? You have to
:09:59. > :10:03.know what their theology is, if you don't know that in Britain, a vast
:10:04. > :10:08.majority of Muslims believe that any image of the prophet is blasphemous.
:10:09. > :10:12.Many Muslims are not offended? And they are entitled not to. The
:10:13. > :10:16.majority Muslim belief is against any image of the prophet. That does
:10:17. > :10:21.not allow the majority to tell the minority they may not hold it. The
:10:22. > :10:25.Jesus and Mo comic shows the two characters sharing a house, Majid
:10:26. > :10:30.Nawaz calls it a mild cartoon, whether it is right to ever show a
:10:31. > :10:33.picture of the Prophet Mohammed is the subject of debate in Islam. Some
:10:34. > :10:39.of these people are saying within Islam you can't draw pictures of
:10:40. > :10:43.people or of animals or of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him,
:10:44. > :10:46.especially him. There are paintings by Muslim who is are more religious
:10:47. > :10:51.than the Muslims today who are complaining about this and yet they
:10:52. > :10:56.are paintings, they exist, they exist in art galleries an the world.
:10:57. > :10:59.So this is not an issue which it just has one view. There are many
:11:00. > :11:04.different views within the Muslim community. The Liberal Democrats may
:11:05. > :11:09.hope their internal procedures can fix this row, but as of tonight more
:11:10. > :11:13.than 21,000 people have signed the petition calling on Majid Nawaz to
:11:14. > :11:22.go. The campaigners say the fight goes on. Earlier I spoke to the
:11:23. > :11:26.creator of the Jesus and Mo cartoon, he asked that his appearance and
:11:27. > :11:31.voice be disguised. I started by asking him if he has been
:11:32. > :11:35.overwhelmed by the attention his cartoons have received? I'm
:11:36. > :11:40.horrified. And yeah I suppose I'm quite bewildered, because the mind
:11:41. > :11:45.set of people so determined to take offence or to exploit that offence
:11:46. > :11:54.of others for their own ends is very alien to me. So, yes, I find that
:11:55. > :12:03.bewildering. But I do think that rather than focussing on me, it is
:12:04. > :12:09.Majid Nawaz that deserves our support really. He epitomises what
:12:10. > :12:13.is happening in the Muslim community at the moment, where there is a
:12:14. > :12:20.division. The Muslim community is sorting itself out between your
:12:21. > :12:26.moderate, liberal, average every day Muslim who couldn't careless less
:12:27. > :12:32.about a cartoon and just wants to get on with his life. And the
:12:33. > :12:37.self-serving rabble-rousers that are just trying to promote their own
:12:38. > :12:44.selves. But for you as an atheist who kinds the whole subject of
:12:45. > :12:53.religion inherently comical, they are all wrong Of ge. Of course, it
:12:54. > :12:57.doesn't matter -- of course, it doesn't matter if you are wrong if
:12:58. > :13:02.you are not rabble rousing. Why did you start doing the cartoon? I have
:13:03. > :13:05.always found religion very interesting but at the same time
:13:06. > :13:09.quite amusing. The idea was in my head for several years about
:13:10. > :13:14.featuring the two major prophets of the two major world religions in a
:13:15. > :13:21.cartoon strip. But it was actually the Danish cartoon fiasco that
:13:22. > :13:26.prompted me to actually begin and so I did, back in 2005 in September.
:13:27. > :13:29.Doesn't that suggest that you deliberately set out to court
:13:30. > :13:38.outrage? It might suggest that. But it is not true. I deliberately set
:13:39. > :13:43.out to have a laugh at religion and to provide amusement for atheists.
:13:44. > :13:50.But you do understand that depicting the prophet is a great offence to
:13:51. > :13:57.Muslims? To some Muslims. Not all Muslims. And also it is not my
:13:58. > :14:08.concern because I'm not a Muslim. Isn't it your concern if you give
:14:09. > :14:15.offence? No. It's my concern to make people laugh, I don't give offence
:14:16. > :14:19.to anyone deliberately. If they take offence then that's their
:14:20. > :14:26.prerogative, they can take offence. You don't find something offensive
:14:27. > :14:32.about somebody anonymously making others unhappy? If they stumble upon
:14:33. > :14:35.it, then I admit they may find it offensive then. But they don't have
:14:36. > :14:40.to stay and they don't have to come back. It is the Internet. There are
:14:41. > :14:45.thousands of things on the Internet that I would find very offensive and
:14:46. > :14:51.occasionally I stumble on them. I don't go back. But if these cartoons
:14:52. > :14:58.are done to give amusement to yourself and to fellow atheists, if
:14:59. > :15:04.they should result in harm coming to someone, is that sufficient
:15:05. > :15:10.justification? ? The desire for a bit of humour a bit of a laugh? I
:15:11. > :15:15.can't see that it's my problem. I can't see that as my problem, I
:15:16. > :15:26.can't be responsible for the actions of bad people. I am creating
:15:27. > :15:30.something to make my fellow atheists laugh. Other people take it
:15:31. > :15:38.differently, there are other people that gain strength from my cartoon.
