21/02/2014 Newsnight

Ukraine rocked to its foundations by the most recent deaths, finally does

a deal to bring the country back from the brink of Civil War. As the

coffins of dead protestors are paraded through Independence Square,

will the promise of future elections keep the two sides from each other's

throats. We will hear live from Kiev. If I'm desoperate I will try

to go for shoplifting, when you do it, it is for something to eat.

Benefits sanctions now the Archbishop of Canterbury joins the

clamour condemning the Government as policies. The former Children's

Minister, walking away from politics tells us she is furious as well.

Colourful adverts for top brand, Sony, Ford, fairy, BMW, does the

Internet lay every fact about your product in black and white and is it

necessary? ??FORCEDWHI It took the deaths of at least 77 people and

hundreds injured to get Ukraine's opposition and Government to sign up

to a mediated peace pact. The 2004 constitution will be restored, which

will restrict President Yanukovych's power. An interim Government of

National Unity will be put together within the fortnight. And there will

be presidential elections by December at the latest. Also the

opposition leader, Yulia Temeshenko, incarcerated for two years now, will

be released from jail. Gabriel Gatehouse joins us from Kiev. Yes

there were extraordinary emotional scenes as open coffins of the dead

were paraded for the protestors to see. People trying, and in the

middle of it all some of the opposition leaders took to the stage

to announce the details of the deal they have made, they were booed off

stage. Many of the protesters were not happy with it, particularly with

the idea that the elections they have been demanding for so long

could only be in do nearly a year away. It remains to be seen whether

the people on the street accept the deal hammered out by the diplomats

and the politicians. Meanwhile it has always been talked about as a

conflict between east and west, between those who look towards

Europe and those who look towards Russia. I have been walking around

Kiev today looking at the deep historical divisions behind in

conflict. Marching down to Independence Square, a column of

policemen who have defected to the protesters. They chant "glory to

Ukraine", echoing the slogan of the Ukrainian insurgent army, a national

group that in the 1940s and 1950s had waged a doom guerrilla war

against the Soviet regime. These officers have travelled all the way

from the west of Ukraine. TRANSLATION: You can't shoot

civilians in cold blood, it is wrong. We as officers, we know how

to handle weapons, so we have come here to defend the people. Ukraine's

security forces are in disarray, yesterday they were beaten back by

the protesters, today they were order today vacate their positions

outside parliament. News of the deal between the Government and the

opposition filtered through to the square. Early elections, a unity

Government and curbs on the President's powers. Until this

week's bloody event those concessions might have been enough

to end the protest. But not now. These people are going nowhere. The

first thing first he needs to go away, Yanukovych. The President?

