Browse content similar to 30/04/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Fein is arrested tonight in connection with the murder of a | :00:07. | :00:13. | |
woman killed by the IRA in 1972. We have the latest. | :00:14. | :00:17. | |
How society is dividing into a vast number of have-nots and a very small | :00:18. | :00:23. | |
number of have-lots, and lots, and lots. Why social inequality is | :00:24. | :00:27. | |
predicted to get worse and what, if anything, we ought to do about it. | :00:28. | :00:31. | |
We talk to the French economist who has written what's been called the | :00:32. | :00:36. | |
Das Kapital of the 21st century. On the 25th anniversary of the fatwa | :00:37. | :00:41. | |
pronouncing death on Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis on freedom and | :00:42. | :00:47. | |
fundamentalism. Our latest tribute to Shakespeare: Simon Callow as | :00:48. | :00:53. | |
Prospero. Our rebels are ended, and these are actors, as I foretold you | :00:54. | :00:57. | |
who are all spirits that are melted into air - into thin air. | :00:58. | :01:08. | |
Dramatic developments tonight in the police investigation into the murder | :01:09. | :01:13. | |
of a woman killed by the IRA in 1972. The police Service of Northern | :01:14. | :01:17. | |
Ireland are questioning the president of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams. | :01:18. | :01:22. | |
Mr Adams says he has always been willing to help the police trying to | :01:23. | :01:28. | |
discover how Jean McConville came to die, although he had nothing to to | :01:29. | :01:32. | |
with it, one veteran IRA man has already been charged with aiding and | :01:33. | :01:38. | |
abetting the murder. Mr Adams said attempts to implicate him are pure | :01:39. | :01:42. | |
mischief. Jean McConville, a widow and a mother of ten was abducted in | :01:43. | :01:47. | |
front of her children, killed bit IRA. She had been wrongly accused of | :01:48. | :01:52. | |
being an ininformer. When do you think you'll see your | :01:53. | :01:57. | |
mummy again? I don't know. Her body was recovered from a beach in 2003. | :01:58. | :02:02. | |
Before his arrest this evening, Mr Adams maintained he was not guilty | :02:03. | :02:08. | |
of Hur perioder. But he presented himself voluntarily to police this | :02:09. | :02:15. | |
evening. I will tell the PSA that I am innocent totally of any part of | :02:16. | :02:19. | |
the abduction, killing, or burial of Jean McConville. I do have concerns | :02:20. | :02:27. | |
about the timing. I volunteered to meet them. I have concerns in the | :02:28. | :02:31. | |
middle of an election about the timing, but I have tried to work at | :02:32. | :02:35. | |
building the peace and I will continue to do that. Allegations | :02:36. | :02:39. | |
surfaced recently in a BBC documentary which included an | :02:40. | :02:43. | |
interview with the former IRA commander Brendan Hughes recorded | :02:44. | :02:46. | |
before his death. In it, he accuses the Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams | :02:47. | :02:50. | |
of involvement in McConville's murder. This woman was taken away | :02:51. | :02:57. | |
and executed. Jean McConville. There is only one man that gave the order | :02:58. | :03:02. | |
for that woman to be executed. That man, right, is now the head of Sinn | :03:03. | :03:07. | |
Fein. The or this evening of such a senior political figure will be | :03:08. | :03:10. | |
Fein. The or this evening of such a as a landmark moment in how Northern | :03:11. | :03:14. | |
Ireland attempts to deal with its past. No-one knows exactly what | :03:15. | :03:17. | |
evidence they have against Gerry Adams, but there's a sense tonight | :03:18. | :03:20. | |
that it will have to be pretty watertight for such a major | :03:21. | :03:27. | |
political gamble to be taken. With us now is the seasoned Northern | :03:28. | :03:34. | |
Ireland reporter Peter Taylor, and Alex Maskey member of the Northern | :03:35. | :03:36. | |
Ireland Assembly for Sinn Fein who is in Belfast. Peter Taylor, the | :03:37. | :03:41. | |
Jean McConville case, remind us what happened. She was accused by the IRA | :03:42. | :03:48. | |
of being a tout, an informer working for British intelligence. She was | :03:49. | :03:52. | |
taken away, abducted in front of her children, and then she disappeared, | :03:53. | :03:57. | |
and she was murdered by the IRA and her body was buried, and ultimately, | :03:58. | :04:02. | |
the IRA pointed out where she was buried and her body was recovered, | :04:03. | :04:06. | |
but it is a terrible, terrible story. No-one has ever been held | :04:07. | :04:12. | |
accountable for it? No. It is really interesting about Mr Adams and what | :04:13. | :04:16. | |
has happened to him. First of all, we've got to remember that he's only | :04:17. | :04:19. | |
been arrested - he has been arrested many times. He hasn't been charged | :04:20. | :04:21. | |
with anything. He is denying it. What it really comes down to is what | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
he has always denied which is that he was never a member of the IRA. | :04:26. | :04:35. | |
I've done a lot of work on this and I remember interviewing the Chief of | :04:36. | :04:41. | |
Staff of the IRA who met Willy Whitelaw with the leadership. When I | :04:42. | :04:44. | |
interviewed him, I asked about the people who are with him, the | :04:45. | :04:48. | |
leadership of the IRA, and I said was Gerry Adams a member of the IRA? | :04:49. | :04:54. | |
He said they were all IRA. I said, "Including Gerry Adams?" Said, "All | :04:55. | :05:03. | |
IRA." If Chief of Staff of the IRA says Mr Adams was a member of the | :05:04. | :05:07. | |
IRA, then I think that's a pretty good chance that he was. Alex | :05:08. | :05:12. | |
Maskey, what do you make of this arrest tonight? First of all, as | :05:13. | :05:17. | |
you've already heard, Gerry Adams has repeatedly rejected all these | :05:18. | :05:22. | |
allegations in relation to the killing of Mr McConville and | :05:23. | :05:27. | |
repeatedly said over many years that he's available and willing to speak | :05:28. | :05:33. | |
to the police about this manner. We believe the manner this has | :05:34. | :05:37. | |
happened, that Gerry Adams has arranged to speak to the police this | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
evening, and been arrested in such a public fashion. We believe it is a | :05:42. | :05:45. | |
political agenda. We want to make the point again that Gerry Adams has | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
rejected all allegations against him. You say there is a political | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
agenda here: you're accusing the Police Service of Northern Ireland | :05:55. | :05:57. | |
of acting in a politically motivated fashion? We believe on the basis | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
that Gerry Adams has repeatedly stated publicly that he was | :06:03. | :06:05. | |