:15:39. > :15:44.It is a very badly-drawn, poorly executed silly comic strip, but some
:15:45. > :15:54.people feel it is very important to them. They find it liberating. I
:15:55. > :16:02.don't want to say I have a duty, because that sounds pompus. But I
:16:03. > :16:09.will continue. You are resolved on that are you? Pretty much. So here
:16:10. > :16:13.we are, 12 minutes to 11, nearing the end of day in which millions of
:16:14. > :16:20.things have happened, some happy, some tragic, frightening or
:16:21. > :16:31.reassuring most of them dull. And out of this quotidian mails strum,
:16:32. > :16:34.Bd mails stop BBC editors selected ten things they constitute news, and
:16:35. > :16:39.they will be in the newspapers, and whether you pay attention or not the
:16:40. > :16:43.world will continue to turn, and tomorrow night there will be more
:16:44. > :16:47.news. What is all this exposure to events over which we have no control
:16:48. > :16:51.doing to us? Before we talk about it here is the writer Alain De Botton's
:16:52. > :16:57.take. The news doesn't come with any instructions. At school they teach
:16:58. > :17:01.you how to analyse books and pictures, but no-one ever tells you
:17:02. > :17:07.how to make sense of that far more powerful questionable art form, the
:17:08. > :17:13.news. We're taught to decode Shakespeare, but not the celebrity
:17:14. > :17:17.section of the Daily Mail, George Elliott, but not the Sun, yet the
:17:18. > :17:21.news is the most powerful force out there, shaping how we view political
:17:22. > :17:24.reality, no wonder revolutionaries head to the TV and radio stations
:17:25. > :17:32.first whenever they want to change stuff. Here is my list of some of
:17:33. > :17:37.what's questionable about the news. Modern democratic nations think
:17:38. > :17:40.badly of censorship. They pride themselves on how much information
:17:41. > :17:44.is out there. But there's an awkward fact about information. If you have
:17:45. > :17:48.too much of it, it starts to number you, you lose the thread, you forget
:17:49. > :17:53.what you were even interested in or what could be changed. Rather than
:17:54. > :17:58.making us more political, an excess of information can erode any sense
:17:59. > :18:03.of what the real priorities are. Here is the paranoid frightening
:18:04. > :18:06.thought, if you want to make people accepting of the status quo, you
:18:07. > :18:13.have two option, either give them no news at all, or, more slyly, give
:18:14. > :18:20.them the opposite, so much news they will drown in it, then nothing will
:18:21. > :18:23.ever have to change. Thought ful people often imagine that what makes
:18:24. > :18:29.news organisations serious and worthy is their ability to provide
:18:30. > :18:34.us with information that's unbiased. But this bias against bias is
:18:35. > :18:40.fundamentally mistaken. Facts only become meaningful to us when they
:18:41. > :18:44.slot into some picture of what matters. Neutrality is simply
:18:45. > :18:50.possible, vis a vis the biggest questions. Think of the big figure,
:18:51. > :18:54.Plato, Buddha, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, all of these have been
:18:55. > :18:58.highly biased, their judgments were anything but perfectly balanced.