Needs to go, needs to resign now. After that we can talk, anything

else sun acceptable. Before you were all saying early elections and that

would be fine, but now? Not any more, he's a kill, a murderer, a

mass murderer, we need him to go, he's not the President any more. He

is a murderer, nothing else. Echos of history were on display again as

the defected officers were cheered by the crowd. "Glory to Ukraine",

the old nationalist chant goes on, "death to our enemies". Ukraine and

Russia's histories are inextricably intertwined. This is St Sofia's

Cathedral, the oldest in the Russian Orthodox Church. It was built in the

11th century when this city was the centre of the cradle of Russian

civilisation. For many Russians this Cathedral is the spiritual birth

place of their religion. And it is a powerful emotional reason why the

Kremlin feels it absolutely cannot allow Ukraine to drop out of its

orbit. In normal times this is the reason why many Ukraines from east

and west feel a strong historical and cultural affinity to their

brothers and sisters in Russia. But these are not normal times,

especially when people start dying in the street, historical fault

lines become exacerbated. The Second World War was Ukraine's darkest

hour. Millions lost their lives. The eventual Soviet victory has

officially been elevated to almost cult-like status. But not in western

Ukraine. Where many see the Soviet liberation as just another

occupation. The Ukrainian insurgent army, whose slogans the protesters

now chant on Independence Square fought against the Soviets, a

historical sin, many in the east can still not forgive. The slogan "glory

to Ukraine", is not as scary as it used to be, "glory to the nation",

which is answered normally with "death to the enemies", that is of

course unacceptable for many, many people in history. Why? Because they

think that they are some how classified as enemies within this

reply. That the east is the enemy? Yes. At this time what unites

Ukrainians? One very bad thing unites Ukrainians now, it is a fear

of losing our country, the fear for losing our independence, and one

very good thing unites us, it is an understanding that no-one will build

our country instead of us. But will that and today's concessions be

enough to prevent this country sliding deeper into conflict. Away

from the protest square we met some young Ukrainians who fear it may

already be too late. Do you think there will be a Civil War? There is

a Civil War, even now, maybe in a very low level, but there is a Civil

War. A lot of people are dying now and it is horrible that they cannot

stop it. Amid the nationalist chants, the barricades feel more

deserted this evening. Perhaps Ukraine has pulled back from the

brink. But the blood still lies fresh on the cobble stones at the

spot where so many young men lost their lives to sniper fire

yesterday. Emotions are still raw, Ukraine's future remains perilously

uncertain. Earlier I spoke to Ukraine's ambassador to the United

Nations, Yuriy Sergeyev. Ambassador Sergeyev, the bloodshed has been

horrific, particularly yesterday's bloodshed, surely this is a kind of

deal that President Yanukovych could have done months ago? The opposition

of the President, they tried to reach a compromise, but it never

happened, even after the Prime Minister of the Government resigned.

It happened only yesterday. Most probably after they recognised the

magnitude of crisis and the huge amount of deaths on the streets.

Most probably after that they found it possible to then speak. The

protesters want President Yanukovych to go now. If a unity Government can

be formed in 12 days only with his resignation do you think he will be

prepared to go? I could understand the e -- emotion, and they lost

their friends and relatives and the coffins surround them. I am afraid

these demands could lead to another conflict. Yulia Temeshenko will be

released from prison, would you like to see her run for President again?

I was impressed that the decision to release Yulia Temeshenko was taken

by the constitutional majority. Either she is going or not back to

politics and for any elections that is beyond me to judge. Would you

like to see Ukraine a member of the European Union within the decade?

Undoubtedly, and it is written in our legislation, the European

leaders, they keep saying, and yesterday confirmed, that doors are

open. Are you prepared, do you think, for Russia to be hostile to

any new overture or any renewed overture to Europe? Russia recently

sent the message that the Russian Government is ready to co-operate

with the new Ukrainian Government, the new Government could create both

the good relations with the European Union through a cessationship, and

probably with membership in future and to keep good relationships with

Russia. Thank you. OW. The vice Prime Minister who served in the

Government of Yulia Temeshenko, joins me from Kiev via science. Good

evening? You heard the protestors in the film saying first things first,

Viktor Yanukovych has to go away. No matter how the opposition leaders

have phrased the deal. Do you think the protesters will buy it? No today

I was talking to hundreds of people, it is impossible to convince them

that they have to live with the first President in the

newly-independent Ukraine on whose hands there is the blood of so many

killed people. When they heard about the agreement that Yanukovych could

stay until December, actually until there would be formalities, it means

another year. Because it could be somewhere in January, people would

never agree to this. If Yanukovych has good political instincts it is

better for him not to try to put that behind certain agreement, but

to accept the reality and go for early elections that can probably

defuse the tension. Or defuse the tension by, returning to the 2004

constitution he actually has much less power any way. Do you think he

could be persuaded there is any chance he will be persuaded to stand

down earlier? Very difficult to predict because on the one hand he

wants presidential election, on the other hand the way he behaves is

unpredictable and very, very irresponsible, I would say. He is

making all possible mistakes and he, with his next decision he makes his

personal situation, and therefore the country is more complicated. On

that basis, because there was such an overwhelming shock of the

bloodshed yesterday, if there was a return to violence, surely the

pressure on him would be huge then to stand down immediately? There

will be pressure on him and I strongly doubt that he is in charge

of the country. I have been talking to some ambassadors, negotiators,

they told me also, high-level negotiators, they said they are

under the impression that they are talking to the wrong guy, that

decisions are not made by him and not by his administration sometimes.