available to speak to police at any time, we're now three weeks into an | :06:06. | :06:09. | |
election, and then this has happened in the manner in which it has | :06:10. | :06:12. | |
happened, and we believe there is an agenda, which is a very negative | :06:13. | :06:18. | |
agenda, and it is regrettable it is happening and should not be | :06:19. | :06:21. | |
happening. You surely wouldn't want to impede a police investigation | :06:22. | :06:24. | |
into an ancient and horrible crime like this, would you? Absolutely | :06:25. | :06:29. | |
not. As I've said, Gerry Adams has said repeatedly publicly, over a | :06:30. | :06:32. | |
long number of years now, that he has always been willing and able, | :06:33. | :06:37. | |
and available to meet the police at any time. Far from impeding Gerry | :06:38. | :06:42. | |
Adams has been able to speak to the police for a number of years now in | :06:43. | :06:46. | |
this regard. This has now happened until three weeks before an | :06:47. | :06:50. | |
election. As far as we are concerned, we republicans will take | :06:51. | :06:53. | |
this as part of an agenda. Depending on what does happen, if Mr Adams is | :06:54. | :06:58. | |
charged - and remember he has only been arrested - if he is charged, I | :06:59. | :07:01. | |
find it difficult to see how they're going to make the charges stand up | :07:02. | :07:05. | |
because I can't see any former IRA man or woman standing up pointing | :07:06. | :07:10. | |
the finger at Mr Adams, and I don't think they can use as evidence | :07:11. | :07:15. | |
perhaps as confirmatory or corroborating evidence the voice | :07:16. | :07:18. | |
from the grave of Brendan Hughes because you can't, whatever Mr | :07:19. | :07:23. | |
Hughes says in that tape-recording, can't be cross-examined in a court | :07:24. | :07:26. | |
of law because he's no longer with us. I think they would find it very | :07:27. | :07:31. | |
difficult to make a incredible case against him, assuming he were to be | :07:32. | :07:36. | |
charged, which of course he hasn't. Do you share a similar view on that? | :07:37. | :07:41. | |
I would expect Gerry Adams to be released fairly soon because there | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
was no case against Gerry Adams, and let's remind ourselves that those | :07:46. | :07:48. | |
people who made statements because obviously we're working on the basis | :07:49. | :07:52. | |
that Gerry Adams is in this position because people have made statements, | :07:53. | :07:58. | |
for example, to the boss, the tapes inquiry, as it has been called, | :07:59. | :08:03. | |
those people who made those statements can have no reliability | :08:04. | :08:05. | |
since they made the statements on the basis they would not be released | :08:06. | :08:11. | |
until they died. There is no reliability or integrity as far as I | :08:12. | :08:18. | |
am concerned - Alex says this very well, | :08:19. | :08:23. | |
am concerned - Alex says this very through much of the | :08:24. | :08:25. | |
am concerned - Alex says this very conflict, a very close friend of | :08:26. | :08:28. | |
am concerned - Alex says this very Gerry Adams. He was | :08:29. | :08:30. | |
am concerned - Alex says this very Brendan Hughes says what he says | :08:31. | :08:30. | |
when he Brendan Hughes says what he says | :08:31. | :08:36. | |
degree of credibility in it, Brendan Hughes says what he says | :08:37. | :08:41. | |
over the peace process. First of all, you're | :08:42. | :08:45. | |
over the peace process. First of comment. They parted their ways, | :08:46. | :08:48. | |
over the peace process. First of unfortunately, and the same could be | :08:49. | :08:51. | |
said for a small number of other republicans. | :08:52. | :08:53. | |
said for a small number of other someone makes a statement for | :08:54. | :08:55. | |
whatever reason doesn't mean to say that it is true. I have to say that, | :08:56. | :08:58. | |
as far as I am concerned, there's not a lot of integrity in a process | :08:59. | :09:00. | |
as far as I am concerned, there's where someone says, "I am going to | :09:01. | :09:04. | |
say what I want to say but you can't use it until I die." I really don't | :09:05. | :09:09. | |
think that is credible, to be truthful with | :09:10. | :09:10. | |
think that is credible, to be Once upon a time, inequality, | :09:11. | :09:16. | |
think that is credible, to be gap between rich and poor was a | :09:17. | :09:17. | |
touchstone of gap between rich and poor was a | :09:18. | :09:20. | |
country, but, by the turn of the millennium, attitudes had changed. | :09:21. | :09:24. | |
Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of new Labour, confessed | :09:25. | :09:29. | |
he was intensely relaxed about people getting filthy Richard, and | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
apart from the occasional flourish with mansion taxes, a version of | :09:34. | :09:37. | |
trickle-down seemed to have held sway. The poor are always with us. | :09:38. | :09:43. | |
According to that rare commodity, a hugely popular new book on | :09:44. | :09:47. | |
economics, while inequality reduced in the 20th century, it is now | :09:48. | :09:50. | |
rising and destined to carry on rising. The situation which the | :09:51. | :09:53. | |
French author thinks is hugely dangerous. I'll be talking to him | :09:54. | :09:59. | |
shortly, but first sit back and pay attention to Chris Cook. | :10:00. | :10:06. | |
When it comes to inequality, Thomas Picketty Capital in th 21st Century | :10:07. | :10:10. | |
says we should all worry about capital. Not so much incomes and | :10:11. | :10:15. | |
bonuses. So, what does he an by "capital"? That's anything that can | :10:16. | :10:18. | |
be owned and that generates an income. That can be housing, land, | :10:19. | :10:23. | |
stocks, or shares. That idea isn't new. In fact, the link between | :10:24. | :10:26. | |
capital and incomes is very familiar, not least to readers of | :10:27. | :10:33. | |
Jane Austen and Balzac. He says 19th century novelists and their readers, | :10:34. | :10:36. | |
the two ideas were used interchangeably. The book's big | :10:37. | :10:40. | |
innovation has been to build a massive data set that allows him to | :10:41. | :10:45. | |
look at patterns in the ownership of stuff going back centuries. His | :10:46. | :10:49. | |
research found that, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the value of capital | :10:50. | :10:55. | |
grew faster than the economy at large. So, by 1900, the amount of | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
wealth had grown to aroundseven times national output in Britain. | :11:01. | :11:04. | |
And, since that wealth started off being owned by rich people, that | :11:05. | :11:08. | |
means that the rich pulled away from the rest of us. Now, you can see | :11:09. | :11:14. | |
that in the way that the proportion of national wealth owned by the top | :11:15. | :11:19. | |