:18:59. > :19:13.Don't need news striped of buyia, we need news presented to us with the
:19:14. > :19:16.best kinds of bias. The news might tell us what is happening in the
:19:17. > :19:19.economic establishment, but fails to tell us what might and should
:19:20. > :19:24.happen. It sets an agenda but the agenda is woefully limited. The so
:19:25. > :19:29.called debate about the economy doesn't stray beyond some tightly
:19:30. > :19:32.defined line, restricting the audiences' understanding of what is
:19:33. > :19:36.actually possible. Alternative views soon end up in the territory of what
:19:37. > :19:43.is dismissed as radical and ridiculous. The news terrifies us
:19:44. > :19:49.every day about floods, fires, cancer. And at the same time it
:19:50. > :19:52.makes us furious, mostly at apparently incompetent people
:19:53. > :19:58.running the country, messing everything up. News outlets badly
:19:59. > :20:02.need their audiences to be agitated, frightened and bothered a lot of the
:20:03. > :20:06.time, and yet we have an even greater responsibility to try to
:20:07. > :20:11.remain resilient and see that the news is, in part, at least winding
:20:12. > :20:25.us up for its own ends, to keep itself in a job. We hear tragedies
:20:26. > :20:29.all the time, 300 gone through, and a thousand starving here. Yet in our
:20:30. > :20:33.hearts we don't much care. Is it because we are shallow and cold? No,
:20:34. > :20:37.it is just the news doesn't help us to cautious because it parachutes us
:20:38. > :20:42.into places only when disaster strikes. But we can't care about
:20:43. > :20:45.people in trouble when we didn't know them when things were OK. We
:20:46. > :20:52.need to know the steady state of a land before we can be motivated to
:20:53. > :20:58.care about its crises. The news ends up corrupting us with a sense of the
:20:59. > :21:03.overwhelming importance of our own era and concerns. Our debt, our
:21:04. > :21:09.affairs, our parties, our rogue missile, but a good life involves
:21:10. > :21:14.realising that there moments when the news has nothing to teach us,
:21:15. > :21:17.and we have to leave it behind to focus on some of our own anxieties
:21:18. > :21:25.and hopes in the brief time we are all allotted. Here to discuss all of
:21:26. > :21:30.that, Alain De Botton, the author of a new book, The News: A User's
:21:31. > :21:35.Manuel, Samira Ahmed, a journalist and presenter of Newswatch, a BBC
:21:36. > :21:40.programme that keeps a watch on how news is reported. And Alistair
:21:41. > :21:44.Campbell, former Fleet Street hack, better known for serving as Tony
:21:45. > :21:48.Blair's Director of Communications. Several time in your book you make a
:21:49. > :21:52.comparison between religion and news, what do you mean? Religion
:21:53. > :21:55.used to be the place you went out to find out what was important, what
:21:56. > :21:59.mattered and what is the meaning of life. All of those things we have
:22:00. > :22:02.taken to the news. The news is the thing that guides us and tells us
:22:03. > :22:07.what is important. The interesting thing is we never think here is
:22:08. > :22:11.something that we should learn to ingest with a little bit of care. We
:22:12. > :22:14.get taught how to read books and look at pictures, nobody says there
:22:15. > :22:17.is this thing called the news and it is a strange phenomenon and you need
:22:18. > :22:21.to think of a few things before going near it. Nobody teaches us how
:22:22. > :22:25.to take in the news. That is what I'm interested in. Do you recognise
:22:26. > :22:30.this picture, Alistair? I do, I read the book earlier today, I do agree
:22:31. > :22:35.with a lot of the thesis. I do think there is now a need for a kind of
:22:36. > :22:39.education about the modern media. Because I think there is very little
:22:40. > :22:42.self-analysis within the media about itself. And I think some of the
:22:43. > :22:48.points he made, even within that film, we saw Emily earlier talking
:22:49. > :22:52.about Labour and the trade unions, everything has to be presented as
:22:53. > :22:57.really new, really big, really important, the new this, the new,
:22:58. > :23:04.that the biggest since the last big thing, and... Of course. I know, but
:23:05. > :23:09.you say "of course", but part of your job is... Do you want us to
:23:10. > :23:14.come on air and say nothing much happened today and here are a few
:23:15. > :23:18.old stories. You made a speech and you said some days you should do
:23:19. > :23:21.exactly that. I think you should and nobody does. But on a regular date,
:23:22. > :23:26.that is a significant story. I'm not saying it is not a significant
:23:27. > :23:31.story, I not criticising Emily for the story, I'm saying news has
:23:32. > :23:36.become what somebody, an editor, a presenter decides is of interest.
