30/04/2014 Newsnight

Fein is arrested tonight in connection with the murder of a

woman killed by the IRA in 1972. We have the latest.

How society is dividing into a vast number of have-nots and a very small

number of have-lots, and lots, and lots. Why social inequality is

predicted to get worse and what, if anything, we ought to do about it.

We talk to the French economist who has written what's been called the

Das Kapital of the 21st century. On the 25th anniversary of the fatwa

pronouncing death on Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis on freedom and

fundamentalism. Our latest tribute to Shakespeare: Simon Callow as

Prospero. Our rebels are ended, and these are actors, as I foretold you

who are all spirits that are melted into air - into thin air.

Dramatic developments tonight in the police investigation into the murder

of a woman killed by the IRA in 1972. The police Service of Northern

Ireland are questioning the president of Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams.

Mr Adams says he has always been willing to help the police trying to

discover how Jean McConville came to die, although he had nothing to to

with it, one veteran IRA man has already been charged with aiding and

abetting the murder. Mr Adams said attempts to implicate him are pure

mischief. Jean McConville, a widow and a mother of ten was abducted in

front of her children, killed bit IRA. She had been wrongly accused of

being an ininformer. When do you think you'll see your

mummy again? I don't know. Her body was recovered from a beach in 2003.

Before his arrest this evening, Mr Adams maintained he was not guilty

of Hur perioder. But he presented himself voluntarily to police this

evening. I will tell the PSA that I am innocent totally of any part of

the abduction, killing, or burial of Jean McConville. I do have concerns

about the timing. I volunteered to meet them. I have concerns in the

middle of an election about the timing, but I have tried to work at

building the peace and I will continue to do that. Allegations

surfaced recently in a BBC documentary which included an

interview with the former IRA commander Brendan Hughes recorded

before his death. In it, he accuses the Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams

of involvement in McConville's murder. This woman was taken away

and executed. Jean McConville. There is only one man that gave the order

for that woman to be executed. That man, right, is now the head of Sinn

Fein. The or this evening of such a senior political figure will be

Fein. The or this evening of such a as a landmark moment in how Northern

Ireland attempts to deal with its past. No-one knows exactly what

evidence they have against Gerry Adams, but there's a sense tonight

that it will have to be pretty watertight for such a major

political gamble to be taken. With us now is the seasoned Northern

Ireland reporter Peter Taylor, and Alex Maskey member of the Northern

Ireland Assembly for Sinn Fein who is in Belfast. Peter Taylor, the

Jean McConville case, remind us what happened. She was accused by the IRA

of being a tout, an informer working for British intelligence. She was

taken away, abducted in front of her children, and then she disappeared,

and she was murdered by the IRA and her body was buried, and ultimately,

the IRA pointed out where she was buried and her body was recovered,

but it is a terrible, terrible story. No-one has ever been held

accountable for it? No. It is really interesting about Mr Adams and what

has happened to him. First of all, we've got to remember that he's only

been arrested - he has been arrested many times. He hasn't been charged

with anything. He is denying it. What it really comes down to is what

he has always denied which is that he was never a member of the IRA.

I've done a lot of work on this and I remember interviewing the Chief of

Staff of the IRA who met Willy Whitelaw with the leadership. When I

interviewed him, I asked about the people who are with him, the

leadership of the IRA, and I said was Gerry Adams a member of the IRA?