You were part of the Government of Yulia Temeshenko, although you are

not in the same party. What do you think the chances of her announcing,

we don't know how well she is, but announcing that she would run for

President? There should be a court decision letting her out first. Is

it going to happen or not? Also it depends a lot on Yanukovych, he

still controls the whole system, though this system is just crashing

right before his nose. As for Yulia Temeshenko, well, no-one can say,

but knowing her as I know her I can predict she will run. She's probably

leaning now with revenge. To what extent it is good for the country,

to what extent revenge is a good motivation is another story. But

when she is out I can't imagine her being out of big politics. She's

possessed, obsessed with desire to be at the top. Thank you very much

indeed. Today the week-long collision between the pulpit and

politics was stepped up by the intervention of the Archbishop of

Canterbury in the row over sanctions over benefits designed to get people

back to work. He wrote a letter signed by 40 Clergy decrying the

benefit cuts, saying half a million people in the UK have visited food

banks since last Easter. This is what I have got so far donate bid

friends, neighbours and also the Citizens Advice Bureau. Terry has

just had his job-seeker's allowance stopped, because he misread the date

he had to sign on. Sanctions of stopping someone's benefits if they

haven't made enough effort to look for work, are part of a package of

reforms designed to get people back to work. I have only been out of

work really for about two or three years inbetween jobs. The fact that

I'm being penalised in such a way after paying in so much money in

national insurance contributions, tax, etc, etc, I think it is an

absolute disgrace. But those reform, say Church of England bishops are

forcing people to choose between heating and eating. David Cameron

has a moral imperative to act. The head of the Catholic Church in

England and Wales blames the coalition for creating destitution.

Ministers, he says, have torn apart the traditional safety net for the

poor. And those words were backed up today by the Archbishop of

Canterbury, those who criticise the coalition are simply giving voice to

an upswell of feeling. On Monday's Newsnight rereported on the em--

reported on the impact of benefits sanctions. It is really damp. At

this foodbank in axe ington, staff say 70% of people coming in for food

parcels have been sanctioned. How do you end the poverty trap, how do you

make work pay? Is it right that people remain stuck on benefits? Is

it moral? Well to discuss where moral arguments and benefits are the

MPs Steve Baker a member of the Conservative Christian Fellowship,

and Sarah Teather, the former Lib Dem families minister. First of all,

both of you are Christians, and you follow faith, but your leader Nick

Clegg said that the church leaders had got it wrong, they were

exaggerating? Yes rather a patronising response from my leader

there, and not very helpful and not in my view very well informed

either. If I think about the experience of a lot of my

constituents, I'm afraid I'm seeing far too many people who are made

destitute and put into severe poverty by the benefit changes. I

mean for example I had a woman where the whole of the last trimester of

her pregnancy she had no money whatsoever. I had another case where

somebody was sanctioned for failing to turn up at an appointment when

she was having surgery for cancer. I am afraid the Archbishop's criticism

this week really chimes with my own experience. And do you think the

Clergy, the senior Clergy were right to put it in the terms they put it?

The Clergy are right to speak up for the poor, of course, I don't think

it was right when the Archbishop said that the welfare state has been

torn away. I don't think that stands up to scrutiny. We are still paying

job-seeker's allowance and pension, the health service is still there.

But is it true that the welfare state is failing people and leaving

them destitute, I am afraid it is. The bureaucracy is always

inefficient, it is not way of dispensing kindness, like Sarah I

have seen cases where as an MP I have had to step in and help.