:23:37. > :23:40.But the viewer. I'm not saying it is new, I'm simply saying I agree that
:23:41. > :23:44.the reader, the viewer, people growing up in Britain today where
:23:45. > :23:48.the media is much more prevalent than it ever used to be, I think
:23:49. > :23:51.there is a need for people n a sense, to get an education about
:23:52. > :23:57.where it is coming from and often why. It is ubiquitous, you accept
:23:58. > :24:01.that? It is, but the one thing I would agree with Botham on is
:24:02. > :24:05.education is important. I speak in schools a lot. I'm always struck by
:24:06. > :24:08.the fact that essentially watching the news is like critical
:24:09. > :24:12.appreciation. You should approach it with that critical detatchment. Most
:24:13. > :24:16.young people get that very, very quickly. They need to be taught it
:24:17. > :24:20.as part of a genuine thing. My greatest concern is this idea that
:24:21. > :24:25.some how the news is some how not made by individuals who are, it is
:24:26. > :24:28.some how a force out there. One, I think it gives a sense of community,
:24:29. > :24:31.people can turn on and tune into a sense of what is going on in the
:24:32. > :24:35.outer world and feel connected to it, in a positive way. They are not
:24:36. > :24:39.connected, they can't do a dam thing about it? Sometimes they can. An
:24:40. > :24:43.interesting thing about a story which there is a lot of cynicism
:24:44. > :24:47.about how it is reported is changes to the NHS. We have had a lot of
:24:48. > :24:51.complaints about the bias in the way it is reported. Here, here. There is
:24:52. > :24:56.a whole political party set up on that. You could argue about what the
:24:57. > :24:58.truth of it is, but people have been motivated to take action. Just to
:24:59. > :25:03.give you one briefly, because in your book you talk about this drip,
:25:04. > :25:08.drip, where news isn't given context. The Staffordshire Hospital
:25:09. > :25:12.scandal, that emerged because patients were being reported
:25:13. > :25:15.anecdotally to journalists. Now we have coverage of the National Health
:25:16. > :25:19.Service, right across the media that only wants to focus on the National
:25:20. > :25:23.Health Service being bad, when the National Health Service is actually
:25:24. > :25:26.very, very good. Everyone knows the National Health Service is pretty
:25:27. > :25:33.good, which is why when it goes bad it is news? It used to be, I used to
:25:34. > :25:39.have a colleague on the daily Mir Yorks she was the health -- Daily
:25:40. > :25:42.Mirror, her job was to write good stories about the National Health
:25:43. > :25:45.Service, she was laid off because the editor said there was no longer
:25:46. > :25:48.a market for good stories about the National Health Service. Because the
:25:49. > :25:52.news and the nature of the news has changed. Isn't it changed because of
:25:53. > :25:56.spin doctors. No. Do you accept no responsibility for feeding a news
:25:57. > :26:00.agenda? No, not at all. I just want to ask this one question, you said,
:26:01. > :26:04.just a year or so ago that the one thing that still makes you wake up
:26:05. > :26:10.and think did I really do that was getting Tony Blair joining the
:26:11. > :26:16.Rashid story, there was a point that was a distraction that the Murdoch
:26:17. > :26:19.press took up and took attention away from a story. I'm referring to
:26:20. > :26:24.a story years back and you are taking it up as serious. You talk
:26:25. > :26:30.about the Olympics in the book. That was a good news story? DPAKT exactly
:26:31. > :26:33.but up until the point to the Opening Ceremony the media were
:26:34. > :26:39.busting a gut thinking it would go wrong. You do sound a bit like
:26:40. > :26:42.Martin Lew! I don't think so. The news when it is looking for
:26:43. > :26:45.corruption, and it spends a lot of time looking for corruption, it
:26:46. > :26:49.imagines that corruption comes in the handy shape of one bad egg and
:26:50. > :26:56.put in a prison van and taken away. They don't say that. They are more
:26:57. > :27:01.complicated and don't involve criminal negligence, they involve
:27:02. > :27:05.stupidity and lazy thinking, that is hard for the news to get its teeth
:27:06. > :27:09.in. That is tripe what about Government spending on computer
:27:10. > :27:15.systems, that is just incompetent. A very important story. And very well
:27:16. > :27:21.reported? But one that really struggles. If you look at who is
:27:22. > :27:26.clicking on the Justin Bieber going mad, versus chaos in the DRC
:27:27. > :27:33.stories. I am afraid we are not all imbued with your high standards? I
:27:34. > :27:36.think the real challenge in a multichannel world is how do you get
:27:37. > :27:39.the most important news to be the most ar? At the moment there is a
:27:40. > :27:42.yawning divide between news that is important and news that is popular.
:27:43. > :27:47.In a democracy that really matters. What you want to do is to yolk the
:27:48. > :27:52.two together? That comes throughout your book, talk about what the news
:27:53. > :27:58.should do. I'm trying to make it better. You do that as well.