one per cent rose, and, the top ten per cent, but, in the twentieth | :11:20. | :11:24. | |
century, things were a little different. First of all, because of | :11:25. | :11:30. | |
war. Between 1910 and 1950, the world wars and decolonisation | :11:31. | :11:36. | |
clobbererd the European rich. All that stuff they had accumulated got, | :11:37. | :11:41. | |
well, blown up, or handed back to other people. Then, after the war, | :11:42. | :11:45. | |
the recovery was historically unusual, partly because it was all | :11:46. | :11:50. | |
catch-up growth. The capital stock grew more slowly in the economy at | :11:51. | :11:54. | |
large and was more heavily taxed. So, owning all that stuff didn't | :11:55. | :11:59. | |
really help the top one per cent power ahead. The rest actually | :12:00. | :12:03. | |
caught up a little bit. Since 1980, however, Piketty thinks that things | :12:04. | :12:08. | |
have reverted to the older pattern. Capital has been growing faster than | :12:09. | :12:12. | |
the economy at large, and, since the rich start off owning more stuff, | :12:13. | :12:19. | |
that drives up inequality. So far, so uncontroversial. But Piketty's | :12:20. | :12:26. | |
thesis is that this trend might well continue. If the rate at which | :12:27. | :12:30. | |
capital grows remains faster than the economy at large, then the rich | :12:31. | :12:34. | |
will keep pulling away, and the world could look once again like a | :12:35. | :12:38. | |
Victorian age. The rich will be rich because of who | :12:39. | :12:42. | |
their parents are, not who they are, and that's a major public policy | :12:43. | :12:47. | |
challenge. Piketty's diagnosis might upset people, but his prescription | :12:48. | :12:51. | |
will make him even more enemies. His proposed solution is a global wealth | :12:52. | :12:57. | |
tax, a policy that he suggests is pretty unlikely to happen. Still, | :12:58. | :13:01. | |
Piketty's data collection and analysis is likely to win him a | :13:02. | :13:06. | |
Nobel Prize, even if his policy suggestions are not taken up. | :13:07. | :13:14. | |
The book has had Guardian-reading North London Liberals smiling into | :13:15. | :13:18. | |
their frappuccinos. I sought out Thomas Picketty and asked him why we | :13:19. | :13:23. | |
should care and inequality. Inequality matters because our | :13:24. | :13:27. | |
democratic institutions can't work properly if inequality becomes too | :13:28. | :13:32. | |
extreme. We need inequality for growth to happen to have incentives. | :13:33. | :13:37. | |
If it is really too extreme, then the unequal voice and unequal access | :13:38. | :13:42. | |
to political influence - When does it become too extreme? There is no | :13:43. | :13:46. | |
mathematical formula for that. We have to rely on history. This is an | :13:47. | :13:51. | |
imperfect guide but this is the best we have. One of the lessons from | :13:52. | :13:59. | |
history is that, for instance, 19th century inequality wasn't good for | :14:00. | :14:02. | |
democracy and wasn't good for growth, either. That was useless | :14:03. | :14:06. | |
inequality, if you wish. There was no middle class then, the wealth was | :14:07. | :14:12. | |
concentrated prior to World War one in Britain or France, 90 per cent of | :14:13. | :14:15. | |
the national wealth would belong to the top ten per cent. This was one | :14:16. | :14:21. | |
of the reasons I think why our parliamentary system was not working | :14:22. | :14:26. | |
as well as it should have. Some people seem to believe that there is | :14:27. | :14:30. | |
nothing to learn from this because the future will be different, growth | :14:31. | :14:36. | |
will be a lot higher. Prior to World War one, this was a time where we | :14:37. | :14:39. | |
invented the automobiles, the electricity, the radio, so this is | :14:40. | :14:44. | |
less important than Facebook but still these are important | :14:45. | :14:48. | |
innovations, so growth and innovation was already there, but | :14:49. | :14:54. | |
growth was not sufficient to prevent very large wealth concentration from | :14:55. | :15:00. | |
happening, and I think there is a lot to concern by going back through | :15:01. | :15:04. | |
time. There are circumstances, are not there, where inequality can be | :15:05. | :15:08. | |
good for a society? Of course. It is all a matter of degree. Look, let's | :15:09. | :15:13. | |
be very concrete. In this country, the bottom half of the population | :15:14. | :15:19. | |
owns about two and three per cent of national wealth. Now, if that was | :15:20. | :15:23. | |
full equality, it should only 50 per cent. I am not saying it should be | :15:24. | :15:26. | |
50 per cent. I am just saying that two or three per cent is very small, | :15:27. | :15:33. | |
and that maybe, you know, it is I think spreading wealth and giving | :15:34. | :15:37. | |
access to wealth is important for our economy, and for our democracy. | :15:38. | :15:42. | |
If you take - Speaking out of ideology there, aren't you? I am | :15:43. | :15:47. | |
talking about poor people who would like to access wealth and become | :15:48. | :15:50. | |
owners. Everyone would like to access wealth. It is one of the | :15:51. | :15:55. | |
triggers for capitalism, isn't it? Some inequality, capitalism doesn't | :15:56. | :15:59. | |
work? Some inequality, but I am telling you that the bottom half of | :16:00. | :16:02. | |
the population who own three per cent of national wealth, so I am not | :16:03. | :16:09. | |
saying it should be 50% but maybe we can make it to five or eight or do | :16:10. | :16:13. | |
you think that three per cent is the maximum that the bottom half can own | :16:14. | :16:17. | |
in order to make the economy work. Why draw another arbitrary figure? | :16:18. | :16:21. | |
There is no mathematical certainty about it. Exactly. What we know is | :16:22. | :16:25. | |
that the share of national wealth going to the middle class has been | :16:26. | :16:31. | |
shrinking over the past 30 years. In this country, and actually across | :16:32. | :16:34. | |
Europe and in the US. Why does that matter? It matters because the | :16:35. | :16:40. | |
question is has it been good for growth? No. Growth over the past few | :16:41. | :16:45. | |
decades compared to the previous period wasn't better. If these | :16:46. | :16:48. | |
trends continue, I think it is period wasn't better. If these | :16:49. | :16:53. | |
benefits to broad segments of period wasn't better. If these | :16:54. | :17:00. | |
that disproportionate share of the benefits from globalisation and | :17:01. | :17:03. | |
economic openness accrues only to top income and wealth groups, I | :17:04. | :17:08. | |
think there is a risk that a passenger part of the population | :17:09. | :17:11. | |
will turn against that. The latter part of the book, you do propose | :17:12. | :17:14. | |
some solutions. Now you say people are free to come up with their own | :17:15. | :17:23. | |