In terms of the moral purpose of politicians, is that often at odds

with the actual facts of policy? That is a broad question. In this

regard. They have a moral duty to lift people out of poverty? I think

from my perspective it is difficult to discern what the clear moral

vision is behind welfare reform, there is three things going on all

at the same time, you have Iain Duncan Smith's original idea around

Universal Credit, that was something supposed to provide a flexible

dynamic system responding in real time to people's wage changes, that

simplified the system that meant people were better off in work. In

my view the original vision was a good thing. That was quite a moral

vision from Iain Duncan Smith. It had a lot to commend it. The problem

is it has been cut against by two other things. We have taken a lot of

money out of the system undermining how it would work. The third-most

important thing is it is overlaid by a number of directly political

interventions that are more about trying to demonstrate whose side we

are on rather than really about helping individuals get back into

work. That is interesting, so in fact, let's take the money out of

this, actually what the policy reflects is a political purpose and

therefore you could say that actually it is not about the

morality of it, it is about politics? I don't think that is fair

comment. I think Iain Duncan Smith is a deeply moral man. I got

involved with the Centre for Social Justice in 2007 or so. When you look

back at the broken Britain, breakdown Britain report in 2006, it

is clear even then there were profound failures in the welfare

state. People living in entrenched cycles of poverty and the welfare

state was not breaking. His whole journey is one of moral purpose and

resconetruction. The idea of lifting people out of poverty and getting

them out of the benefits cycle. But if you are a churchman, or

churchwoman, and you see half a million people in food banks? So I

would agree with the Archbishop there is an acute moral imperative

to act, but who should act and who should pay for it. The problem we

have is you can't take the money out. We are spending ?1 billion more

a year than we can raise in tax. It is ?3,400 per taxpayer, we can't

afford it. Who should be paying for this morally? I think there are two

things, I would say, I don't accept the argument that the best way to

balance the books for us as a country is to do it all on the backs

of the poor. We have taken too much out of the benefits system, it has

been done too quickly. You can make one change and people may have

enough resilience to cope, when you make change, after change, after

change, people have no capacity to deal with it. We have removed a lot

of the system that is support people like the crisis loans and the social

fund is not there in the same way that people are really able to

access. Vincent Nichol is saying that it is immoral to leave people

in destitution? It is immoral to leave people in destitution, we

should lift them out of it, how should we do it. To answer the how

to balance the budgets on the backs of the poor. Nobody wants to do.

That but three quarters of the Government spending is social debt

interest and education. The fact is, if we are going to protect the

health and education budgets, if we can't keep cutting defence and

foreign affairs, it has to come out somewhere. We can't cut pensions.

Most of it has come out of the same group of people. I want to say

something else, that is also, some of the things that have been most

devastating don't save money. The overall benefit cap for example has

a devastating impact on a small number of people, who have no

possibility of making claims for themselves, but save no money for

the country. Thank you very much indeed. Some of the most memorable

images of the last 20 years have been in adverts, the Guinness

toucan, the Milky Bar and the PG Tips Chimps. According to a new

book, companies no longer need to spend millions building brands the

Internet will do it for virtually no money. Now is about price comparison

websites, customer reviews and trusts bloggers, is the era of big

brands over. In a moment a former Saatchi and Saatchi executives talks

to us. But first this. # I would like to buy the world a

home # And furnish it with love

# Grow apple trees # And honey bees

# And snow white turtle to doves For more than a century Coca-Cola has

been peddling so much more than brown cabonated water, this brand is

not going flat any time soon. Some argue brands are under threat,

because ads like this can so easily be drowned out by an ocean of

on-line information. Some even predict that is brands could become

mere museum exhibits. Back in the day it was hard to find out whether

a Roberts Radio was better than a Decca, you could ask the bloke

behind the counter or your next door neighbour, but it was hardly perfect

information. People tended to rely on brand names, the Internet has

changed all that, you can go on-line and read reviews by customers and

experts, and you can still ask your neighbour and all your other friends

on Facebook. Some argue the brand is much less important. I will mix it

up a little bit today, I will do it on boxing and a review of the ASUS,

66 dual band wireless... . It was the on-line techie reviewers that

helped ASUS, a Taiwanese company with little label recognition to

become the third-biggest seller of tablets. To enable the best web

connection. Because they couldn't rely on brand name they say they

broke through on quality of product and virtual word of mouth.

Introducing the holiday assurance. But it is not just the tech sector,

Hyundai say they expect customers to thoroughly research their cars

on-line before they buy. It makes it much harder to hide behind the

brand. 80% of the customers who go into a showroom today and buy a car,

80% of them have already gone on-line. And what that has done, in

terms of the purchasing of a vehicle, it has changed about 15

years ago, people would visit four dealerships, today they visit one.