:27:59. > :28:02.Everyone who loves the news as I do it. That is the difference between
:28:03. > :28:06.God and bad journalism, a lot of your complaints are about bad or
:28:07. > :28:10.sloppy journalism. Let's get ambitious about what we can do. We
:28:11. > :28:14.are the first generations to know about news and have it on offer. We
:28:15. > :28:18.are working out how it works. It is natural to be confused. Are you
:28:19. > :28:21.suggesting it has a moral purpose beyond informing people? Yes. That
:28:22. > :28:24.it should be changing them? I think the point of the news is to make the
:28:25. > :28:28.nation flourish, to help the nation to go better. That's why we are
:28:29. > :28:31.interested in criminality, that is why we are interested in scandals,
:28:32. > :28:36.we are trying to get things to go better. Who makes that judgment? I
:28:37. > :28:40.think that is the collective voice out there. It gets better because
:28:41. > :28:43.you expose wrongdoing and people might challenge. One of the most
:28:44. > :28:47.important aspects in news reporting, which you in your book write in the
:28:48. > :28:52.headlines about criminal trials, there is something wonderful seeing
:28:53. > :28:54.a criminal trial that brings people to justice, sometimes it is an
:28:55. > :28:59.individual example but can you change the law and change behaviour.
:29:00. > :29:04.Alastair gave a lecture in Cambridge saying that Watergate had been the
:29:05. > :29:08.greatest journalistic story in the 20th century but ruined journalism.
:29:09. > :29:13.His point was because Watergate was such a big story, and still the
:29:14. > :29:17.yardstick, that now journalism is only journalism if it is bringing
:29:18. > :29:26.somebody down, preferably somebody in a position of power. A great
:29:27. > :29:29.example is Fred Goodwin and taking away his Knighthood, I don't think
:29:30. > :29:33.there was a public attitude to see it taken away, but it was a public
:29:34. > :29:36.appetite for saying something is wrong. We had a Government that
:29:37. > :29:40.cynically threw him to the wolves and encouraged the news machine to
:29:41. > :29:45.offer him up. We have a PR man who is our Prime Minister now. You know,
:29:46. > :29:49.there is a kind of an interesting relationship between politics and an
:29:50. > :29:53.attempt to manipulate the news agenda, which you know all too well
:29:54. > :29:55.about. I do, but I think the relationship between media and
:29:56. > :30:01.politics, let me give you one example. You look at this wall,
:30:02. > :30:07.there is more media than ever. Even on the Daily Mirror two reporters
:30:08. > :30:13.had a job covering parliament, we now have shows thousand -- thousands
:30:14. > :30:17.of showers of parliament and nobody is covering it. There is nobody on
:30:18. > :30:23.the benches either half the time? Agree there is an issue about
:30:24. > :30:26.political reporting. We have the parliament channel nobody watches.
:30:27. > :30:29.Part of the job is to say it is not just about sales and ratings, we are
:30:30. > :30:34.part of an important process involving the public. Politicians
:30:35. > :30:38.have to not play the game with creating little policy ideas. They
:30:39. > :30:42.wouldn't do that if they felt they were forced on to the agenda. Go to
:30:43. > :30:46.more mature countries you will find less going on. Can I bring it back
:30:47. > :30:49.to the viewers and every week we have people who e-mail in and I
:30:50. > :30:53.think your book implies people feel helpless and are some how
:30:54. > :30:58.manipulated by this. Social media gives them a big voice. We put too
:30:59. > :31:02.much emphasis on social media, most people aren't on there. Most young
:31:03. > :31:08.people are not watching the BBC. The media have a short attention span,
:31:09. > :31:13.we move on now. You can always contact Newswatch and complain about
:31:14. > :31:17.bad coverage and we will tackle it with BBC boss, the editor of
:31:18. > :31:23.Newsnight has yet to commit to a date. If he doesn't come, I will. We
:31:24. > :31:28.want the editor. You may recall a few months ago Newsnight reported on
:31:29. > :31:32.police investigations into a Pakistani political party called the
:31:33. > :31:41.MQM, with headquarters in North London. The MQM represents Muslims
:31:42. > :31:50.who arrived in Pakistan during the creation of their country in 1947.
:31:51. > :31:55.The leader of the MQM has been accused of involvement in 30 murders
:31:56. > :31:58.in Pakistan. Yet he maintains total control of the party and 19 members
:31:59. > :32:04.in the parliament there, all from British soil. As we have discovered,
:32:05. > :32:11.that intense investigation into the MQC is putting the party under
:32:12. > :32:19.intense pressure. An office in Karachi. A college in East London.
:32:20. > :32:24.And a murder in Edgware. The British Police are trying to work out
:32:25. > :32:31.possible connections. A Pakistani politician is complaining of British
:32:32. > :32:35.Police harassment. Altaf Hussein has lived in North London for over 20
:32:36. > :32:40.years. He has been accused in numerous murder cases back home.
