Browse content similar to 04/04/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Secretary's aide trying to put them off investigating expense why is. I | :00:12. | :00:21. | |
should just flag up when she Doorsteps him, she has her father. | :00:22. | :00:32. | |
The paper says that was a threat to press freedom. Number Ten calls the | :00:33. | :00:39. | |
claim utterly false. Also tonight, getting high legally. It says toxic | :00:40. | :00:50. | |
symptoms may include nausea, restlessness panic. The person | :00:51. | :00:53. | |
making it thinks someone will take it. Should you ban people from | :00:54. | :00:56. | |
getting off their heads on drugs sold over the counter. The minister | :00:57. | :01:01. | |
says you can and you should. This man wants to know how? Good evening, | :01:02. | :01:15. | |
the apology was just 31 second, the fall-out from the Maria Miller | :01:16. | :01:20. | |
expenses episode may take up a lot more air time. Tonight the Telegraph | :01:21. | :01:26. | |
has released an audio transcript of the moments Maria Miller's aide told | :01:27. | :01:30. | |
them to leave the expenses scandal off. He said his staff were | :01:31. | :01:38. | |
threatened with tougher press regulation if they went ahead. The | :01:39. | :01:42. | |
Prime Minister defended his Culture Secretary and declared the Standards | :01:43. | :01:45. | |
Committee which judged her to be independent. A handsome | :01:46. | :01:53. | |
double-fronted period house with excellent entertaining space in good | :01:54. | :02:01. | |
condition. So when the estate agent blurb for the Culture Secretary's | :02:02. | :02:05. | |
five-bedroomed home when it was sold in February. Yesterday Maria Miller | :02:06. | :02:12. | |
was cleared of making false expenses claims related to that house. She | :02:13. | :02:15. | |
still had to pay back ?6,000 in mortgage interest and apologise for | :02:16. | :02:19. | |
her attitude to an inquiry triggered by a story in the Telegraph. Today | :02:20. | :02:25. | |
she still had the support of the Prime Minister. What happened | :02:26. | :02:31. | |
yesterday is that Maria Miller was cleared of the original charge made | :02:32. | :02:36. | |
against her, it was found she had made mistake, she accepted that, | :02:37. | :02:40. | |
repaid the money, she apologised unreservedly to the House of | :02:41. | :02:42. | |
Commons, I think we should leave it there. But that attempt to draw a | :02:43. | :02:46. | |
line under the affair hasn't worked, at least so far. At the centre of | :02:47. | :02:51. | |
all this are now claims by the Telegraph that its reporters were | :02:52. | :02:55. | |
threatened, repeatedly told by Government spin doctors that it is | :02:56. | :02:59. | |
the Culture Secretary, Maria Miller who is in charge of press | :03:00. | :03:04. | |
regulation. This evening the Telegraph released the audio of a | :03:05. | :03:11. | |
phone call between holly Price and Maria Miller's special adviser at | :03:12. | :03:15. | |
the Department of Culture head a and support. It starts with a complaint | :03:16. | :03:21. | |
that the journalists turned up on and harassed Maria Miller's elderly | :03:22. | :03:30. | |
fair -- father who has health problems. | :03:31. | :03:50. | |
Is that reference to the Leveson Inquiry into press regulation, which | :03:51. | :04:28. | |
the Telegraph and its editor claim was a vailed threat to their | :04:29. | :04:32. | |
reporter. Bearing in mind this was a time of anti-press his tearia, the | :04:33. | :04:37. | |
press was feeling -- hysteria, the press was feeling vulnerable after | :04:38. | :04:42. | |
the lever son report, and there was a -- Leveson report and there was a | :04:43. | :04:49. | |
great desire of not falling foul of Leveson. The aide claims the | :04:50. | :04:57. | |
reference to Leveson was a reminder that her bosses speak directly with | :04:58. | :05:02. | |
her boss and therefore likely to raise the issue of harassment. But | :05:03. | :05:06. | |
Craig Oliver, the head of communications at Downing Street, | :05:07. | :05:09. | |