solutions. If there were to be an international wealth tax - well, it | :17:24. | :17:26. | |
is never going to happen, is it? What I would propose is to transform | :17:27. | :17:35. | |
this, given tax revenue a progressive tax on net wealth. That | :17:36. | :17:39. | |
means most people will pay less. If you have ?500,000 property but a | :17:40. | :17:45. | |
president you have ?500,000 property but a | :17:46. | :17:48. | |
not rich. You should pay less tax than someone who has inherited from | :17:49. | :17:53. | |
his property and doesn't have a mortgage. If your net wealth is only | :17:54. | :17:57. | |
?10,000, then the progressive would be 0, and the progressive tax | :17:58. | :18:04. | |
would only start with people above ?1 million. You've identified this | :18:05. | :18:06. | |
as ?1 million. You've identified this | :18:07. | :18:10. | |
presumably, you believe that ?1 million. You've identified this | :18:11. | :18:18. | |
people finding shelter somewhere else but they're everywhere, equally | :18:19. | :18:24. | |
liable to punitive rates of taxation. Who do you want to punish? | :18:25. | :18:28. | |
You want to punish the rich? Not at all. I want to - You don't want - I | :18:29. | :18:33. | |
want to help the middle class. When you have 90 per cent of the | :18:34. | :18:38. | |
population who owns less than 25 per cent of the wealth, I think it would | :18:39. | :18:44. | |
be crazy to say that we cannot do better than that. I think we can | :18:45. | :18:49. | |
spread the wealth more. One lesson of the 20th century is that we don't | :18:50. | :18:54. | |
need 19th century inequality to grow. | :18:55. | :18:59. | |
need 19th century inequality to we don't need the kind of extreme | :19:00. | :19:01. | |
concentration of wealth that we had in Britain but also in France and | :19:02. | :19:03. | |
all over Europe. in Britain but also in France and | :19:04. | :19:08. | |
now? We still have a middle class. There is one big difference to | :19:09. | :19:12. | |
now? We still have a middle class. and one century ago. Today, at | :19:13. | :19:15. | |
least, there is a middle class that owns 20, 25 per cent of the total | :19:16. | :19:18. | |
wealth. That didn't even exist at the time of the-of-down tonne Abbey; | :19:19. | :19:26. | |
of down tonne Abbey. You don't want to get back there for economic and | :19:27. | :19:28. | |
political reasons. Given it to get back there for economic and | :19:29. | :19:36. | |
you think clearly is necessary - That's not what I said. I told you | :19:37. | :19:38. | |
the opposite. Yes, but when That's not what I said. I told you | :19:39. | :19:47. | |
with the problem of disproportionate shares of the national cake, the | :19:48. | :19:52. | |
only way you can do that is by taxation, isn't it? Okay, you can | :19:53. | :19:58. | |
have a mansion tax in this country without | :19:59. | :20:00. | |
have a mansion tax in this country European Union. Number 1. Number 2, | :20:01. | :20:04. | |
of course, it is even better if you have | :20:05. | :20:06. | |
of course, it is even better if you can do more in terms of top | :20:07. | :20:10. | |
of course, it is even better if you progress - is it easy? No. Is it | :20:11. | :20:13. | |
impossible? No. You know, five years ago, everybody was saying that Swiss | :20:14. | :20:23. | |
banks will never renounce seeksy. Then the United States came with | :20:24. | :20:26. | |
sanctions on Swiss banks and told Swiss banks you know, if you keep | :20:27. | :20:32. | |
not sending us information on our taxpayers and how much you have in | :20:33. | :20:35. | |
your banks, we will cut your banking licence in the US. Suddenly, things | :20:36. | :20:41. | |
change in Switzerland. I am not impressed by people who know in | :20:42. | :20:44. | |
advance who will know or will not happen. I think history is full of | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
surprises, and I think the European countries have a lot more to lose | :20:51. | :20:56. | |
than the US from bank secrecy in Switzerland. I think in the future, | :20:57. | :21:02. | |
it is possible with better and more international co-operation, | :21:03. | :21:05. | |
particularly involving European countries and the US to move towards | :21:06. | :21:09. | |
a global registry of financial assets in order to have more | :21:10. | :21:15. | |
international co-operation in the fiscal domain. That doesn't mean a | :21:16. | :21:19. | |
global tax, but that means national tax with more global co-operation | :21:20. | :21:24. | |
between those countries. Thank you very much. | :21:25. | :21:32. | |
While Mr Piketty's tome has provoked debate, today, Ed Miliband accused | :21:33. | :21:38. | |
the Prime Minister of presiding over inequality in the UK. Two years ago, | :21:39. | :21:45. | |
protesters were camped outside St Paul's Cathedral complaining about | :21:46. | :21:49. | |
the fat tax one per cent. What is going on here? Have or have-not? | :21:50. | :22:07. | |
Equal or less equal? Forget the concepts. What is | :22:08. | :22:15. | |
actually happening here? It wasn't so long ago this square | :22:16. | :22:21. | |
was crammed with protesters, furious at bankers' behaviour and angry | :22:22. | :22:26. | |
about the gap between rich and poor. Politicians clambered over each | :22:27. | :22:29. | |
other to look concerned about fat-cat pay, but, through the | :22:30. | :22:33. | |
recession, overall incomes actually became more equal as George Osborne | :22:34. | :22:39. | |
now likes to boast. But that only happened because, as pay fell, | :22:40. | :22:43. | |
benefits continued to rise. That situation is expected to go into | :22:44. | :22:47. | |
reverse. And the gap in earnings has | :22:48. | :22:52. | |
stretched uncomfortably. By 2011, FTSE bosses were taking home 139 | :22:53. | :22:58. | |
times as much as their average workers. But the actual UK top one | :22:59. | :23:02. | |
per cent includes not just bankers or bosses, but the best-paid police, | :23:03. | :23:09. | |
doctors, even teachers - anyone earning over ?100,000 after tax, | :23:10. | :23:14. | |
but, in the shadow of St Paul's, arrange is still there. Anger is | :23:15. | :23:21. | |
still there. It annoys me, there should be people they've worked | :23:22. | :23:24. | |
their way to the top. The amount of money you've got up there, when | :23:25. | :23:28. | |
you've got the lowest of the low scrimping and scraping, it is not | :23:29. | :23:32. | |
right. If people are poor, they should go to work more, shouldn't | :23:33. | :23:37. | |
they? I just like earning money. We're going to have a very big | :23:38. | :23:42. | |
social problem because you're going to have all these youngsters that | :23:43. | :23:47. | |
have worked hard for their education and the salary they get, they won't | :23:48. | :23:51. | |
be able to afford accommodation for any kind of decent lifestyle. You | :23:52. | :23:56. | |
think it is as serious as that, we're looking at big social | :23:57. | :23:59. | |
