31/03/2014 Newsnight

Exchequer is going to make sure everyone has job.

Exchequer is going to make sure exactly. The Government is aiming

for full employment, but what on earth is it? Full employment in

economics a situation in which all available labour resources are being

used in the most economically efficient way. The Economic

Secretary to the Treasury will doubtless have an even snappier

decision. They were sold as ways to freedom, but are screens enslaving

us. We sent a scientist to find out. You check it on an hourly, more than

that basis, when you get up and before you go to bed. And... Hitler

on ice. Hitler gags may be fair game for Mel Brooks, John close Clese and

Charlie chaplain. Should Germans be encouraged to make them? This one

does George Osborne has had a conversion,

after years of telling us he will stop at nothing to plug the hole in

the public's finances he announced today he's going to fight for full

employment in Britain. His target is for this country to have the highest

employment rate of any advanced economy. Another Tory Chancellor,

Norman Lamont once said unemployment was a price well worth paying. No

it's not, said Mr George Osborne today. What does this new ambition

of his actually mean? We have been finding out. Busy, busy, busy, look

the Chancellor wants you to know how many jobs he has made. And promises

just pressing a few more buttons on his economic machine could make

around one million more. A that's why today I'm making a new

commitment, a commitment to fight for full employment in Britain.

Making jobs a central goal of our economic plan. That was a retro

promise of full employment, he said it twice in case you missed it. A

modern approach to full employment means backing business. Surprised,

well it has been quite a while since any Conservative Chancellor talked

of full employment. And decades since it has been anything like what

we would traditionally consider it to be. At Tilbury Docks where George

Osborne came to make his new promise. In days of old he 3,000

people had work, now it is just 800. We were told today some of those

jobs are uncertain. Is anything like full employment realistic when mass

employers are mostly gone. Even Beveridge didn't believe full

employment meant zero. It was remarkably stable and low between

1950 and the early 1970s, average unemployment was just 2%. Always

under a million. By the 80s the picture was drastically changed,

hitting 13% at its peak in 1982. Right now it is seven. 2%, but the

downturn changed the jobs market forever. We have seen the big rise

in self-employment, a greater number of part-time work We have a more

flexible labour market than back then. The types of jobs we are

seeing being created are more diverse and secure There are more

jobs, but more shaky. Workers do less, their productivity is low, if

we solved that problem job creation could slow down. Luckily the

Chancellor's promise isn't quite what it says on the tin? George

Osborne doesn't appear that bothered by the dictionary definition of full

employment. His actual goal is Britain having the biggest share of

people in work out of all our economic rivals. And although it is

not a strict promise, it is an effort to focus the debate on jobs.

Falling unemployment is one of the coalition's successes. And by using

the former language of Gordon Brown, it is rather harder for Labour to

answer back. Our aspiration now must be more than helping people to find

work, regardless of its quality and prospects. But ensuring full and

fulfilling employment by expanding employment and training

opportunities for all. A deliberate contrast to the words of his Tory

forebear, that did such damage. Rising unemployment and the

recession have been the price that we have had to pay in order to get

inflation down. But that is a price well worth paying. So what does that

Chancellor make of his descendant's vow? It has always been the

objective of Conservative Governments to minimise unemployment

and maximise employment. But this is completely different to the type of

language we have heard from the Conservatives for a long time, not

least from you? What George Osborne is talking about, in a world that's

completely different where inflation is below 2%, is maximising the game

gain the Government already have established in gating jobs. What

kind of rate do you think we might get to? I have no idea. Labour

claims there is nothing new to see her, and there is a risk George

Osborne will be judged more as job numbers rise and fall. But this new

version of a promise made opponents in the past, suggests the Chancellor

is brave or foolhardy enough to limit his own room for manoeuvre.