called the then editor at the Telegraph when again the subject of | :05:10. | :05:13. | |
Leveson was raised as a threat the We were no doubt threats were being | :05:14. | :05:22. | |
made. Joanna Hindley was not attempting to be sophisticated about | :05:23. | :05:25. | |
t she menaced openly, "I just want to flag up that Maria Miller is | :05:26. | :05:29. | |
involved in Leveson right now, you might want to talk to your senior | :05:30. | :05:34. | |
bosses", the reporter took that as a serious TLECHLT when you get the | :05:35. | :05:37. | |
Prime Minister's spokesman saying the same thing a few days later, you | :05:38. | :05:43. | |
add the calls up and decide they are trying to harass you and stop you | :05:44. | :05:49. | |
publishing the story. This evening Craig Oliver said: | :05:50. | :05:56. | |
Newsnight understands there is a lot of anger among backbench Tory MPs at | :05:57. | :06:04. | |
the way this has played out. Some believe it has left the PM looking | :06:05. | :06:09. | |
very weak. One MP told us he contacted David Cameron saying he | :06:10. | :06:12. | |
now has two choices, either come out and hammer, as he puts it, the | :06:13. | :06:16. | |
Telegraph for telling lies, or else he has to tell his own | :06:17. | :06:21. | |
communications chief, Craig Oliver, he must now go. Whatever happens all | :06:22. | :06:25. | |
this is starting to bring back memories that politicians of all | :06:26. | :06:28. | |
parties will want to forget. David Cameron said after the 2009 expenses | :06:29. | :06:33. | |
scandal that only through transparency and accountability | :06:34. | :06:37. | |
would the public get its power back from the political elite. His | :06:38. | :06:41. | |
critics will use this latest row to show five years on that isn't yet | :06:42. | :06:47. | |
the case. From Ipswich we now have our guest, the Conservative MP who | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
sits on the culture media and support committee. And here in | :06:53. | :06:58. | |
London Heather Brook, her work led to the exposure of the MPs' expenses | :06:59. | :07:04. | |
scandal originally. Heather I wonder what you heard when we played that, | :07:05. | :07:09. | |
what did you understand from it, the transcript? I don't work for the | :07:10. | :07:14. | |
Telegraph, I never have worked for the Telegraph, but when I heard | :07:15. | :07:19. | |
that, it does strike you as a threat. If you are a reporter and | :07:20. | :07:24. | |
somebody calls you up, mentions that they are involved with a very | :07:25. | :07:28. | |
serious inquiry about regulating the press, and mention that is they are | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
going to talk to your bosses, then that is something that you would, as | :07:35. | :07:40. | |
a reporter, take as a method of intimidation to basically try to | :07:41. | :07:44. | |
shut you out of the investigation you were trying to conduct. Is that | :07:45. | :07:49. | |
what you heard? That is not what I heard. I heard an adviser to the | :07:50. | :07:56. | |
Culture Secretary suggesting it was inappropriate to be doorsteping | :07:57. | :07:59. | |
elderly parents of somebody who has just come out of hospital. I know | :08:00. | :08:04. | |
the reporters said they didn't know, but it is clear that's what the | :08:05. | :08:09. | |
adviser thought, and indeed Craig Oliver has made the suggestion today | :08:10. | :08:14. | |
when he said he contacted the editor of the Telegraph to make the point | :08:15. | :08:17. | |
again. And yet you heard said that when three different sources contact | :08:18. | :08:22. | |
you with the same message it adds up to something that starts to feel | :08:23. | :08:25. | |
like a threat. You are on rather shaky ground at that point when you | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
keep hearing the word "Leveson"? That is your interpretation, that is | :08:31. | :08:36. | |
certainly not mine. The issue about Leveson has been going on for some | :08:37. | :08:40. | |
time, I have not seen any change in newspapers' attitudes in want to go | :08:41. | :08:44. | |