problems? Yes, I think so. You can't hide it. But it is less and less | :24:00. | :24:03. | |
about what you earn or not. No matter how the government tinkers | :24:04. | :24:06. | |
with what you're allowed to keep, it is the influence of what you have or | :24:07. | :24:12. | |
not, your wealth, that's really changing. The gap between haves and | :24:13. | :24:23. | |
have-not haven't - have-notes isn't as big as it was when this square | :24:24. | :24:28. | |
was built, but now inheritance is growing as a share of the whole | :24:29. | :24:31. | |
country's income. For most of us, that's about access to your own | :24:32. | :24:36. | |
slice of bricks and mortar. More people buy homes with cash now than | :24:37. | :24:40. | |
buy for the first time, although Labour and the Lib Dems both vow to | :24:41. | :24:46. | |
tax property raising inheritance tax, few would dare. The value of | :24:47. | :24:50. | |
wealth, even of ordinary wealth, let alone top wealth, became much larger | :24:51. | :24:53. | |
in relation to people's incomes. That makes it very much harder to | :24:54. | :24:57. | |
move a notch or two up the wealth ladder because you need many more | :24:58. | :25:02. | |
years of saving, many more years' worth of income to move a number of | :25:03. | :25:06. | |
rungs up that ladder. That's going to be very difficult for young | :25:07. | :25:09. | |
people to do just through their own saving, and it makes it much more | :25:10. | :25:14. | |
important who their parents and grandparents are, and whether they | :25:15. | :25:17. | |
can help them get on the housing ladder, whether they have a lucky | :25:18. | :25:21. | |
inheritance and so on. This isn't all just about cold, hard cash. | :25:22. | :25:25. | |
There are dramatic variations in our health, not just our wealth, and | :25:26. | :25:29. | |
stubborn gaps in opportunities for our children. | :25:30. | :25:33. | |
The richest children's grandparents are likely to enjoy nearly20 years | :25:34. | :25:37. | |
more healthy life than the poorest, and the difference is growing. And | :25:38. | :25:42. | |
while 40 per cent of children on free school meals get five decent | :25:43. | :25:46. | |
GCSEs, it is 70 per cent for the rest. | :25:47. | :25:49. | |
There is enormous variation between and within schools, so in England, | :25:50. | :25:53. | |
it matters where you're born if you're poor as well addition the | :25:54. | :25:56. | |
fact that you're born to relative poverty, so there are one in seven | :25:57. | :26:00. | |
secondary schools, for example, in England with respect the free-school | :26:01. | :26:04. | |
meal children do better than the national average and those schools | :26:05. | :26:06. | |
are distributed right across the country in all communities. One of | :26:07. | :26:09. | |
the big questions is why can't more schools do what those schools are | :26:10. | :26:14. | |
doing? No-one government can push away or | :26:15. | :26:20. | |
promote global trends alone. But our politicians' choices can affect | :26:21. | :26:24. | |
inequality here. It is our own disquiet or acceptance, perhaps, | :26:25. | :26:29. | |
that dictates how hard they try. With us now are Lord Lamont, | :26:30. | :26:33. | |
Conservative peer and former Chancellor of the Exchequer; Stella | :26:34. | :26:39. | |
Creasy, the Labour MP and shadow business minister; and Gillian Tett, | :26:40. | :26:42. | |
assistant editor at the Financial Times. Telling La Creasy, since -- | :26:43. | :26:47. | |
Stella Creasy, since the French economist seemed to accept that a | :26:48. | :26:51. | |
degree of inequality was almost necessary, what is undesirable about | :26:52. | :26:56. | |
it? I don't think he said it was necessary, he said it was | :26:57. | :26:58. | |
inevitable. I think that's the challenge for all of us looking at | :26:59. | :27:02. | |
this which is what is the level of inequality which is actually so | :27:03. | :27:05. | |
damaging and destructive not only to our economy but our society that we | :27:06. | :27:09. | |
should deal with it. How do you decide that? One of the things that | :27:10. | :27:12. | |
is interesting about his research is the link between power and the | :27:13. | :27:15. | |
damage that it does when particularly small groups of power | :27:16. | :27:19. | |
have disproportionate power in our society. We have to look at what are | :27:20. | :27:22. | |
the consequences for this kind of inequality in terms of our future. | :27:23. | :27:26. | |
Are you bothered about growing and inequality? I couldn't envisage | :27:27. | :27:32. | |
circumstances in which I would. If great disparate tease in wealth | :27:33. | :27:36. | |
obstruct social mobility, that would worry me a lot. In tackling the | :27:37. | :27:42. | |
issues, there a two things you ought to consider: the fact that some | :27:43. | :27:46. | |
people are well think, is that harming other people, causing | :27:47. | :27:50. | |
poverty? In very few cases do I think is that the case. Secondly, | :27:51. | :27:55. | |
before you go in for confiscatory taxation, you awed to ask yourselves | :27:56. | :27:59. | |
the question, would this wealth actually exist if this person who | :28:00. | :28:04. | |
had it did not exist, i.e., an entrepreneur who has created a huge | :28:05. | :28:09. | |
n technology empire, if you just tax his wealth out of existence, you | :28:10. | :28:12. | |
damage an economy, and you damage a lot of people. The point is that | :28:13. | :28:18. | |
what Piketty is arguing is not so much about inequality of outcome, | :28:19. | :28:21. | |
the entrepreneur who had the brilliant idea who starts the | :28:22. | :28:23. | |
company and end up with a lot of money, it is more about equality of | :28:24. | :28:28. | |
opportunity. There are two questions here: firstly, what degree of | :28:29. | :28:33. | |
inequality can we live with? Is it about opportunity or outcome? The | :28:34. | :28:38. | |
really big shift about the focus on capital, inheritance and wealth is | :28:39. | :28:40. | |
making the point that if you come from a family that starts with | :28:41. | :28:41. | |
wealth from a family that starts with | :28:42. | :28:46. | |
worried and R if there's been a break between | :28:47. | :28:49. | |
worried and R if there's been a receive. I am struck, we saw those | :28:50. | :28:54. | |
Barclay Shaylerers being rightly angry frankly because they've seen a | :28:55. | :28:56. | |
32 per cent drop in their angry frankly because they've seen a | :28:57. | :29:01. | |
bonus pool. That is clearly not linked to performance, so you have | :29:02. | :29:02. | |
to point. I think, for example, the | :29:03. | :29:17. | |
remuneration of chief executives in very large companies worldwide is | :29:18. | :29:21. | |
probably being very overdone, and I think it has | :29:22. | :29:26. | |
probably being very overdone, and I and the incentive to boost your | :29:27. | :29:29. | |