We're joined now by the Conservative Economic Secretary to the Treasury,

Nicky Morgan, what is full employment then? The Chancellor was

saying today that what he wants is everybody in Britain who wants a job

can get a job, and people on welfare are incentivised and supported to

get off benefits and find a job too. So when did we last have full

employment in this country? Well, I'm not sure we have ever had full

employment. Ever? We can talk about the definitions about this per cent

and that per cent, but the point is the Chancellor is setting out a

clear strategy and ambition that we want people who want a job to find a

job. This is a revolutionary thing he as aiming for, it has never

occurred before? Well, we can argue the economists today has been argue

beg -- arguing about definition, but we have the highest employment rate

in the G7. He was using language losely today, at one point in the

speech he said we will have more people working than any other

country in the G7. That's absolute rubbish isn't it? That is the

ambition. More people working than any other countries in the G7, you

know the size of the work force here and the United States, it is

completely impossible. It is the employment rate. He didn't say, that

that is different? He did say it in the question and answer session.

Maybe somebody should look at the drafting of his speeches. Do you

think that would be a good idea? I wouldn't presume to tell the

Chancellor how to draft his speech. Somebody should, that's not an

accurate statement. He also said that there will be full employment

if more jobs were being created here than in any of our competitors, did

he mean that literally? Absolutely, the Chancellor is talking about

wanting people, everyone who wants a job, he wants Britain to be the best

place in the world to get and hold a job. But that's not the same as more

jobs being created Health Authority than -- here than anywhere else? If

you want a job you should have a job. That is something up and down

the country people will be grateful to hear. Because bomb are people --

people are looking for jobs. It is a new announcement to incentivise

businesses and create jobs. So he's talking about a higher rate of

employment. Employment in this country than in any of the other G 7

nations. That is what he set out, yes. That would mean, would it not,

that if this economy stagnated and others shrank he would achieve his

goal? That is looking at it in a very negative way. It is but it is a

possible interpretation? It is, but if you set out a clear positive

ambition for people having work. You are very familiar with the

unemployment figures, there are about two million students, about

two million single parents or carers, there are about 1. 3 million

early retirees. How are you going to get them back into work? The

Chancellor will set out in his speech today, it is about people who

want a job and who are on benefits looking for a job. There will be a

number of people for whom working is not an option, caring

responsibility, people between jobs, people who are #12UDying. So -- --

studying. All the others how will you get them back to work? The

policies we have announce today incentivise businesses to invest,

but also the policies that were announced by Iain Duncan Smith and

helping people who are unemployed to get back into work. These will be

British jobs for British workers as we were famously told? We want

people from all over the world from all companies to be based here in

the UK. Many are moving back. We have seen a number of people

re-shoring. But, yes, it is for people who have been long-term, we

want them to have those jobs. So it is British jobs for British workers

is it? The Chancellor has not said. It. We want the highest employment

rate. The lion's share of the jobs could be taken by people from

elsewhere? We can have a debate about inflation. I'm interested in

understanding what the Chancellor is promising? He's saying we want to be

the best place where people to have jobs and we will create these jobs.

These jobs could be taken by people who have come from elsewhere? Of

course, we have an open labour market, and the flexible labour

market is key to the way we have weathered, with many difficulty, the

great recession we have inherited. You want to cut the number of people

coming to this country? Not just us, there are many people out in the

country who have very strong views on immigration. You are the

Government? We want people in this country to have the best possible

skills, we want to attract businesses from overseas to be based

here. We have already seen 1. 3 million private sector jobs created

since the last election, that is three times the rate of job creation

in the last couple of sessions. You want to cut immigration? We do. We

also want businesses locating here and expanding here to know there is

skilled work force to recruit from. What were portion of these jobs you

will create will go to native workers and what proportion would

roughly go to in comers? I won't make course casters, there was a

separate immigration debate if you want that. I wondered how you were

going to achieve the full employment? I have set out the

policies that George Osborne has set out in the recent budget and Autumn

Statement, about incentivising business to create those jobs.