publish what they wish. I think that is the right thing to do I believe | :08:45. | :08:47. | |
in press freedom, it is right for them to pursue avenues and they need | :08:48. | :08:50. | |
to do that appropriately and within the grounds of the PCC. That is the | :08:51. | :08:56. | |
point, if this line from Joe Hindley, the advise e just aed plied | :08:57. | :09:00. | |
to the parents' medical records, that is understandable, that would | :09:01. | :09:07. | |
be intrusion, right? The point we need to focus on, this is a reporter | :09:08. | :09:14. | |
trying to stand up a Tory of allegations an MP's claims on a | :09:15. | :09:19. | |
second home. She discovers the MP's parents are in the house. It is not | :09:20. | :09:24. | |
her fault the elderly people are in the house, it is meant to be the | :09:25. | :09:28. | |
MP's second home, first of all, that is an issue. And secondly that is a | :09:29. | :09:32. | |
public interest piece of reporting. They need to stand up that story and | :09:33. | :09:36. | |
find out who is living in that house, why are they there? It is | :09:37. | :09:43. | |
disingenious of using the argument of privacy and elderly people out of | :09:44. | :09:47. | |
the hospital. The reporter didn't know that. In the context of Leveson | :09:48. | :09:51. | |
to paint this picture at a time when the press was really under attack | :09:52. | :09:56. | |
and you can, to me, it just seems like a very forthright mechanism to | :09:57. | :10:02. | |
try to use a privacy argument for a politician to avoid public | :10:03. | :10:06. | |
accountability. And more widely, there is a lot of anger by MPs, | :10:07. | :10:10. | |
backbench MPs in your own party, the way the Prime Minister has handled | :10:11. | :10:16. | |
this, some four years on, still to be at a place where this message is | :10:17. | :10:20. | |
not getting through. There seems to be one rule for some and another | :10:21. | :10:24. | |
rule for those, if you like, at the bottom of the ladder? I don't see | :10:25. | :10:29. | |
that being the case, there has been claim and counter claim about the | :10:30. | :10:34. | |
special adviser, but the central allegation made by another MP that | :10:35. | :10:39. | |
Maria Miller was subsidising her parents' accommodation through the | :10:40. | :10:43. | |
taxpayer is reject. Her parents lived with her nine years before she | :10:44. | :10:48. | |
was an MP, her second home it became because she spent fewer nights there | :10:49. | :10:53. | |
when she moved to Basingstoke to start family life there. That is the | :10:54. | :10:56. | |
allegation utterly rejected by the commissioner and the committee. | :10:57. | :10:59. | |
David Cameron was the man who was going to clean up politics, let | :11:00. | :11:03. | |
sunshine be the disinfectant, yet here you have the hazy understanding | :11:04. | :11:07. | |
of whether it should have been ?40,000 she paid back, why you why | :11:08. | :11:16. | |
it is only now a ?6,000, and this 36-second apology, this is not a | :11:17. | :11:19. | |
party on top of it, this is the Culture Secretary? There is nothing | :11:20. | :11:26. | |
hazy about it, marryia Miller going back 20 years when the house was | :11:27. | :11:30. | |
caught and subsequent improvements made to T she is the person who | :11:31. | :11:33. | |
found and thought she may have overclaimed on it, did the | :11:34. | :11:36. | |
calculation with her offset mortgage and put it forward. The | :11:37. | :11:40. | |
Parliamentary Commissioner took a view Ishally they -- initially that | :11:41. | :11:46. | |
they should have been paying only on the price paid back in 1996 and not | :11:47. | :11:51. | |
the mortgage that was there when she became an MP. Together the MPs | :11:52. | :11:54. | |
discussed that with the commissioner and they have come out to clarify | :11:55. | :11:58. | |
they recognise it should be the mortgage that was on the house when | :11:59. | :12:02. | |
she became an MP. Does this feel to you like a cleaner system that is | :12:03. | :12:06. | |