He said they were all IRA. I said, "Including Gerry Adams?" Said, "All

IRA." If Chief of Staff of the IRA says Mr Adams was a member of the

IRA, then I think that's a pretty good chance that he was. Alex

Maskey, what do you make of this arrest tonight? First of all, as

you've already heard, Gerry Adams has repeatedly rejected all these

allegations in relation to the killing of Mr McConville and

repeatedly said over many years that he's available and willing to speak

to the police about this manner. We believe the manner this has

happened, that Gerry Adams has arranged to speak to the police this

evening, and been arrested in such a public fashion. We believe it is a

political agenda. We want to make the point again that Gerry Adams has

rejected all allegations against him. You say there is a political

agenda here: you're accusing the Police Service of Northern Ireland

of acting in a politically motivated fashion? We believe on the basis

that Gerry Adams has repeatedly stated publicly that he was

available to speak to police at any time, we're now three weeks into an

election, and then this has happened in the manner in which it has

happened, and we believe there is an agenda, which is a very negative

agenda, and it is regrettable it is happening and should not be

happening. You surely wouldn't want to impede a police investigation

into an ancient and horrible crime like this, would you? Absolutely

not. As I've said, Gerry Adams has said repeatedly publicly, over a

long number of years now, that he has always been willing and able,

and available to meet the police at any time. Far from impeding Gerry

Adams has been able to speak to the police for a number of years now in

this regard. This has now happened until three weeks before an

election. As far as we are concerned, we republicans will take

this as part of an agenda. Depending on what does happen, if Mr Adams is

charged - and remember he has only been arrested - if he is charged, I

find it difficult to see how they're going to make the charges stand up

because I can't see any former IRA man or woman standing up pointing

the finger at Mr Adams, and I don't think they can use as evidence

perhaps as confirmatory or corroborating evidence the voice

from the grave of Brendan Hughes because you can't, whatever Mr

Hughes says in that tape-recording, can't be cross-examined in a court

of law because he's no longer with us. I think they would find it very

difficult to make a incredible case against him, assuming he were to be

charged, which of course he hasn't. Do you share a similar view on that?

I would expect Gerry Adams to be released fairly soon because there

was no case against Gerry Adams, and let's remind ourselves that those

people who made statements because obviously we're working on the basis

that Gerry Adams is in this position because people have made statements,

for example, to the boss, the tapes inquiry, as it has been called,

those people who made those statements can have no reliability

since they made the statements on the basis they would not be released

until they died. There is no reliability or integrity as far as I

am concerned - Alex says this very well,

am concerned - Alex says this very through much of the

am concerned - Alex says this very conflict, a very close friend of

am concerned - Alex says this very Gerry Adams. He was

am concerned - Alex says this very Brendan Hughes says what he says

when he Brendan Hughes says what he says

degree of credibility in it, Brendan Hughes says what he says

over the peace process. First of all, you're

over the peace process. First of comment. They parted their ways,

over the peace process. First of unfortunately, and the same could be

said for a small number of other republicans.

said for a small number of other someone makes a statement for

whatever reason doesn't mean to say that it is true. I have to say that,

as far as I am concerned, there's not a lot of integrity in a process

as far as I am concerned, there's where someone says, "I am going to

say what I want to say but you can't use it until I die." I really don't

think that is credible, to be truthful with

think that is credible, to be Once upon a time, inequality,

think that is credible, to be gap between rich and poor was a

touchstone of gap between rich and poor was a

country, but, by the turn of the millennium, attitudes had changed.

Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of new Labour, confessed

he was intensely relaxed about people getting filthy Richard, and

apart from the occasional flourish with mansion taxes, a version of

trickle-down seemed to have held sway. The poor are always with us.

According to that rare commodity, a hugely popular new book on

economics, while inequality reduced in the 20th century, it is now

rising and destined to carry on rising. The situation which the

French author thinks is hugely dangerous. I'll be talking to him

shortly, but first sit back and pay attention to Chris Cook.

When it comes to inequality, Thomas Picketty Capital in th 21st Century

says we should all worry about capital. Not so much incomes and

bonuses. So, what does he an by "capital"? That's anything that can

be owned and that generates an income. That can be housing, land,

stocks, or shares. That idea isn't new. In fact, the link between

capital and incomes is very familiar, not least to readers of

Jane Austen and Balzac. He says 19th century novelists and their readers,

the two ideas were used interchangeably. The book's big

innovation has been to build a massive data set that allows him to

look at patterns in the ownership of stuff going back centuries. His

research found that, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the value of capital

grew faster than the economy at large. So, by 1900, the amount of

wealth had grown to aroundseven times national output in Britain.