Making it attractive for businesses to take on the next employee. And

the people who are on benefits to get the jobs and have the skills

that employers are looking for. Thank you very much. Now, introduced

by Labour, increased by the Conservatives, the question of how

to pay for higher education looks about to burst back into the heart

of political debate. After the fatuous attitude by the Liberal

Democrats at the last election, all pledges on student fees should be

take within a super tanker load of salt. But the Labour Party are

offering hints on reducing fees, but the word "may" is the one to watch

out for. What is messing everyone up is the people who received loans to

recover the fees look unlikely to pay them. What happened to the

revolution, you this Devil Woman had never been written. The student of

the 1980s popular imagination used to look a bit like this. I hope you

realise all this loafing around has affected one day of being incredibly

rich. Feckless, time wasting, on hight genetic and broke. Three

decades later they are still, for the most part, broke, but they are a

lot angrier. Our nation has been littered with them, a trail of

broken promises. The words that months later would haunt him, the

politician who had promised students he was on their side, and ended up

epitomising the problem. When the coalition proposed to triple the

tuition fees in the first six months of parliament this is what happened.

It was an unhe hadifying spectacle for students and politicians, and it

taught both a valuable lesson. For students that they should never take

at face value anything that those in power promised, and for politicians

that they would underestimate the toxicity of this issue at their

peril. Labour said then it would cut tuition fees to ?6,000 if it was in

tour. Power. This week it said it wanted to go further, hinting at

radical reform. The timing may be key because the Government has just

admitted it got the numbers badly wrong. When the Government

introduced the new tuition fees system, and increasing them to

?9,000 a year. It estimated 30% of the value of the loans would not be

repaid. So people wouldn't earn enough when they graduated. The

subsidy the Government would need to give them would be about 30%, that

has gone up in the latest estimates to 45%. So nearly one pound in every

two that the Government lend it expect not to get back. That isn't

sustainable in the long-term. This man was a leading voice on the

review that the cap be raised, does -- accept that the system is broken?

If the lowest-earning graduates aren't going to pay the full costs

of higher education, and some can't pay anything at all the Government

has to pick up the cost. It means it is an expensive system for the

Government. That is the price we pay for hiving a high, well functioning

system of our education. Labour has a number of ways to address the

problem T could choose to cut tuition fees even further. It could

lower the repayment threshold, currently ?21,000, so graduates pay

it back. Or it could come up with an entirely new system, such as a

graduate tax. We are looking for a long-term and sustainable and

affordable model of funding. One of the difficulties with changes in

policies like this is it doesn't provide that degree of stability to

students, let alone universities. You have one cohort of students who

will pay a certain amount through their graduate contributions. And

another who will pay a totally different amount. It doesn't feel

fair to the students that they are studying alongside each other and

paying very different amounts. Labour knows that there is an

electoral market in the disillusioned it accident. That --

student. The direct appeal of cutting fees was to them. The party

knows it has borrowed votes from the Liberal Democrats, since they came

to power. It knows that radical reform to an unpopular policy could

help retain them. Where there are promises there are pitfalls? If you

bring the fees down to ?6,000, the Government lends less and borrows

less so the debt falls. However you have to make up the rest in grants

to universities, if you want them to get ?9,000, ?3,000 has to come from

public spending. In the short-term it adds to your deficit, turning a

loan into public spending. Labour's hungry for this bright, new voter,

but it knows its fiscal credibility will be key between now and the

writing of the next manifesto, expect to hear every variation of

idea. The one message it can't afford to the send the electorate

too late is the one that simply says "I'm sorry". With us now is David

Wiletts and the last Labour Government minister on innovation

and skills. How close are you to accepting the system doesn't work?

It does work, graduates repay, students don't pay up front, it

delivers high-quality teaching, well-funded universities, ensuring

students have better classes and labs. It is the case, is it not that

you were expecting perhaps 28-30% of the students weren't able to repay

their loans s that correct? Is that the working assumption? Every time

there is a new earnings forecast we recalculate the repayments over 30

years. It is true as earnings have not grown as much as was originally

forecast the ?21,000 repayment threshold has become higher. People

are expecting currently less to be repaid. What we are basically doing

here is forecasting an income tax receipt over the next 30 years.