starting to work? I'm always amazed that I still get calls to come on | :12:07. | :12:10. | |
programmes like this to discuss a story that I worked on since 2004. | :12:11. | :12:18. | |
Regardless of the intricacies of the investigation and whether we think | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
an independent regulator should be, who is meant to be, whose judgment | :12:23. | :12:26. | |
is final is then overruled by a committee of MPs. I think the point | :12:27. | :12:30. | |
being that if MPs really are concerned about giving the public a | :12:31. | :12:35. | |
different view of politics, one that is more trustworthy, then this isn't | :12:36. | :12:40. | |
giving that view, it looks very shady, dodgy. A cosy cronyistic, we | :12:41. | :12:51. | |
need the reality and an appearance as well of propriety. Thank you very | :12:52. | :12:57. | |
much both of you. They are legal, inexpensive, potentially deadly. So | :12:58. | :13:02. | |
called "legal highs" were linked to 68 deaths in 2012 and despite | :13:03. | :13:07. | |
Government attempts to crack down on the drugs, they seem impervious to | :13:08. | :13:11. | |
all efforts to regulate them effectively. All it takes is a | :13:12. | :13:16. | |
little clever science in lab to bypass restrictions. What is on your | :13:17. | :13:27. | |
local high street? Butcher, baker, legal high maker? Shops like this | :13:28. | :13:34. | |
sell all kinds of smoking paraphernalia, and they can sell | :13:35. | :13:39. | |
legal highs as research chemicals. I can see the chemistry stuff and tiny | :13:40. | :13:44. | |
copy of the periodic table, what about the product, do you stock | :13:45. | :13:50. | |
legal highs here. He We stock research chemicals. Do you have | :13:51. | :13:58. | |
Gogain and Poke. We do stock Poke and Poke Extreme. A couple of | :13:59. | :14:03. | |
packets. Did you notice how the research chemicals have names that | :14:04. | :14:14. | |
make them sound like hard drugs. Let's have a look. Now both of them | :14:15. | :14:18. | |
say not approved for human consumption. That's correct. It says | :14:19. | :14:26. | |
toxic symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, rest ness. If | :14:27. | :14:34. | |
you were to consume them. The person making it thinks somebody is going | :14:35. | :14:38. | |
to take them to put it all on the back. It is a hazard warning label, | :14:39. | :14:43. | |
it says it on the back of bleach. How much for these? ?25 a packet. | :14:44. | :14:51. | |
?25 a packet for a research experiment. What would you | :14:52. | :14:56. | |
recommend? Heating it, adding water to it, that is two chemical | :14:57. | :15:00. | |
procedures can you do on their own. Research into them, that is why they | :15:01. | :15:05. | |
are research products. Thank you very much. ?25. Welcome to my | :15:06. | :15:14. | |
domestic chemical research laboratory. How utterly bizarre that | :15:15. | :15:19. | |
I can walk into a shop where I know they are selling products that other | :15:20. | :15:23. | |
people use for recreational drug use, but they will only sell it to | :15:24. | :15:27. | |
me, and I can only buy it, if we both collude in the belief that this | :15:28. | :15:32. | |
is entirely for chemical research at home. I'm going to ask a proper | :15:33. | :15:42. | |
research doctor what he thinks this is for. What is in these? OK so | :15:43. | :15:52. | |
metethol propane. One has a stimulant with a local anaesthetic. | :15:53. | :15:57. | |
The local anaesthetic is there to pretend this is cocaine or number | :15:58. | :16:00. | |
your nose because snotting these drugs would hurt a lot. What do you | :16:01. | :16:05. | |
think about the kind of labelling on the drugs? It is not a warning, it | :16:06. | :16:10. | |
is exploiting a loophole placing people at risks. It means people | :16:11. | :16:14. | |
owning the shops and produce the packets can't put it on the back it | :16:15. | :16:21. | |
may cause seizures, paranoia and hallucinations, if you take the drug | :16:22. | :16:24. | |
it comes on for five minutes and lasts half an hour but don't take it | :16:25. | :16:29. | |