And, since that wealth started off being owned by rich people, that

means that the rich pulled away from the rest of us. Now, you can see

that in the way that the proportion of national wealth owned by the top

one per cent rose, and, the top ten per cent, but, in the twentieth

century, things were a little different. First of all, because of

war. Between 1910 and 1950, the world wars and decolonisation

clobbererd the European rich. All that stuff they had accumulated got,

well, blown up, or handed back to other people. Then, after the war,

the recovery was historically unusual, partly because it was all

catch-up growth. The capital stock grew more slowly in the economy at

large and was more heavily taxed. So, owning all that stuff didn't

really help the top one per cent power ahead. The rest actually

caught up a little bit. Since 1980, however, Piketty thinks that things

have reverted to the older pattern. Capital has been growing faster than

the economy at large, and, since the rich start off owning more stuff,

that drives up inequality. So far, so uncontroversial. But Piketty's

thesis is that this trend might well continue. If the rate at which

capital grows remains faster than the economy at large, then the rich

will keep pulling away, and the world could look once again like a

Victorian age. The rich will be rich because of who

their parents are, not who they are, and that's a major public policy

challenge. Piketty's diagnosis might upset people, but his prescription

will make him even more enemies. His proposed solution is a global wealth

tax, a policy that he suggests is pretty unlikely to happen. Still,

Piketty's data collection and analysis is likely to win him a

Nobel Prize, even if his policy suggestions are not taken up.

The book has had Guardian-reading North London Liberals smiling into

their frappuccinos. I sought out Thomas Picketty and asked him why we

should care and inequality. Inequality matters because our

democratic institutions can't work properly if inequality becomes too

extreme. We need inequality for growth to happen to have incentives.

If it is really too extreme, then the unequal voice and unequal access

to political influence - When does it become too extreme? There is no

mathematical formula for that. We have to rely on history. This is an

imperfect guide but this is the best we have. One of the lessons from

history is that, for instance, 19th century inequality wasn't good for

democracy and wasn't good for growth, either. That was useless

inequality, if you wish. There was no middle class then, the wealth was

concentrated prior to World War one in Britain or France, 90 per cent of

the national wealth would belong to the top ten per cent. This was one

of the reasons I think why our parliamentary system was not working

as well as it should have. Some people seem to believe that there is

nothing to learn from this because the future will be different, growth

will be a lot higher. Prior to World War one, this was a time where we

invented the automobiles, the electricity, the radio, so this is

less important than Facebook but still these are important

innovations, so growth and innovation was already there, but

growth was not sufficient to prevent very large wealth concentration from

happening, and I think there is a lot to concern by going back through

time. There are circumstances, are not there, where inequality can be

good for a society? Of course. It is all a matter of degree. Look, let's

be very concrete. In this country, the bottom half of the population

owns about two and three per cent of national wealth. Now, if that was

full equality, it should only 50 per cent. I am not saying it should be

50 per cent. I am just saying that two or three per cent is very small,

and that maybe, you know, it is I think spreading wealth and giving

access to wealth is important for our economy, and for our democracy.

If you take - Speaking out of ideology there, aren't you? I am

talking about poor people who would like to access wealth and become

owners. Everyone would like to access wealth. It is one of the

triggers for capitalism, isn't it? Some inequality, capitalism doesn't

work? Some inequality, but I am telling you that the bottom half of

the population who own three per cent of national wealth, so I am not

saying it should be 50% but maybe we can make it to five or eight or do

you think that three per cent is the maximum that the bottom half can own

in order to make the economy work. Why draw another arbitrary figure?

There is no mathematical certainty about it. Exactly. What we know is

that the share of national wealth going to the middle class has been

shrinking over the past 30 years. In this country, and actually across

Europe and in the US. Why does that matter? It matters because the

question is has it been good for growth? No. Growth over the past few

decades compared to the previous period wasn't better. If these

trends continue, I think it is period wasn't better. If these

benefits to broad segments of period wasn't better. If these

that disproportionate share of the benefits from globalisation and

economic openness accrues only to top income and wealth groups, I

think there is a risk that a passenger part of the population

will turn against that. The latter part of the book, you do propose

some solutions. Now you say people are free to come up with their own

solutions. If there were to be an international wealth tax - well, it

is never going to happen, is it? What I would propose is to transform

this, given tax revenue a progressive tax on net wealth. That

means most people will pay less. If you have ?500,000 property but a

president you have ?500,000 property but a

not rich. You should pay less tax than someone who has inherited from

his property and doesn't have a mortgage. If your net wealth is only

?10,000, then the progressive would be 0, and the progressive tax

would only start with people above ?1 million. You've identified this

as ?1 million. You've identified this

presumably, you believe that ?1 million. You've identified this

people finding shelter somewhere else but they're everywhere, equally

liable to punitive rates of taxation. Who do you want to punish?