Every six months in ray cordance to the rules we produce a new forecast

and it will carry on changing. Because of the changes in

employment. The figure is about 45%. That is the current estimate. I have

warned it will change. What makes it unviable? You have a glad wit

repayment -- graduate repayment scheme. And part of the scheme is if

graduates have low earnings they don't replay. That was clear from

the start? The exact calculation of how much they will pay will vary, as

earnings forecasts change. At what point does it become unviable? I

think this is a sol individual system. There is a big, there is an

answer to this, you must have done the sums? I'm telling you all three

political parties when faced with the challenge of repairing the

education came one this model. You haven't given me a number yet? I

don't think there is a number that answers your question. We have a

graduate repayment scheme. If we did as Labour are envisaging and went

down to ?6,000, you would write off all the money, you have to find an

extra pound ?3,000 to pay off the universities as a grant. Let's speak

to the man who used to sit in the seat you currently occupy. He seems

to enjoy sit ago I cross from you. You have been writing a report for

the Labour Party? I have been writing the report and I hope the

Labour Party will take it seriously. At what point do you think the

system sun viable. The situation we are in where the taxpayer borrows

?10 billion and writes off ?4. It would be better to borrow the money

and teach. Fees would fall and the universities would have much money

and graduates should pay back less. We should have the courage in my

view to switch from borrowing and cancelling money to spend money on

teaching students. Does Ed Miliband like this idea? He's listening, as

others are to what I'm proposing. They are listening to other people

with other model, we will have to see. What is clear in the last few

days is an appetite in the Labour Party for saying let's move in daven

direction. I think that is important and we have a way to go. This isn't

working brilliantly? What I don't understand in John's model, he talks

about the loans written off as if it is wasted money. But the ?9,000 fee

is all going to the education of the student. The student is getting more

funding behind his or her education than before we brought in the

system. We have students getting education for lower cost. I have

been able to show you can produce exactly the same amount of income

for universities as they have at the moment. But the Government on behalf

of the taxpayer borrows less money and graduates have lower fees. It is

a ridiculous level of waste in the system at the moment, wasteful of

public spending and wasteful for the graduates paying over the odds for

fees. No gut in university income. I don't think it is a waste to say if

you have low earnings you don't pay. Every six nineties with a new

earning forecast, exactly that change. It is what makes it

progressive. If you have low earnings you don't repay. That was

one of the learns. The film you showed of the students protesting, I

think they thought if they were in low paid jobs they would be

repaying. It is only when you earn ?21,000. If the fee is lower you pay

less money back, there is a the whole point. I would rather have a

system where students paid lower fees but a bigger percentage of the

fee back. Your system started out as a way of trying to save public money

and it has failed to do that? ? You still get the same income to

universities. What you have done is switch money from the waste of debt

cancellation into teaching. So the Government gives the money directly

to the university? Instead of the taxpayer borrowing a huge amount of

money and writing it off. The taxpayer borrows less money and goes

straight to the university. There is maintenance grants to help students

that they might be happy with that. Fees fall so much that a low income

student ends up at the end of their degree with just as much money to

live on but a lower overall debt. Provided each individual student

knows they have just as much money to live on but a lower overall debt

they are better off. That is counting fees as if it is the same

as maintenance. We have Ed Miliband saying when he was wanting election

said he would have a tax. We have fees with black hole in the finance,

we have John with his interest wheeze different from the other two

I don't know what it is that Labour are proposing, but I know what we

are offering. Better-funded universities, with a fair repayment

scheme. Can I ask you, are the universities asking you for the

limit to be raised? They are there are always universities, well

universities come to see me and obviously they all say they need

more money. What I say is ?9,000 is enough to educate a student in

Britain today. It is a fair deal apart from the high-cost subjects

which cost more and for them with adding the fund to go meet the extra

cost, indeed George Osborne in his Autumn Statement found extra money.