pregnant or driving. That might make the difference between someone | :16:30. | :16:34. | |
taking a little or a lot and might avoid an A Visit. Without clear | :16:35. | :16:41. | |
information rely on each other to discuss the effects of the drugs. | :16:42. | :16:45. | |
They take to chatrooms and forums. This is Claire writing about a | :16:46. | :16:49. | |
research chemical. I think the thing that is really | :16:50. | :17:05. | |
concerning is thinking about who might be attracted to these | :17:06. | :17:08. | |
substances. Our experience is that it tend to be the less experienced | :17:09. | :17:13. | |
drug user, often the younger drug user and the personal who might be | :17:14. | :17:19. | |
attracted -- person who might be attracted to the legal and safe | :17:20. | :17:23. | |
status. These drugs are anything but safe. The figures we have at the | :17:24. | :17:27. | |
moment suggests one person a week is dying in the UK from the substances. | :17:28. | :17:33. | |
That is probably an underestimate. There is no consistent global | :17:34. | :17:37. | |
response to legal high, Britain has banned more than 200 substances, but | :17:38. | :17:41. | |
as soon as a ban comes in a new compound gets made. This is MDMA, | :17:42. | :17:52. | |
ecstacy, illegal since the 197 0s, but tweak it and bit and it was | :17:53. | :17:58. | |
something else and not banned until 2009. This woman's daughter died | :17:59. | :18:04. | |
after taking it. If you think about any pharmaceutical drug or anything | :18:05. | :18:08. | |
you ingest it has to be through trials, and before human trials it | :18:09. | :18:11. | |
goes through other trials, how come we are allowing these things to be | :18:12. | :18:14. | |
for sale when they have been through no test whatsoever, we don't know | :18:15. | :18:18. | |
what is in them. They could maime or kill our kids for life, yet we allow | :18:19. | :18:22. | |
them to be sold, it doesn't make sense at all. Welcome back to the | :18:23. | :18:27. | |
domestic chemical research laboratory, three big questions, | :18:28. | :18:30. | |
number one is the global response to legal highs fast and effective | :18:31. | :18:35. | |
enough? Number two, if the UK is the legal high capital of the world, why | :18:36. | :18:39. | |
aren't we policing it better? And number three, what does happen when | :18:40. | :18:48. | |
you pour this into water? Nothing, really. It is not very exciting is | :18:49. | :18:56. | |
it? In a moment we will speak to George Lamb a TV presenter who took | :18:57. | :19:00. | |
a legal high when making a documentary about it. First Norman | :19:01. | :19:05. | |
Baker a Home Office Minister. We found out what happened in the third | :19:06. | :19:08. | |
question, the big one is why the system is such a complete joke, | :19:09. | :19:12. | |
Norman Baker, you know people can die from these drugs and yet you | :19:13. | :19:15. | |
would admit you have no control? It is not a complete joke. Thats Josh | :19:16. | :19:20. | |
challenge and the drug world has changed significantly over the last | :19:21. | :19:23. | |
five or ten years internationally, and all countries are trying to find | :19:24. | :19:27. | |
the correct response. Our response is quicker and more effective than | :19:28. | :19:30. | |
other countries but it is not as efficient as it should be. A lot of | :19:31. | :19:35. | |
the legal highs in the review at the end of the last year, we got the be | :19:36. | :19:40. | |
brains in the country from all disciplines coming together to | :19:41. | :19:44. | |
advise me. Why do you need a review if these are sold to one person a | :19:45. | :19:51. | |
week who is dying Flo them? From them? We tried to minimise harm on | :19:52. | :19:54. | |
the streets. The mother there said you don't let them on the market? | :19:55. | :19:59. | |
Sometimes the first we know about it is wh somebody has died. Why do they | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
get licensed? They don't, they suddenly appear, they are imported | :20:05. | :20:09. | |