:32:41. > :32:46.When he gives a speech down a telephone line to Karachi, thousands
:32:47. > :32:51.gather to listen. It is remote control politics. As the MQM leader,
:32:52. > :32:56.he's a hugely powerful figure in Karachi, representing, he says, the
:32:57. > :33:01.secular middle-classes. And he's not happy with the investigation into
:33:02. > :33:07.the murder of one of his party officials Imran Farooq. A senior MQM
:33:08. > :33:14.official, he was bludgeoned and stabbed to death after walking to
:33:15. > :33:19.his home in September 2010. It has been a massive investigation, more
:33:20. > :33:28.than 4,000 people have been interviewed. And for months now
:33:29. > :33:40.Altaf husband tain -- Hussein has been complaining.
:33:41. > :33:45.MQM officials say they want to co-operate with the murder inquiry,
:33:46. > :33:51.but complain of police harassment. The only person so far arrested in
:33:52. > :33:55.the case is Altaf's nephew, who is now on police bail. He was arrested
:33:56. > :34:06.on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. Police believe the case will
:34:07. > :34:11.be unlocked in Pakistan. Officially the police will neither confirm nor
:34:12. > :34:18.deny that they have asked for Pakistani assistance in the case.
:34:19. > :34:21.But Newsnight has learned that the UK Crown Prosecution Service has
:34:22. > :34:26.formally requested that Pakistan give access to two suspects, and
:34:27. > :34:36.documents obtained from Pakistan named them. As Mr Saied and a Mr
:34:37. > :34:44.Khan Camran. The two men flew from Pakistan to London. The first to
:34:45. > :34:50.come Mr Saied, arrived in the UK in February 2010. He stayed first in
:34:51. > :35:02.Tooting and then in a bedsit in this North London street. Mr Khan Kamran
:35:03. > :35:08.came a few days before the killing. Phone records show he was with Mr
:35:09. > :35:12.Saied the whole time in the UK. On the evening of the murder they left
:35:13. > :35:16.from Heathrow to Sri Lanka and then on to Karachi, where the Pakistani
:35:17. > :35:19.authorities picked them up on the airport tarmac. It is thought they
:35:20. > :35:30.are still being detained in Pakistan. So how did they get to the
:35:31. > :35:34.UK? The two suspects applied to study at this East London college.
:35:35. > :35:39.The rules say that non-attending students must be reported within
:35:40. > :35:46.days of going missing. And yet the college, which enjoys official "most
:35:47. > :35:50.trusted status" for sponsoring students, said for one of the men it
:35:51. > :35:54.waited 18 months before making a report to the UK authorities. The
:35:55. > :35:58.college says it has been asked to explain this and has done so. The
:35:59. > :36:01.Home Office refuses to say whether the college kept to the rules, it
:36:02. > :36:08.just says it is not currently being investigated. So, how did the two
:36:09. > :36:14.men get the visas? Documents obtained by Newsnight say the visas
:36:15. > :36:20.were endorsed by a Karachi businessman, Mr Khan, who was in
:36:21. > :36:28.regular contact with Mr Hussein's nephew throughout 2010, the visas
:36:29. > :36:32.were then processed by Atif Siddique. He told Newsnight he was
:36:33. > :36:37.not an agent of the college and didn't know either of the suspect,
:36:38. > :36:42.and Mr Ali Khan did not respond to our request for comment. And the MQM
:36:43. > :36:48.denies any link with the murder case. There are raids against MQM
:36:49. > :36:52.leadership, all the people in MQM and what would you expect Mr Hussein
:36:53. > :36:56.to say, what would a reasonable man in Britain say? Therefore I would
:36:57. > :36:59.tend to think there is one very important aspect which maybe the
:37:00. > :37:08.authorities and police are overlooking and that is perhaps a
:37:09. > :37:12.possibility that this murder of Dr Imran Farooq could be a spoiled
:37:13. > :37:19.mugging or it could well be that it is some conspiracy hatched by our
:37:20. > :37:24.political enemies abroad. It is very easily they are attempting to slap
:37:25. > :37:27.the blame on us. It is only fair to point out that a nephew of Mr
:37:28. > :37:31.Hussein has been arrested in connection with the murder inquiry.