You want to punish the rich? Not at all. I want to - You don't want - I

want to help the middle class. When you have 90 per cent of the

population who owns less than 25 per cent of the wealth, I think it would

be crazy to say that we cannot do better than that. I think we can

spread the wealth more. One lesson of the 20th century is that we don't

need 19th century inequality to grow.

need 19th century inequality to we don't need the kind of extreme

concentration of wealth that we had in Britain but also in France and

all over Europe. in Britain but also in France and

now? We still have a middle class. There is one big difference to

now? We still have a middle class. and one century ago. Today, at

least, there is a middle class that owns 20, 25 per cent of the total

wealth. That didn't even exist at the time of the-of-down tonne Abbey;

of down tonne Abbey. You don't want to get back there for economic and

political reasons. Given it to get back there for economic and

you think clearly is necessary - That's not what I said. I told you

the opposite. Yes, but when That's not what I said. I told you

with the problem of disproportionate shares of the national cake, the

only way you can do that is by taxation, isn't it? Okay, you can

have a mansion tax in this country without

have a mansion tax in this country European Union. Number 1. Number 2,

of course, it is even better if you have

of course, it is even better if you can do more in terms of top

of course, it is even better if you progress - is it easy? No. Is it

impossible? No. You know, five years ago, everybody was saying that Swiss

banks will never renounce seeksy. Then the United States came with

sanctions on Swiss banks and told Swiss banks you know, if you keep

not sending us information on our taxpayers and how much you have in

your banks, we will cut your banking licence in the US. Suddenly, things

change in Switzerland. I am not impressed by people who know in

advance who will know or will not happen. I think history is full of

surprises, and I think the European countries have a lot more to lose

than the US from bank secrecy in Switzerland. I think in the future,

it is possible with better and more international co-operation,

particularly involving European countries and the US to move towards

a global registry of financial assets in order to have more

international co-operation in the fiscal domain. That doesn't mean a

global tax, but that means national tax with more global co-operation

between those countries. Thank you very much.

While Mr Piketty's tome has provoked debate, today, Ed Miliband accused

the Prime Minister of presiding over inequality in the UK. Two years ago,

protesters were camped outside St Paul's Cathedral complaining about

the fat tax one per cent. What is going on here? Have or have-not?

Equal or less equal? Forget the concepts. What is

actually happening here? It wasn't so long ago this square

was crammed with protesters, furious at bankers' behaviour and angry

about the gap between rich and poor. Politicians clambered over each

other to look concerned about fat-cat pay, but, through the

recession, overall incomes actually became more equal as George Osborne

now likes to boast. But that only happened because, as pay fell,

benefits continued to rise. That situation is expected to go into

reverse. And the gap in earnings has

stretched uncomfortably. By 2011, FTSE bosses were taking home 139

times as much as their average workers. But the actual UK top one

per cent includes not just bankers or bosses, but the best-paid police,

doctors, even teachers - anyone earning over ?100,000 after tax,

but, in the shadow of St Paul's, arrange is still there. Anger is

still there. It annoys me, there should be people they've worked

their way to the top. The amount of money you've got up there, when

you've got the lowest of the low scrimping and scraping, it is not

right. If people are poor, they should go to work more, shouldn't

they? I just like earning money. We're going to have a very big

social problem because you're going to have all these youngsters that

have worked hard for their education and the salary they get, they won't

be able to afford accommodation for any kind of decent lifestyle. You

think it is as serious as that, we're looking at big social

problems? Yes, I think so. You can't hide it. But it is less and less

about what you earn or not. No matter how the government tinkers

with what you're allowed to keep, it is the influence of what you have or

not, your wealth, that's really changing. The gap between haves and

have-not haven't - have-notes isn't as big as it was when this square

was built, but now inheritance is growing as a share of the whole

country's income. For most of us, that's about access to your own

slice of bricks and mortar. More people buy homes with cash now than

buy for the first time, although Labour and the Lib Dems both vow to

tax property raising inheritance tax, few would dare. The value of

wealth, even of ordinary wealth, let alone top wealth, became much larger

in relation to people's incomes. That makes it very much harder to

move a notch or two up the wealth ladder because you need many more

years of saving, many more years' worth of income to move a number of

rungs up that ladder. That's going to be very difficult for young

people to do just through their own saving, and it makes it much more

important who their parents and grandparents are, and whether they

can help them get on the housing ladder, whether they have a lucky

inheritance and so on. This isn't all just about cold, hard cash.