and dressed up in packaging that looks legal. There is nothing you | :20:10. | :20:12. | |
can do to stop them being sold? As soon as we find out they are | :20:13. | :20:19. | |
damaging we ban them. We have been orders temporarily, and we are | :20:20. | :20:23. | |
trying to anticipate where the chemist might go next. We are trying | :20:24. | :20:29. | |
to arrest those selling illegal substances. You know the shops | :20:30. | :20:32. | |
exist, do you believe anyone goes into them in order to conduct a | :20:33. | :20:41. | |
domestic chemical experiment, so why take the shops? If a shop is selling | :20:42. | :20:45. | |
something ban you had can't run it out of business. I have issues and | :20:46. | :20:48. | |
guidance to local councils in order to enable them to go in and use the | :20:49. | :20:52. | |
different ladies and gentlemenslation and the powers have | :20:53. | :20:59. | |
been used to see substances and close stops -- seize substances and | :21:00. | :21:03. | |
close stops down. You heard what the doctor said about putting a | :21:04. | :21:05. | |
different set of instructions on the back of the packet. Would it be | :21:06. | :21:10. | |
better to legal lies them with all the warnings that would -- legalise | :21:11. | :21:14. | |
them with all the warnings that would help. I have set up a panel. | :21:15. | :21:19. | |
Are you considering legalisation? The review panels had a blank sheet | :21:20. | :21:23. | |
of paper and challenge from me to come up with a way of minimising | :21:24. | :21:28. | |
damages. You have a Home Office Minister, you must have a sense of | :21:29. | :21:31. | |
whether you think these should be banned outright or they shouldn't be | :21:32. | :21:34. | |
imported into the country as chemicals, or whether you think that | :21:35. | :21:38. | |
actually the most realistic thing to do is let them be sold and let | :21:39. | :21:44. | |
people know what they are letting themselves in for? This review panel | :21:45. | :21:48. | |
is looking at different practices across the world, there are | :21:49. | :21:51. | |
different ways to approach, Ireland has taken a draconian view and | :21:52. | :21:58. | |
banning anything that is psychoactive. That is a big extreme | :21:59. | :22:02. | |
position. New Zealand has looked at going down the road you suggested. | :22:03. | :22:06. | |
Looking for some to be given permission to be on the shelves. | :22:07. | :22:11. | |
That has eliminated 90% of those in New Zealand, but some are on the | :22:12. | :22:15. | |
shelves. The third option, the American option, of banning | :22:16. | :22:20. | |
substances which are similar to different ones that are banned. | :22:21. | :22:24. | |
George, when you hear the options do you think we should be the New | :22:25. | :22:29. | |
Zealand? I think New Zealand 100%. You would say you are never going to | :22:30. | :22:35. | |
ban them? You can't ban them, they change the compound every time, as | :22:36. | :22:38. | |
soon as you ban one drug another will appear. You can't regulate | :22:39. | :22:41. | |
that, if you change the rules consistently you will have a | :22:42. | :22:48. | |
continuous stream of untested chemicals on the mark. If you speak | :22:49. | :22:54. | |
to a toxicologist, they want to have research on something. If you are | :22:55. | :22:58. | |
doing recreational drugs you are better off doing illegal ones | :22:59. | :23:01. | |
because we have 20 years of research on the new ones. You have still got | :23:02. | :23:06. | |
one person a week dying of this, that won't change presumably, if | :23:07. | :23:15. | |
they are sold more freely. No but if you sell something with education | :23:16. | :23:19. | |
and you don't create sub-cultures, you know they have a misleading name | :23:20. | :23:25. | |
at the moment which would give the impression her safe and legal. Yes, | :23:26. | :23:30. | |
they are technically legal, but... You know these appeal to the most | :23:31. | :23:34. | |
vulnerable, we heard from that doctor, often the youngest people, | :23:35. | :23:39. | |