share price by buybacks and manipulation of that kind. I think | :29:30. | :29:33. | |
that is actually pretty unjustified. But that is a different question. | :29:34. | :29:37. | |
That's a particular example from the issue of is society becoming | :29:38. | :29:41. | |
That's a particular example from the unequal? I don't think we had a lot | :29:42. | :29:47. | |
of talk from the Professor about this is incompatible with democracy. | :29:48. | :29:51. | |
Well, as an American writer once said, if democracy consists of | :29:52. | :29:54. | |
robbing Peter to pay Paul, Paul will vote for that. We should not just | :29:55. | :29:57. | |
construct a great vote for that. We should not just | :29:58. | :30:02. | |
prejudice. Maybe that is a difference between you and I because | :30:03. | :30:05. | |
I don't want to live in a society where it is the largest waltz or | :30:06. | :30:08. | |
perhaps the loudest funded by where it is the largest waltz or | :30:09. | :30:11. | |
largest waltz that determine outcomes. I am not alone in thinking | :30:12. | :30:13. | |
that. I don't outcomes. I am not alone in thinking | :30:14. | :30:18. | |
Thatcher but she talked about enfranchising people by giving them | :30:19. | :30:21. | |
a stake in society. Inequality damages that. I agree with that and | :30:22. | :30:25. | |
what Gillian said that what we are talking about is equality of | :30:26. | :30:27. | |
opportunity, but of course equality of opportunity is a very abstract | :30:28. | :30:33. | |
idea because, unless you were bullish or inheritances, you can't | :30:34. | :30:36. | |
have true equality of opportunity, so it is only an idea you can move | :30:37. | :30:41. | |
towards gradually. What is interesting is that it is not just | :30:42. | :30:45. | |
in the UK that Piketty's book is provoking debate amongst the | :30:46. | :30:48. | |
Liberals of North London, what is fascinating in America, this book, | :30:49. | :30:53. | |
which is 557 pages long, it is dense and heavy, is a top-selling book in | :30:54. | :30:58. | |
America on Amazon in all categories. It is beaten books about Frozen, | :30:59. | :31:04. | |
Kardashian, sports memoirs, you name it. The reason for that is many | :31:05. | :31:08. | |
people are saying we came out of this big recession, big financial | :31:09. | :31:12. | |
crisis. We've got to get growth at all costs, and now they're saying | :31:13. | :31:18. | |
hang on a second, who benefits? Can I make one point: this one point | :31:19. | :31:22. | |
about the arithmetic of this that people forget and that is even if | :31:23. | :31:26. | |
you had a society in which everybody was paid the same income but they | :31:27. | :31:31. | |
saved a given proportion of it each year, you would end up with a | :31:32. | :31:35. | |
society in which people over 60 owned 80 per cent of the wealth. | :31:36. | :31:40. | |
Wealth is concentrated among elderly people, and all these statistics you | :31:41. | :31:47. | |
get from - I remember this with Professor Titmus a long time ago | :31:48. | :31:51. | |
when he used to write about inequality, he made that fundamental | :31:52. | :31:55. | |
arithmetical error that so much wealth is concentrated in older | :31:56. | :31:58. | |
people. I think the solution to the problem of inequality is to spread | :31:59. | :32:04. | |
wealth, and I think - I feel like I have to stand up for Professor | :32:05. | :32:10. | |
Titmus having won his prize, because that's not what he said. | :32:11. | :32:14. | |
Autoinrolement of pensions will give people the opportunity to save, and | :32:15. | :32:17. | |
create more distribution of wealth as well. That's not what the | :32:18. | :32:20. | |
research is telling us. What is fascinating about the research it is | :32:21. | :32:23. | |
about the accumulation of capital and how that is being passed on, and | :32:24. | :32:27. | |
one of the challenges of being able to access capital in itself. That is | :32:28. | :32:32. | |
different from savings. Gillian, in your experience, what is it that | :32:33. | :32:37. | |
people most get angry about? Income disparatety or angry about the fact | :32:38. | :32:40. | |
that some people have inherited wealth. Speaking from an American | :32:41. | :32:43. | |
perspective, there are two things going on. Until now, America had | :32:44. | :32:48. | |
probably been the Western country most accepting of inequality because | :32:49. | :32:51. | |
people believed there was equality of opportunity. That was the | :32:52. | :32:54. | |
American dream. What people are realising is that in America it is | :32:55. | :32:58. | |
actually no longer that much equality of opportunity, and they're | :32:59. | :33:02. | |
questioning whether they can live with such unequal outcomes. It is a | :33:03. | :33:05. | |
recognition that, essentially, what things like quantitative easing has | :33:06. | :33:08. | |
done is making people who have assets a lot wealthier; what the | :33:09. | :33:12. | |
globalisation is doing, what the change in industry, the increasing | :33:13. | :33:18. | |
competition, not just from China but digitisation is hollowing out the | :33:19. | :33:22. | |
middle class, you have a small minority at the top who have lovely | :33:23. | :33:27. | |
jobs earning wonderful incomes and many people are struggling. I think | :33:28. | :33:32. | |
there is force in that. Quantitative easing has altered things. The | :33:33. | :33:35. | |
sooner we get back to normality, the better. I do think that the | :33:36. | :33:39. | |
Professor is not on a strong point in predicting that what has happened | :33:40. | :33:44. | |
in the recent pass will go on. A longer period, over 40 years, LSE | :33:45. | :33:49. | |
research shows that the share going to incomes in this country, the | :33:50. | :33:54. | |
share of GDP has remained broadly constant, and the idea that this is | :33:55. | :33:56. | |
going to diminish I don't think is borne out by the facts. The | :33:57. | :34:02. | |
proportion of corporate profits being retained and not paid paid out | :34:03. | :34:07. | |
by employment earnings and at capital is at record levels. Who | :34:08. | :34:09. | |
benefits from the fact that corporate profits go to capital? | :34:10. | :34:13. | |
It's basically the shareholders. Who owns the shares? Primarily the rich. | :34:14. | :34:15. | |
Essentially, what you're seeing time and time again is that workers, | :34:16. | :34:20. | |
ordinary workers, are being weeded in their slice of the economic pie. | :34:21. | :34:23. | |
In the recent past, both in this country, Europe, and going on in | :34:24. | :34:28. | |
Europe, and in the United States, obviously, incomes of ordinary | :34:29. | :34:31. | |
people haven't risen. That is what has created this problem. That has | :34:32. | :34:35. | |
been the adjustment to 2007, 2008. The rich have run away with, in, but | :34:36. | :34:39. | |
we've got a greater challenge, what is the potential we're missing out | :34:40. | :34:42. | |