There are dramatic variations in our health, not just our wealth, and

stubborn gaps in opportunities for our children.

The richest children's grandparents are likely to enjoy nearly20 years

more healthy life than the poorest, and the difference is growing. And

while 40 per cent of children on free school meals get five decent

GCSEs, it is 70 per cent for the rest.

There is enormous variation between and within schools, so in England,

it matters where you're born if you're poor as well addition the

fact that you're born to relative poverty, so there are one in seven

secondary schools, for example, in England with respect the free-school

meal children do better than the national average and those schools

are distributed right across the country in all communities. One of

the big questions is why can't more schools do what those schools are

doing? No-one government can push away or

promote global trends alone. But our politicians' choices can affect

inequality here. It is our own disquiet or acceptance, perhaps,

that dictates how hard they try. With us now are Lord Lamont,

Conservative peer and former Chancellor of the Exchequer; Stella

Creasy, the Labour MP and shadow business minister; and Gillian Tett,

assistant editor at the Financial Times. Telling La Creasy, since --

Stella Creasy, since the French economist seemed to accept that a

degree of inequality was almost necessary, what is undesirable about

it? I don't think he said it was necessary, he said it was

inevitable. I think that's the challenge for all of us looking at

this which is what is the level of inequality which is actually so

damaging and destructive not only to our economy but our society that we

should deal with it. How do you decide that? One of the things that

is interesting about his research is the link between power and the

damage that it does when particularly small groups of power

have disproportionate power in our society. We have to look at what are

the consequences for this kind of inequality in terms of our future.

Are you bothered about growing and inequality? I couldn't envisage

circumstances in which I would. If great disparate tease in wealth

obstruct social mobility, that would worry me a lot. In tackling the

issues, there a two things you ought to consider: the fact that some

people are well think, is that harming other people, causing

poverty? In very few cases do I think is that the case. Secondly,

before you go in for confiscatory taxation, you awed to ask yourselves

the question, would this wealth actually exist if this person who

had it did not exist, i.e., an entrepreneur who has created a huge

n technology empire, if you just tax his wealth out of existence, you

damage an economy, and you damage a lot of people. The point is that

what Piketty is arguing is not so much about inequality of outcome,

the entrepreneur who had the brilliant idea who starts the

company and end up with a lot of money, it is more about equality of

opportunity. There are two questions here: firstly, what degree of

inequality can we live with? Is it about opportunity or outcome? The

really big shift about the focus on capital, inheritance and wealth is

making the point that if you come from a family that starts with

wealth from a family that starts with

worried and R if there's been a break between

worried and R if there's been a receive. I am struck, we saw those

Barclay Shaylerers being rightly angry frankly because they've seen a

32 per cent drop in their angry frankly because they've seen a

bonus pool. That is clearly not linked to performance, so you have

to point. I think, for example, the

remuneration of chief executives in very large companies worldwide is

probably being very overdone, and I think it has

probably being very overdone, and I and the incentive to boost your

share price by buybacks and manipulation of that kind. I think

that is actually pretty unjustified. But that is a different question.

That's a particular example from the issue of is society becoming

That's a particular example from the unequal? I don't think we had a lot

of talk from the Professor about this is incompatible with democracy.

Well, as an American writer once said, if democracy consists of

robbing Peter to pay Paul, Paul will vote for that. We should not just

construct a great vote for that. We should not just

prejudice. Maybe that is a difference between you and I because

I don't want to live in a society where it is the largest waltz or

perhaps the loudest funded by where it is the largest waltz or

largest waltz that determine outcomes. I am not alone in thinking

that. I don't outcomes. I am not alone in thinking

Thatcher but she talked about enfranchising people by giving them

a stake in society. Inequality damages that. I agree with that and

what Gillian said that what we are talking about is equality of

opportunity, but of course equality of opportunity is a very abstract

idea because, unless you were bullish or inheritances, you can't

have true equality of opportunity, so it is only an idea you can move

towards gradually. What is interesting is that it is not just

in the UK that Piketty's book is provoking debate amongst the

Liberals of North London, what is fascinating in America, this book,

which is 557 pages long, it is dense and heavy, is a top-selling book in

America on Amazon in all categories. It is beaten books about Frozen,

Kardashian, sports memoirs, you name it. The reason for that is many

people are saying we came out of this big recession, big financial

crisis. We've got to get growth at all costs, and now they're saying

hang on a second, who benefits? Can I make one point: this one point

about the arithmetic of this that people forget and that is even if

you had a society in which everybody was paid the same income but they

saved a given proportion of it each year, you would end up with a

society in which people over 60 owned 80 per cent of the wealth.