people who haven't tried anything that sound legal so he this think | :23:40. | :23:43. | |
they are on safer ground? The first thing that needs to be tackled is | :23:44. | :23:46. | |
the name, that is a real big problem, the second thing is the | :23:47. | :23:49. | |
packaging has no information. The third thing is the fact that kids | :23:50. | :23:53. | |
can buy them freely. We need to get on top of that. If you don't get on | :23:54. | :23:56. | |
top of that you will continue to have a person dying every week, | :23:57. | :24:02. | |
perhaps more. Would you go down the legalisation route for all drugs, I | :24:03. | :24:06. | |
know you raised the Amsterdam thesis, explain would you go down | :24:07. | :24:10. | |
for the one who is are illegal as well? Absolutely. You are | :24:11. | :24:13. | |
pro-legalisation of drugs? I am, if you look at Holland and the way, if | :24:14. | :24:19. | |
you look at their drug analysis, they have an incredibly permissive | :24:20. | :24:28. | |
and forward-thinking attitude to drug taking, they have a lower rate | :24:29. | :24:31. | |
of cannabis uptake amongst young people. You wouldn't consider it | :24:32. | :24:35. | |
immoral to sell these OK drugs or make them? OK so even if I say it is | :24:36. | :24:40. | |
immoral, what are you going to do? Are you going to try to ban it? Do | :24:41. | :24:44. | |
you think it is immoral to sell drugs that you know can kill people? | :24:45. | :24:50. | |
Of course it is to sell drugs that you know can kill young people. Is | :24:51. | :24:55. | |
it immoral to make them? To make drugs that will kill people, of | :24:56. | :25:00. | |
course that is moral. I don't think these people are setting out to kill | :25:01. | :25:05. | |
people. I know you didn't want to be in discussion with George. But your | :25:06. | :25:09. | |
thoughts? I don't mind being in discussion with George, that's fine. | :25:10. | :25:13. | |
You could have come in at any point there. Your sense then would be to | :25:14. | :25:20. | |
what at this point. Do you accept from what George has said that this | :25:21. | :25:24. | |
country, maybe the legal high capital, but we are way behind the | :25:25. | :25:28. | |
curve? I don't accept we are the legal high capital, I accept we are | :25:29. | :25:31. | |
behind the curve. The world is behind the curve but we are up the | :25:32. | :25:38. | |
curve. We are making existing systems unable to take on the | :25:39. | :25:42. | |
challenge we are facing but better than some people. This is a | :25:43. | :25:45. | |
different situation from the traditional world of heroin, OK | :25:46. | :25:55. | |
cocaine, two years ago. I wanted to come up with an evidence-based | :25:56. | :25:59. | |
approach, whatever that is, we should look at it, what is the best | :26:00. | :26:03. | |
way of minimising the damage. We need to go forward with that. It was | :26:04. | :26:11. | |
the equivalent of the CIA and the NSA and biggest, baddest | :26:12. | :26:19. | |
multicorporation on earth. That is the writer Stephen Knight's take on | :26:20. | :26:24. | |
the east India company, the subject of his major new drama the BBC has | :26:25. | :26:29. | |
commissioned to be produced by Ridley Scott. It tells the story of | :26:30. | :26:36. | |
a rogue adventurer, setting out against the shipping organisations. | :26:37. | :26:40. | |
It has profoundly shaped modern trade, but was it ultimately the | :26:41. | :26:45. | |
main institution of much darker episodes in our colonial past. With | :26:46. | :26:52. | |
me now the economic historian and professor, from LSE who wrote East | :26:53. | :26:59. | |
Indian Company, the most powerful corporation. And you wrote a book | :27:00. | :27:04. | |
about it shaping the modern multinational. | :27:05. | :27:08. | |
Do you concede now that company did an awful lot of bad. Well it | :27:09. | :27:18. | |
suddenly started an empire, it is a business firm that started an | :27:19. | :27:26. | |
empire. If you call its political ventures a bad move, then yes, as a | :27:27. | :27:30. | |
businessman it was a very successful one. It gave great value to the | :27:31. | :27:36. | |