:37:32. > :37:34.May I say this again, that is primarily because wrong information
:37:35. > :37:42.has been fed and that nephew that you are talking about, he faced a
:37:43. > :37:45.lot of atrocities at the hands of the authorities in Pakistan. He
:37:46. > :37:51.himself is not a person who is really with himself, mentally. The
:37:52. > :38:07.MQM faces multiple investigations. One is into Altaf Hussein's speeches
:38:08. > :38:12.in the UK. More than 10,000 people have complained to the Met about
:38:13. > :38:15.these kinds of threats. The Met says it is still considering the issue of
:38:16. > :38:20.whether these statements amount to incitement. Then there is the matter
:38:21. > :38:27.of nearly half a million in cash found in Mr Hussein's home and the
:38:28. > :38:31.party headquarters. Last month the police arrested a long-serving party
:38:32. > :38:36.official in connection with possible money laundering. Many of the
:38:37. > :38:42.party's UK bank accounts have been closed down and there is unpaid tax,
:38:43. > :38:47.MQM insiders admit they face a massive back tax bill. The MQM is
:38:48. > :38:54.under real pressure now and the question is whether they the
:38:55. > :38:58.Pakistan Government will give access to the two suspects. Politically
:38:59. > :39:04.Altaf Hussein's supporters say his power base is intact, but his
:39:05. > :39:08.opponents say his grip on Karachi is loosening.
:39:09. > :39:12.Now a poll carried out for Newsnight and released tonight shows that over
:39:13. > :39:16.a quarter of women claim to have been sexually harassed at work, on
:39:17. > :39:20.the street or in a social situation. Over half of those questioned about
:39:21. > :39:25.harassment at work thought the best thing to do was to deal with it
:39:26. > :39:29.themselves and respond immediately, 37% felt it worth involving an
:39:30. > :39:33.employer, 6% they would prefer a legal response. The poll in which
:39:34. > :39:37.over 800 women were questioned was conducted just after the Liberal
:39:38. > :39:41.Democrats embarrassment over the Lord Rennard affair. More than a
:39:42. > :39:46.third of the participants found the party less attractive because of the
:39:47. > :39:51.way it handled the allegations, almost half weren't so bothered.
:39:52. > :39:55.Here to discuss this is Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism
:39:56. > :40:00.Project. And the journalist Dame Ann Leslie. Are you surprised Laura at
:40:01. > :40:04.the size of the sample of women who felt they had been harassed? No, if
:40:05. > :40:08.anything only surprised that it sounds a little bit low to me. But I
:40:09. > :40:11.think that might be partly because no under 18s were questioned in this
:40:12. > :40:15.survey, and sadly the reality is that a lot of the people reporting
:40:16. > :40:19.sexual harassment to us are actually schoolgirls in their school uniform.
:40:20. > :40:23.It is something that happens at an incredibly young age. What did you
:40:24. > :40:28.make of this proportion, about a quarter of the women surveyed?
:40:29. > :40:34.Again, you know the whole thing is a question of gender and time, because
:40:35. > :40:38.in my youth, of course, a quarter, is nothing. It was 100%, for
:40:39. > :40:42.heaven's sake, I spent a lot of my youth when I was young and gorgeous
:40:43. > :40:47.like you being chased around the furniture by dirty old men. I took
:40:48. > :40:51.it as that's what one did and occasionally of course I would stub
:40:52. > :40:56.out a fag on wandering hand if it was getting a bit too far. But of
:40:57. > :41:00.course in a way that kind of every day sexism, although it is very
:41:01. > :41:07.annoying, and it is still annoying clearly wasn't as bad as the
:41:08. > :41:11.institutional sexism. For example at 22 I was very successful already and
:41:12. > :41:15.earning a lot of money, and I was forbidden from getting a mortgage
:41:16. > :41:19.because I was a single woman and I was told things like, why don't you
:41:20. > :41:23.get a nice man to look after all that. You know. That sort of thing.
:41:24. > :41:27.So I sometimes think people like you, although I think you are
:41:28. > :41:32.wonderful and I wouldn't dream of criticising a sister or any fellow
:41:33. > :41:39.sisters I just think sometimes... But here it comes! Sometimes you
:41:40. > :41:44.don't realise how silly it can sometimes seem. People I know who
:41:45. > :41:50.say I'm sexually harassed because someone says that's a nice dress.