Two dealerships. The reason being, so it is almost when they are going

in there they have almost decided to buy that brand. So what they have

done, they have done the investigation beforehand and they

have done it on-line. Not everyone is convinced that all this

information is necessarily very informative. In fact, it is

overwhelming. The brand, they argue, has never been more important. The

marketing industry has always loved to talk about brand loyalty, of

nurturing relationships with consumers. But is this talk of

monogamy ever been realistic, haven't customers always been serial

adult at thor, take coke drinkers, the ultimate two-timers, 70% of them

also prink Pepsi. So much for loyalty.

We have the chair of the brand consultancy Brand Cap, and Emanual

Rosen is the co-author of a new book, Absolute Value. It argues that

the brands in decline in some sectors. Rosen ruchings you don't

deny that people love brand, they feel a loyalty to brands, an

affinity to a brand, it says something about them? In this book

we are talking about a major shift in consumer decision making as you

described in the last few minutes. Consumers increasingly rely on

reviews from other user, from experts. Whenever they do that then

they add affinity to the brand and a connection, and they play a reduced

role. Brands are not disappearing, we are not saying it is the end of

brand, but brands will play a reduced role in the quality proxy

when people use alternative information sources such as reviews

from users or experts. I was going to say though, presumably then you

can have an unknown brand, but if you get the ear of an expert who

then promotes it, it is a lot cheaper than spending a lot on a

huge brand campaign? It is, absolutely, we have this debate over

few years. There is a new social change or retail change or

technology change and there is talk about the death of brands. But never

one like the Internet? What's interesting about the Internet is

great brands have grown up out of the internet. Despite the fact that

the talk about the Internet was brands are dead, because it is all

going to be exposed, prices will be laid bare and everything else. But

we have Google, Facebook, Amazon, these arm so of the world's most --

these are some of the world's most valuable brands. What doesn't work

is marketing targeting up a mediocre product. That will be killed stone

dead more quickly? Yeah, you have to be a great business and great brand.

What about what Rita is saying, massive grand, Google, Amazon, Ebay,

Apple, these are huge technology brands of the 21st century? That's

true, but the thing is that the brand equity that these companies

have created will play a reduced role in the decision by a customer

for his next move. That is you know, you mentioned Google, Google

introduced in 2009 a programme called Google Wave. Now Google had

back then incredible goodwill... . I think we have a technology problem

here! Clearly Google is not running that well. That issue, that he was

raising there, the fact that just what you are saying, I suppose,

Google had the brand called Google wave, and because it wasn't a

successful programme it went down. And Apple had a problem for a while

as well? Appleyard is the very best example, in this particular book

they talk about in an almost perfect information world. But of course

people aren't perfect. People are a bit messy, they make decisions to

buy brands on not just rational grounds, and looking at lots of

information, but emotional ground too, do I like it? Frankly, as far

as information is concerned then human beings aren't going to be able

to stay awake for much longer reading all these reviews and short

cuts. You wouldn't deny that new product, start-ups and so on, that

doesn't have huge budgets for brand building will turn to the Internet

and you have to devise a different way of displaying a brand?

Absolutely. You don't need a huge advertising budget any more. It is

true. But what branding is these days, it is not just something you

stick on a product and advertise. This is about everything you do and

make and say in a business. So for example you need to make sure that

your people understand what they are doing what your brand is about, so

they can serve people in the right way. It is not just about the

product itself. But is there a danger that actually we're going to

have narrowing of choice then, because what happens is your arch

blogger or expert or Go Compare sites or whatever will narrow what

people want, which won't be such a good deal for the consumer because

the price will go up? We won't see a narrowing, there is always

development, and you have such competition that it forces companies

to keep on innovating and improving their product. The way to generate

long-term sustainable value is to create brand. Products come and go,

people die, but brands live on. Out of the top 50 brands they have been

there for 50 years or more. Thank you very much, we probably need a

new brand of line to get us to America. That is all we have time

for tonight. Jeremy is back on Monday, have a good weekend, good