shareholders. It left a legacy in the business world in India which is | :27:37. | :27:40. | |
very long-lasting and quite significant. Just to say if started | :27:41. | :27:49. | |
an empire, it tells you the story? It does, I think one of the things | :27:50. | :27:53. | |
you can look at these things coming in. You can see an imperial gene in | :27:54. | :27:58. | |
the make-up that was pushing for market domination, doing it through | :27:59. | :28:02. | |
legal or illegal means, through private army. It would be constantly | :28:03. | :28:07. | |
pushing for its advantage. With quite a few major implications, both | :28:08. | :28:12. | |
back here in Britain, it was a monopoly so keeping out other | :28:13. | :28:16. | |
traders as well. It had its own stock market bubbles. It was | :28:17. | :28:25. | |
admirable? It for such a long time, from the 19600s through to | :28:26. | :28:29. | |
Victoria's time. In some parts it was admirable, when it was engaging | :28:30. | :28:34. | |
in equal trade, but then there was the crazy period after the battle in | :28:35. | :28:40. | |
France, all the restraints were let loose. Give us a sense of how it has | :28:41. | :28:48. | |
shaped the India we know today? The company's biggest support in trading | :28:49. | :28:52. | |
operations in India were the Indian merchants. It couldn't get anywhere | :28:53. | :28:59. | |
without the help and collaboration of brokers, agents, bankers who were | :29:00. | :29:08. | |
helping the company. The The lasting legacy the company left in India | :29:09. | :29:12. | |
were the three port cities that it set up, which attracted a huge | :29:13. | :29:18. | |
number of Indian capitalists in the 18th century to migrate and | :29:19. | :29:23. | |
resettle. It is from that foundation that you have a whole new | :29:24. | :29:29. | |
cosmopolitan domestic world happening in India. This was the | :29:30. | :29:35. | |
first corporation that was too big to fail right? It had its own | :29:36. | :29:41. | |
bubble, the stock market crash and the Government had to come in and | :29:42. | :29:46. | |
bail it out. And one of the terms of the bail out, including restraints | :29:47. | :29:53. | |
on the dividend, and changes to corporate governance, which was | :29:54. | :30:00. | |
allowing them to sentity that was dumped in Boston. It has global | :30:01. | :30:05. | |
ramifications. You are both being certificatably nice about it. It has | :30:06. | :30:13. | |
been called the CIA, the NSA, the biggest baddest multinational | :30:14. | :30:16. | |
corporation on earth. Can you lay the familiar anyone at its feet, | :30:17. | :30:24. | |
opium certainly. It grew and controlled the production of opium | :30:25. | :30:29. | |
in territories and in India, that was smuggled into it. The Bengal | :30:30. | :30:34. | |
familiar anyone after raising taxes? At that stage it was a strange body, | :30:35. | :30:38. | |
commercial but also running taxes. It is a cease of negligence, plus | :30:39. | :30:50. | |
other went in and bought -- it is a it is either negligence or other | :30:51. | :30:55. | |
went in and brought it out. I think it is about the trading world the | :30:56. | :30:58. | |
company belonged in, not the kind of trading world we are used to seeing | :30:59. | :31:04. | |
today. There are no international trade treaties or rules of the game | :31:05. | :31:08. | |
that I will set out. It was very violent and the rivalries between | :31:09. | :31:12. | |
European firms and the rivalries between different types of ethnic | :31:13. | :31:17. | |
trading groups. Anyone who had to succeed in the Indian Ocean trade | :31:18. | :31:23. | |
will have to have t force of arms. That is part of the fascination for | :31:24. | :31:33. | |
the story. 20 years ago tomorrow Nirvana front man, curt Kurt Cobain | :31:34. | :31:48. | |
died. A tune that can be redone many times and still a hit shows the | :31:49. | :31:52. | |
measure of the song. This is the brass band with Smells Like Teen | :31:53. | :31:56. | |
Spirit. | :31:57. | :31:59. |