Wealth is concentrated among elderly people, and all these statistics you

get from - I remember this with Professor Titmus a long time ago

when he used to write about inequality, he made that fundamental

arithmetical error that so much wealth is concentrated in older

people. I think the solution to the problem of inequality is to spread

wealth, and I think - I feel like I have to stand up for Professor

Titmus having won his prize, because that's not what he said.

Autoinrolement of pensions will give people the opportunity to save, and

create more distribution of wealth as well. That's not what the

research is telling us. What is fascinating about the research it is

about the accumulation of capital and how that is being passed on, and

one of the challenges of being able to access capital in itself. That is

different from savings. Gillian, in your experience, what is it that

people most get angry about? Income disparatety or angry about the fact

that some people have inherited wealth. Speaking from an American

perspective, there are two things going on. Until now, America had

probably been the Western country most accepting of inequality because

people believed there was equality of opportunity. That was the

American dream. What people are realising is that in America it is

actually no longer that much equality of opportunity, and they're

questioning whether they can live with such unequal outcomes. It is a

recognition that, essentially, what things like quantitative easing has

done is making people who have assets a lot wealthier; what the

globalisation is doing, what the change in industry, the increasing

competition, not just from China but digitisation is hollowing out the

middle class, you have a small minority at the top who have lovely

jobs earning wonderful incomes and many people are struggling. I think

there is force in that. Quantitative easing has altered things. The

sooner we get back to normality, the better. I do think that the

Professor is not on a strong point in predicting that what has happened

in the recent pass will go on. A longer period, over 40 years, LSE

research shows that the share going to incomes in this country, the

share of GDP has remained broadly constant, and the idea that this is

going to diminish I don't think is borne out by the facts. The

proportion of corporate profits being retained and not paid paid out

by employment earnings and at capital is at record levels. Who

benefits from the fact that corporate profits go to capital?

It's basically the shareholders. Who owns the shares? Primarily the rich.

Essentially, what you're seeing time and time again is that workers,

ordinary workers, are being weeded in their slice of the economic pie.

In the recent past, both in this country, Europe, and going on in

Europe, and in the United States, obviously, incomes of ordinary

people haven't risen. That is what has created this problem. That has

been the adjustment to 2007, 2008. The rich have run away with, in, but

we've got a greater challenge, what is the potential we're missing out

on if we live in an equal society because we're not going to tackle

those issues until we have an ability for everyone to create

wealth. What this book shows so well is that this American dream if you

work hard and put your effort it is rewarded is not necessarily true,

and that should challenge all of us of the what potential does that give

us for our children and future that we can create wealth and be a more

prosperous society if we can't do that? You may recall hearing a

couple of weeks ago that more than 200 girls had been abducted in the

middle of the night from their boarding school in Nigeria. There's

not been much coverage since, and indeed there doesn't seem to be much

action to rescue them either. Today, marchers marched to press the

government to do more. The girls are thought to have been taken by the

Islamist group Boko Haram, b with little information where they might

be being held, relatives are left to hope and pray for their daughters'

safe return. Joining us from Abuja is the novelist and journalist

Mbwarde. What is the feeling in Nigeria about the way this mass

abduction - almost unimaginable -- what is the feeling there about the

way it's being dealt with by the government? I think what is most

worrying is the fact that the first few days after the acducks, the

government didn't - there wasn't a flurry of activity in terms of

rescue operation. That was the worrying thing. We of course are

concerned about the fact that - we are concerned about the ability to

do anything and about the fact that no-one was pretending to do anything

and there was some misinformation from the armed forces when we are

told on the second day that the girls had been rescued, and it

turned out to be a lie. There's so much confusion, nobody is sure about

what the government is doing and how much anybody can do. It is all a bit

confusing for people here. Yet, there was this protest march today

which was expected to attract at least many thousands of people, and,

in the end, it was just a few hundred, wasn't it? Yes, it was.