on if we live in an equal society because we're not going to tackle | :34:43. | :34:46. | |
those issues until we have an ability for everyone to create | :34:47. | :34:49. | |
wealth. What this book shows so well is that this American dream if you | :34:50. | :34:53. | |
work hard and put your effort it is rewarded is not necessarily true, | :34:54. | :34:56. | |
and that should challenge all of us of the what potential does that give | :34:57. | :35:00. | |
us for our children and future that we can create wealth and be a more | :35:01. | :35:04. | |
prosperous society if we can't do that? You may recall hearing a | :35:05. | :35:08. | |
couple of weeks ago that more than 200 girls had been abducted in the | :35:09. | :35:11. | |
middle of the night from their boarding school in Nigeria. There's | :35:12. | :35:20. | |
not been much coverage since, and indeed there doesn't seem to be much | :35:21. | :35:26. | |
action to rescue them either. Today, marchers marched to press the | :35:27. | :35:30. | |
government to do more. The girls are thought to have been taken by the | :35:31. | :35:37. | |
Islamist group Boko Haram, b with little information where they might | :35:38. | :35:41. | |
be being held, relatives are left to hope and pray for their daughters' | :35:42. | :35:47. | |
safe return. Joining us from Abuja is the novelist and journalist | :35:48. | :35:52. | |
Mbwarde. What is the feeling in Nigeria about the way this mass | :35:53. | :35:56. | |
abduction - almost unimaginable -- what is the feeling there about the | :35:57. | :36:04. | |
way it's being dealt with by the government? I think what is most | :36:05. | :36:09. | |
worrying is the fact that the first few days after the acducks, the | :36:10. | :36:13. | |
government didn't - there wasn't a flurry of activity in terms of | :36:14. | :36:16. | |
rescue operation. That was the worrying thing. We of course are | :36:17. | :36:20. | |
concerned about the fact that - we are concerned about the ability to | :36:21. | :36:24. | |
do anything and about the fact that no-one was pretending to do anything | :36:25. | :36:28. | |
and there was some misinformation from the armed forces when we are | :36:29. | :36:31. | |
told on the second day that the girls had been rescued, and it | :36:32. | :36:35. | |
turned out to be a lie. There's so much confusion, nobody is sure about | :36:36. | :36:39. | |
what the government is doing and how much anybody can do. It is all a bit | :36:40. | :36:43. | |
confusing for people here. Yet, there was this protest march today | :36:44. | :36:46. | |
which was expected to attract at least many thousands of people, and, | :36:47. | :36:50. | |
in the end, it was just a few hundred, wasn't it? Yes, it was. | :36:51. | :36:58. | |
Yes, it was a few hundred. I think that's the disadvantage of a lot of | :36:59. | :37:02. | |
the activity and social media: people who actually live here, who | :37:03. | :37:06. | |
get about their business, are not really involved in all that, so it | :37:07. | :37:12. | |
was mostly a social media thing. Really, the Nigerians on social | :37:13. | :37:17. | |
Twitter and Facebook are different from everyday Nigerians. It is | :37:18. | :37:22. | |
almost t different worlds. Most of the organisation was done on social | :37:23. | :37:26. | |
media, and there are thousands of Nigerians who are not on Twitter, | :37:27. | :37:30. | |
Facebook, or at least who don't engage as one would expect. A lot of | :37:31. | :37:34. | |
the Nigerians on Twitter, a number of them are abroad, so we have | :37:35. | :37:39. | |
situations where a lot of there is so much organisation going on | :37:40. | :37:42. | |
Twitter and social media, but when it comes to being physically present | :37:43. | :37:45. | |
to get things done, there are not that many people. I think that's | :37:46. | :37:47. | |
what happened. Everybody is concerned but I am not sure about | :37:48. | :37:50. | |
how many people really knew what was going on today and how many people | :37:51. | :37:54. | |
will be mobilised to come on board. That's what happened, I think. | :37:55. | :37:58. | |
You've talked about the failure of government and the failure of the | :37:59. | :38:03. | |
military. The Nigerian military is actually one of the better | :38:04. | :38:06. | |
militaries in Africa, isn't it? Are you saying that you really need some | :38:07. | :38:12. | |
outside help here? I think we are facing a situation that we haven't | :38:13. | :38:17. | |
ever faced before, so it is new terrain. I am not sure how much | :38:18. | :38:21. | |
training our armed forces have received in this area in terrorism. | :38:22. | :38:24. | |
We are facing a situation no government, no Nigerian government | :38:25. | :38:29. | |
has ever faced prior to this president, so it is a completely new | :38:30. | :38:34. | |
situation. There are lots of things we face in the pass: violence, | :38:35. | :38:37. | |
religious, but this Boko Haram situation is so peculiar. I don't | :38:38. | :38:40. | |
think we know exactly how to handle it yet, which is not to say we | :38:41. | :38:45. | |
can't, but we haven't been trained. Our armed forces in that direction | :38:46. | :38:48. | |
haven't been trained. It's new. The horrors of Boko Haram are different | :38:49. | :38:52. | |
from any horror we've witnessed in this country ever before - not even | :38:53. | :38:56. | |
in the civil war has it been like this, you know? There's just | :38:57. | :38:59. | |
something different, something more horrifying about this. We don't know | :39:00. | :39:02. | |
who the enemy is, we don't know who the target is. It is just so | :39:03. | :39:06. | |
arbitrary, so I think we don't quite know how to handle this kind of | :39:07. | :39:11. | |
situation, which is why I believe the government should reach out for | :39:12. | :39:15. | |
help. There are countries that have dealt with this kind of thing for a | :39:16. | :39:18. | |
long tim We should be asking those people how to go about it. Thank you | :39:19. | :39:23. | |
very much indeed. Thank you. Now, it's 25 years since Ayatollah | :39:24. | :39:26. | |
Khomeini the Iranian religious leader pronounced a fatwa to the | :39:27. | :39:32. | |
effect that anyo murdering Salman Rushdie will be doing God's work. | :39:33. | :39:36. | |
Rushdie's crime in the eyes of this ancient bearded zealot was to have | :39:37. | :39:47. | |
written a book The Satanic Verses. The Ayatollah died soon after, but | :39:48. | :39:51. | |
the if a the with a remained in force. Rushdie was force to live | :39:52. | :39:54. | |
under police protection for years. It was never just a book: critical | :39:55. | :40:00. | |
praise quickly turned to controversy. The The Satanic Verses | :40:01. | :40:01. | |
was banned in many controversy. The The Satanic Verses | :40:02. | :40:05. | |
burned at protests, including on British streets. | :40:06. | :40:07. | |
Many demonstrators hadn't read it, British streets. | :40:08. | :40:13. | |