:41:51. > :41:53.That is not sexual harassment. No sexual harassment. We are not
:41:54. > :41:56.complaining about compliments, we are talking about something quite
:41:57. > :42:00.extreme here, the fact that things have moved on for women is
:42:01. > :42:04.wonderful, why should that mean we shouldn't tackle it. Over a quarter
:42:05. > :42:07.of women is a huge figure, why do we keep coming back to this idea of
:42:08. > :42:10.women shouldn't be overreacting, women shouldn't this and that, why
:42:11. > :42:17.aren't we stopping and ask why are men doing this. Men or women or
:42:18. > :42:21.children or anybody should not because that way perdecision lies,
:42:22. > :42:25.all I'm saying is sometimes I think when women particularly, because of
:42:26. > :42:30.course we are women, whingeing away, moaning away on television, when
:42:31. > :42:38.actually I think the worse problem at the moment facing society is poor
:42:39. > :42:43.white boys, who underachieve in class, they are also the great
:42:44. > :42:46.sexual harassers. That is a serious problem, but it is another problem
:42:47. > :42:51.than the one we are talking about right now. It is related. And
:42:52. > :42:55.serious. This is why the schools. Serious sexual harassment is a
:42:56. > :42:59.serious matter isn't it? It is very annoying. There is a problem with
:43:00. > :43:02.definition here? It is not about whingeing or moaning, we are talking
:43:03. > :43:05.about sexual harassment, that is something, this isn't a women's
:43:06. > :43:09.issue, this is something nobody should have to put up with. Which is
:43:10. > :43:13.why I brought up young boys, you talked about school girls who are so
:43:14. > :43:19.pressured, these young boys who see a lot of television, a lot of porn,
:43:20. > :43:24.they think that young, of course their testosterone is at their peak,
:43:25. > :43:29.they think these girls should be available. I absolutely think it is
:43:30. > :43:33.not just a question of women it is a question of boys, particularly.
:43:34. > :43:39.Where do you think those boys are getting those messages from, I
:43:40. > :43:43.agree. That is not really what we are talking about here, and it is
:43:44. > :43:46.interesting that when sexual harassment comes up, particularly to
:43:47. > :43:49.do with women, the response very often is this kind of let's talk
:43:50. > :43:53.about other problems, let's say there is more serious things going
:43:54. > :43:56.on. But I just think you know why don't we actually stop and instead
:43:57. > :43:59.of looking at the victims at all, say shall we talk about the
:44:00. > :44:03.perpetrators, why are people doing this. Let's look at that. We have
:44:04. > :44:07.just been doing that. Let's look at the second part of this survey, the
:44:08. > :44:11.first question was extremely difficultly worded I think, but the
:44:12. > :44:15.question as to what women thought was the appropriate thing to do,
:44:16. > :44:20.that an immediate, far higher proportion thought the things to do
:44:21. > :44:23.was give an immediate response and a smaller proportion thought you took
:44:24. > :44:27.it up with your employer or whatever. What do you make of that?
:44:28. > :44:32.I think that is partly because a lot of women are operating currently in
:44:33. > :44:35.a world where people aren't taken when they try to report things. As
:44:36. > :44:39.we have seen in the media response to the recent allegation, instead of
:44:40. > :44:43.taking it seriously and dealing with it, things are brushed off and swept
:44:44. > :44:47.under the car at the time pet. We receive a huge -- carpet, we receive
:44:48. > :44:52.a huge amount of women trying to report it to HR, they are told not
:44:53. > :44:55.to make a fuss and see how it could impact on their career. And many
:44:56. > :44:59.women are not in a situation where there is a HR department to go for.
:45:00. > :45:03.We have heard from waitresses who have been told to choose between
:45:04. > :45:07.getting an abortion or resigning when getting pregnant. Women in the
:45:08. > :45:14.service industry getting groped and assaulted, there is nobody to be
:45:15. > :45:19.report it to. Need to look at the perpetrators. I know it is unfair,
:45:20. > :45:26.because you know my grandmother who was brilliant and you know passed
:45:27. > :45:30.all, it was a long time ago, she was a brilliant mathematician, she went
:45:31. > :45:34.to Cambridge, she passed absolutely the top but Cambridge did not allow
:45:35. > :45:38.women to get degrees. So of course and then I'm not quite as old as she
:45:39. > :45:45.was, of course there were things against me. And I just sometimes
:45:46. > :45:52.wonder if women who go on and on and on about the natural interaction,
:45:53. > :45:56.natural I'm afraid, of folks at bars and parties in that particular
:45:57. > :46:00.survey that they were sexually harassed, there is some pest there,
:46:01. > :46:04.they can push them off, you know. Why are we going on. They shouldn't
:46:05. > :46:08.have to Anne. Why not. You are talking about natural interaction,
:46:09. > :46:14.sexual harassment is about unwanted behaviour. Of course a lot of
:46:15. > :46:18.unnatural interaction is unwanted. I'm sure you have had a period in
:46:19. > :46:26.your time. I tell you what we're going to the credits now. You are
:46:27. > :46:29.not going to confess when you were unwanted. Kirsty has the pleasure
:46:30. > :46:32.tomorrow until then good night.