Let me ask you a financial question too, there is talk about Labour

bringing in a cap of say ?6,000 or ?6,000, we will find out later this

week. Should Labour go further? What in what way? Do you think a cap of

?6,000 is all right, or ?4,000? This is as you gathered through the

conversation a complicated system. But if you maximise the amount of

money you take out of debt cancellation and agency fees you can

bring it below ?6,000. It is slightly odd the system, the more

you make of big change the better it works. Trying to make changes at the

top costs a lot of public money. You can make a big change and I think we

should, but we will have to see what the Labour Party decides. There

comes a point when you have heard so many warnings of apocalypse that

there is a good chance of diminishing returns kicking in. The

scientists are more certain than every and the world solution. That

doesn't mean the apocalypse is any more likely to aright. The The

international panel of on climate change said it has human causes and

average temperatures rise and so does sea levels. In a noticeable

shift from previous reports, as well as encouraging politicians to cut

greenhouse gas, the authors say some changes are along the way we have to

adapt to. What does that mean? Will it work for everyone? Who will pay

for it. We report on a tale of two nation. This is what climate change

adaptation looks like. In the wilds of Exmoor a scheme to stop the

flooding we are experiencing. They are blocking up drainage dishes, the

plan is to capture rainfall in the bog and Moss that created it. This

Moss scores 20-tim its own weight in water. Every drop up here doesn't

end up in a flood downstream. We estimate when the restoration is

complete there is 6,000 Olympic swimming pools will be initially

stored up here. We can improve warming too. Here in Cranfield

university, they have created arch fish mini-fields and switched on the

rain. In the plot on the let the soil has been compacted by farm

reasonably. Compacted fields contribute to flooding. We have to

smart about managing soils and land. And good soil management is the key

to the rainfall events, and reduce the impact of the flooding we have

been HACHLTH It may not be marketed that way, about adaptation is under

way in many parts of the UK. Over in East London, for example, is the

Thames Barrier, it is a classic piece of hard engineering,

adaptation to climate change. Today work started on dredging the River

Parrot. Like many strategies protection against climate change is

part of a package of benefits. A rich nation like the UK have the

business adaptation well. Unlike Bangladesh, I visited these rues

fleeing from floods in the countryside. TRANSLATION: My sister

left her baby on the bed, she came back to see and the baby was gone.

The baby was swashed away and later on we found the body. Adaptation is

advanced in Bangladesh, it has to be. This British aid scheme helped

people on an island to build a platform to raise their homes. New

cyclone centres on the coast have saved thousands of lives. Now flood

tolerant rice has been developed. But the sea water is making farmland

unusable. Almost anybody you talk to in Bangladesh is familiar to the

project and will talk about how unjust it is that the bigger

countries are doing this. There is a strong feeling of injustice involved

in this. If we could move these people from the water's edge to

decent homes inland, we would improve their lives and adapt to

climate change. The win-win lauded in today's report. It takes money

that Bangladesh doesn't have. Where I feel disappointed is the global

leaders to have responsibility to reduce emissions so we don't have

the catastrophic impacts predicted in this report of the IPCC,

hopefully this report will ring alarm bells cloud enough to hear and

they will get over the deafness they seem to be expecting. The new parity

in the UN report of adaptation alongside emissions cuts is a

striking shift. Some willing with come its pragmatisim, and others say

it lets rich nations off the hook. It is a constant complaint from

parents as they watch their teenagers fingers engaged in

conversations with unseen others, you are addict to that thing! And

privately plenty of adults too wonder if there might genuinely be

an element of addiction in their devotion to social networks or

on-screen gaming. We asked a psychology what they made of it.

Through smartphone, apps and laptops, technology influences

almost every aspect of our lives. We are engaged politically, socially

and emotionally 24-hours a day, because of the technology

revolution. Our digital lives are just as full on as real world lives.

But the fear is that this new digital way of life, that we are all

exposed to, is in reality powerfully and dangerously addictive. For me

this is one of the most important issues concerning mental health.