but the anger and hurt of its depiction of the Muslim Prophet | :40:14. | :40:22. | |
Mohammed was real. Sir Iqbal Sakarani was one of the main | :40:23. | :40:27. | |
organisers of the protests. The book was deeply offensive, not only to | :40:28. | :40:30. | |
Muslims and Britain and overseas but was deeply offensive, not only to | :40:31. | :40:34. | |
of other faiths as well. The notion of freedom of expression goes with | :40:35. | :40:37. | |
responsibility. It must also be noted that the protests were carried | :40:38. | :40:41. | |
out in a dignified and in a responsible manner, and I think we | :40:42. | :40:42. | |
had to get the very across that the book was | :40:43. | :40:51. | |
unacceptable. Anger spread. The new ruler of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini | :40:52. | :40:56. | |
issuing for a fatwa for ruler of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini | :40:57. | :41:00. | |
be killed. Despite, or because of this, sales of the book rocketed. | :41:01. | :41:03. | |
Although many British Muslims felt offended by the novel, many also | :41:04. | :41:09. | |
opposed the fatwa. This man took part in some of those protests in | :41:10. | :41:13. | |
London, but he now thinks the episode ended up giving a negative | :41:14. | :41:19. | |
image of Muslims. There's no question that verses have affair was | :41:20. | :41:25. | |
a -- that the versus -- The Satanic Verses affair was a seminal moment. | :41:26. | :41:30. | |
They wanted, as they saw it to defend the honour of the Prophet | :41:31. | :41:34. | |
Mohammed. It served as a catalyst for the emergence of a British | :41:35. | :41:38. | |
Museum identity. However, there were a number of downsides, too, not | :41:39. | :41:41. | |
least of which was the fact that Islam now came to be seen as having | :41:42. | :41:45. | |
real issues with the modern world, and it left a very negative | :41:46. | :41:51. | |
impression on the Western psyche. It was, perhaps, the first | :41:52. | :41:55. | |
contemporary moment when the liberal values of free speech and Muslim | :41:56. | :42:04. | |
culture clashed. But it wasn't to be the last. Angry demonstrations | :42:05. | :42:08. | |
against Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed provoked similar | :42:09. | :42:13. | |
fury. 25 years on, the balance between freedom of expression and | :42:14. | :42:18. | |
religious sensitivities is perhaps just as tense. | :42:19. | :42:24. | |
The author Martin Amis was o of Salman Rushdie's inner circle of | :42:25. | :42:27. | |
friends when the fatwa was declared and he joins us from New York. Was | :42:28. | :42:39. | |
Mr Rushdie very - Sir Salmon surprised by the reaction to his | :42:40. | :42:45. | |
book? Yes, he was horrified. Let's not forget that there had already | :42:46. | :42:49. | |
been violence, protests, and some deaths in Pakistan before the fatwa | :42:50. | :42:56. | |
was issued. On the two previous days, there had been intensifying | :42:57. | :43:01. | |
riots in Islamabad and Kashmere, so it was already a nightmare, and the | :43:02. | :43:07. | |
fatwa made it a nightmare within a nightmare. A writer is horrified if | :43:08. | :43:15. | |
anything he writes - a novel - takes on a sort of concrete meaning in the | :43:16. | :43:18. | |
real world. It was never meant to be that. That's not what novels are. | :43:19. | :43:24. | |
But surely he knew what he was doing, for example, naming | :43:25. | :43:29. | |
prostitutes after the prophet's wives? Well, I had an interesting | :43:30. | :43:36. | |
discussion with this with Prince Charles. He said at a small dinner | :43:37. | :43:46. | |
part, in his usual he did xcathedra way, I am sorry if someone sets out | :43:47. | :43:54. | |
to - I said the novel comes with a kind of shiver, this is an idea that | :43:55. | :43:59. | |
I can write a novel about it, nothing else that it appeals to you. | :44:00. | :44:04. | |
Then you start to spore it, and the only restraints on your treatment | :44:05. | :44:10. | |
are those self- - explore it, and the only restraints your -- I am | :44:11. | :44:17. | |
sure Salman like all novelists disappeared into the idea for five | :44:18. | :44:20. | |
years and never thought about what effect it would have when it crossed | :44:21. | :44:24. | |
the border and came into the real world. | :44:25. | :44:27. | |
When he discovered what the effect was, did he regret writing in the | :44:28. | :44:35. | |
terms he wrote? I don't think one can ever quite do that. I know he | :44:36. | :44:44. | |
felt gangrenous with horror when the death toll started to climb and | :44:45. | :44:52. | |
whenties translators - when his translators and pull sifts were | :44:53. | :44:56. | |
attacked, knifed, and shot. It must have been a terrible helter-skelter | :44:57. | :45:00. | |
experience of escalation, and he writes about it beautifully in his | :45:01. | :45:07. | |
memoir Joseph Anton. It is like being on a bucking bronchio. It is - | :45:08. | :45:13. | |
bronco. It has left your control. In the light of what happened in this | :45:14. | :45:19. | |
particular case, and in the light of t rows that we have had either over | :45:20. | :45:26. | |
the Danish cartoons, even these rather anodyne Jesus and MO cartoons | :45:27. | :45:30. | |
in Britain, are writers thinking differently about what they put pen | :45:31. | :45:36. | |
to paper about? Well, they should not be, I don't think. The late | :45:37. | :45:44. | |
Ronald Dworkin said that no-one has the right not to be offended, and | :45:45. | :45:48. | |
that is a fact of the modern world. You don't have that right. The other | :45:49. | :45:56. | |
great sort of maxim is that writing is freedom. That's essentially what | :45:57. | :46:02. | |
it is, an expression of freedom, and once it is hedged, it loses that | :46:03. | :46:08. | |
indivisibility, and you're really like a hack during the Russian | :46:09. | :46:18. | |
revolution; you're like Myerkovky or Senin. Both those poets committed | :46:19. | :46:24. | |
suicide because they had talent that was being resisted by the system. | :46:25. | :46:29. | |
That's almost it for tonight. Our celebration of Shakespeare's 450th | :46:30. | :46:32. | |
birthday comes to an end tonight with his last play The Tempest. | :46:33. | :46:40. | |
Simonal low plays Prospero. Our rebels are ended, and these are | :46:41. | :46:45. | |
actors as I foretold you, are all spirits that are melted into air - | :46:46. | :46:51. | |
into thin air. Like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud | :46:52. | :46:58. | |
camped towers, the guard outpalaces, the solemn temples, the great globe | :46:59. | :47:05. | |
itself, yea, all which it inherits shall dissolve. And, like this | :47:06. | :47:10. | |
insubstantial pageant faded leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | :47:11. | :47:22. | |
as dreams are made on. And our little life is rounded with a sleep. | :47:23. | :47:26. |