However, in our overly diagnostic world, before we push to

memberedically label yet another one of our behaviours. I need to be

convinced, is there really something to fear. Is there something truly

inherently addicted about modern technology? Technology is so

immeshed in life, that it is becoming difficult to tell what is

normal use and what is obsessive and dangerous use. I'm meeting

self-confessed heavy users, are they addicts. How often are you using it

defer day? Pretty much -- every day. Pretty much all the time, I couldn't

tell you the amount of times I'm checking Facebook. I do too, even if

I'm board, you look straight at what people are doing it. You check it on

ran hourly basis, before you go to bed and after you get up. We are

going to see if they get rid of all data. It starts with deleting the

apps from their phones. I'm going to do it too, I feel I'm going to be

disconnected and I can't spy on my kids! It is definitely going to be

difficult to give it up. There is a difference between the annoyance of

losing a useful and enjoyable tool, and the physical and mental anguish

that comes from giving up something truly addictive. Most addictions in

the classic sense, such as to drugs, have a physical dimension, linked to

our inbuilt rewards system. So the rewards system in the brain is both

about pleasure and about motivation, so when we do certain behaviours

like eating, drinking and sex, natural chemicals are released that

both help us enjoy those behaviours but also motivate us to do them

again and again and again. This scam shows the rewards system in action,

areas of the brain that are flooded with the dopamine, the key element

of the rewards system. Recreational drugs stimulate massive reward

response, and the combined buzz and motivation is for some, powerfully

addicted. But this scan is actually not taken from a recreational drug

user, it is taken from a gambler. We are seeing a response in the rewards

system, a smaller one, but nevertheless a response from a

purely behavioural activity. It is It is one of the reasons why problem

gambling became one of the first memberedically recognised addictions

in 2013. Early studies are beginning to see the same response with

technology. Particularly when we look at internet gaming. Could that

response lead dictive-like behaviour. This scientist believes

it can. The gaming industry is adept with reward levels and dope in

dopamine hits. Especially if you have done something that gives you a

hit. Of course if you have it flowing through you, you want more

of it. Can you give me a few examples of negative outcomes?

Simply attendance at school tends fog, -- to go. Family life is

affected because they are not participating or coming down for

meals. When it gets really bad what are they doing to resist the

parental experience? I have had situations of knives being pulled on

parents because they are take ago I way their gaming advice. It is a

minefield to parent through that. Gaming addiction is the focus of

research to decide if it should join problem gambling as a recognised

condition. What about other elements of the feck neology revolution.

Where is the addictive trigger is something like social networking.

Many point to the ability to change the mood, the emotional boost and

sense of self-worth we get from peers, liking, sharing and

retweeting that we post. Then there is the thrill of finding if we have

found out we have had those comments, and driving us to log in

and keep posting. It may be be why social networking is so important.

But there isn't enough research to say anything. What is more important

is why the heavy use becomes addictive behaviour. Mark grief

faiths has been -- Griffiths who has been studying this for 25 years. My

argument is technology enhances and facilitates the vulnerability. It is

not to demonise the Internet, most of us use it and it is a positive

thing in our lives. One of the things I want to stress is doing

something a lot doesn't necessarily mean it is problematic. Genuine

internet addiction I would put it one tenth of a certificate. I hear

parents say there is nothing I can do the kid is an addict. If you put

the kid in front there is no way it is an addict. Can you understand why

there is an urge to memberedically label behaviour, particularly for

parents. Parents might use a label to justify or try to explain the

behaviour they are doing. Every week I get e-mails and without fail, from

parents, saying that my son or daughter is addicted to Facebook or

playing World of War craft. They will e-mail and say they are

watching three hours a day, I would say that is normal, is it affecting

their education or childhood friendships. If it is no to all

those questions to me it is not something parents see as a problem.

They need to take it on board that kids do this these days. How have

the heavy users fared, have they struggled to give up social media.

Did you manage to lapse or relapse? I didn't. A few urges but didn't act

on it. It has been refreshing to realise I could get rid of Facebook.

It took a little while. Now it is OK, but in the mornings, I still

check my phone. There is nothing to do and where's Facebook and Twitter.

It doesn't sound like it has been too give for you really. I have to

admit something to you all. You guys are in your early 20s, I'm in my

late 40s, I cracked. Obviously I'm just completely beyond help. I just

missed that kind of -- breadth of connection, and I felt incred below

disconnect #D. Even simply from my own experience, it is clear that

technology can have a powerful hold on us. But by labelling it as an I

diction, before we really understand the processes at work. We run the

risk of removing our own responsibility for how we use

technology. We are going through massive change in the way we live

our lives, because of this huge technological revolution. There are

those vulnerable and addicted to new pleasurable behaviours. We have a

duty of care. This is about adaptation, it is about

understanding our behaviour, not panicking about change and taking

personal responsibility. Responsibility as parent,

responsibility as individuals and as society as a whole. Could Adolf

Hitler have cut it as a stand-up comic. Apparently so if we are to

take a hugely successful comic novel does. Look Who's Back, imagine

Hitler on the loose and picked up by a concert promoter. German humour is

no laughing matter, but if they can see the funny side in his bone

headed offensiveness, is something changed. The Brits have been

fascinated by Hitler. I had do the funny walk. Hitler on ice! Hiel

myself, Hiel to me. I am # I'm the crowd Kraut out to change

history # Heil myself

# There is no greater dictator in the land.

Can you guess which one of those was the advertisment for the book Look

Who's Back. I have the author and a German author and journalist working

in the UK. What do you think the success of this book tells us about

Germany? It is hard to say. Obviously I have to, I think it is

something new for Germans. Mostly. Because I think it is telling the

story of Hitler, without telling what you should think of it. You

should have your own opinion and this is something unusual for

Germans, I think. What is your feeling about it? Well I read the

book, I felt it wasn't as successful as the other examples we have seen.

The difference for me is if you look at monthity python, the produce --

Monty Python, if you look at this book it is not really making fun of

Hitler, I'm not sure if it is meant to be a social satire or critque. It

wasn't clear who the butt of the joke was, but it was. For the

feeling that we are ridiculing the Nazis and there by taking them down

a peg or something. I didn't get it. What was the intention? Having fun

righting it, but quite soon I in theed that it was something

different, it was not making fun of Hitler, of course, it was just

showing his thoughts and showing the funny conflict with the MoD he were

society and the difficulties in finding out who he was. -- modern

society and the difficulties of finding out who he was. There is a

danger embarking on that sort of enterprise when it can be seen it is

diminishing the terrible things he did. He don't ever deny anything he

did. He is constantly throughout the whole book telling you he is doing

the same things again. Whatever he is doing in this book is in reaching

these old goals again. He makes no secret of this. Does he engage with

the Holocaust in your book? Of course, why shouldn't he. Why should

he deny T it is East proud of it, of -- he's proud of it of course. You

know it is the real Hitler and he will do it again. That is the scary

part in the book. Do you think it is easy for Germans to laugh at Hitler?

I'm German and it is easy to laugh at it. The way the Holocaust has

trothed, for me that was one of the real problems I had with it, there

is a scene where the fictional Hitler speaks to an elderly

Holocaust survivor, whose entire family perished in the Holocaust,

her granddaughter is a secretary, he goes to see this elderly laid year,

we hear it from the fictional Hitler perspective, he says after he told

her that her granddaughter was such great assistant and praised her, she

came around and she was fine with it. I felt in the scene who is the

butt of the joke who is shown as gullible. We are being encourage

today laugh at the elderly Holocaust survivor. When there are living

Holocaust survivors we could be listening to instead telling their

stories. It wasn't so much as are we allowed to laugh at Hitler, it was

more like who are we encourage today laugh at here. I know the scene you

are talking about, most people in that scene are expecting something.

Because the readers are the only ones knowing this is the real

Hitler. We are expecting this grandmother is take up the fight

instead of us. We are hoping she will do some resistance and show us

some sign of resistance, because we could close the book, or we should,

but we hope too much of this grandmother because for her it is

not the real Hitler, there is no such thing as time travelling. She

hasn't the advantage we have as a reader. That wasn't my expectation

as well, I wanted to find one drawn well Jewish character in the book.

I'm a Jew from North London, I didn't have expectation as what she

should say or take up as a fight. I thought just like a person, and we

have this person who appears for one stage and made to represent. It was

almost reading it as if the author decides there should be one

confrontation between Hitler victor and Holocaust victim. We don't know

anything about her. The second thing is quite right, the first part I

think it is difficult. The narrator is Hitler himself. You wouldn't

expect a fully pledged Jewish character telling the story. Maybe

it is not the problem it might be the limitation of the form.

This is the youth orchestra from Japan, performing at the south bang

this week, to raise awareness about the nuclear power station. Here they

are playing a piece called home. Good evening, but I think Tuesday is

going to be a