Yes, it was a few hundred. I think that's the disadvantage of a lot of

the activity and social media: people who actually live here, who

get about their business, are not really involved in all that, so it

was mostly a social media thing. Really, the Nigerians on social

Twitter and Facebook are different from everyday Nigerians. It is

almost t different worlds. Most of the organisation was done on social

media, and there are thousands of Nigerians who are not on Twitter,

Facebook, or at least who don't engage as one would expect. A lot of

the Nigerians on Twitter, a number of them are abroad, so we have

situations where a lot of there is so much organisation going on

Twitter and social media, but when it comes to being physically present

to get things done, there are not that many people. I think that's

what happened. Everybody is concerned but I am not sure about

how many people really knew what was going on today and how many people

will be mobilised to come on board. That's what happened, I think.

You've talked about the failure of government and the failure of the

military. The Nigerian military is actually one of the better

militaries in Africa, isn't it? Are you saying that you really need some

outside help here? I think we are facing a situation that we haven't

ever faced before, so it is new terrain. I am not sure how much

training our armed forces have received in this area in terrorism.

We are facing a situation no government, no Nigerian government

has ever faced prior to this president, so it is a completely new

situation. There are lots of things we face in the pass: violence,

religious, but this Boko Haram situation is so peculiar. I don't

think we know exactly how to handle it yet, which is not to say we

can't, but we haven't been trained. Our armed forces in that direction

haven't been trained. It's new. The horrors of Boko Haram are different

from any horror we've witnessed in this country ever before - not even

in the civil war has it been like this, you know? There's just

something different, something more horrifying about this. We don't know

who the enemy is, we don't know who the target is. It is just so

arbitrary, so I think we don't quite know how to handle this kind of

situation, which is why I believe the government should reach out for

help. There are countries that have dealt with this kind of thing for a

long tim We should be asking those people how to go about it. Thank you

very much indeed. Thank you. Now, it's 25 years since Ayatollah

Khomeini the Iranian religious leader pronounced a fatwa to the

effect that anyo murdering Salman Rushdie will be doing God's work.

Rushdie's crime in the eyes of this ancient bearded zealot was to have

written a book The Satanic Verses. The Ayatollah died soon after, but

the if a the with a remained in force. Rushdie was force to live

under police protection for years. It was never just a book: critical

praise quickly turned to controversy. The The Satanic Verses

was banned in many controversy. The The Satanic Verses

burned at protests, including on British streets.

Many demonstrators hadn't read it, British streets.

but the anger and hurt of its depiction of the Muslim Prophet

Mohammed was real. Sir Iqbal Sakarani was one of the main

organisers of the protests. The book was deeply offensive, not only to

Muslims and Britain and overseas but was deeply offensive, not only to

of other faiths as well. The notion of freedom of expression goes with

responsibility. It must also be noted that the protests were carried

out in a dignified and in a responsible manner, and I think we

had to get the very across that the book was

unacceptable. Anger spread. The new ruler of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini

issuing for a fatwa for ruler of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini

be killed. Despite, or because of this, sales of the book rocketed.

Although many British Muslims felt offended by the novel, many also

opposed the fatwa. This man took part in some of those protests in

London, but he now thinks the episode ended up giving a negative

image of Muslims. There's no question that verses have affair was

a -- that the versus -- The Satanic Verses affair was a seminal moment.

They wanted, as they saw it to defend the honour of the Prophet

Mohammed. It served as a catalyst for the emergence of a British

Museum identity. However, there were a number of downsides, too, not

least of which was the fact that Islam now came to be seen as having

real issues with the modern world, and it left a very negative

impression on the Western psyche. It was, perhaps, the first

contemporary moment when the liberal values of free speech and Muslim

culture clashed. But it wasn't to be the last. Angry demonstrations

against Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed provoked similar

fury. 25 years on, the balance between freedom of expression and

religious sensitivities is perhaps just as tense.

The author Martin Amis was o of Salman Rushdie's inner circle of

friends when the fatwa was declared and he joins us from New York. Was

Mr Rushdie very - Sir Salmon surprised by the reaction to his

book? Yes, he was horrified. Let's not forget that there had already

been violence, protests, and some deaths in Pakistan before the fatwa

was issued. On the two previous days, there had been intensifying

riots in Islamabad and Kashmere, so it was already a nightmare, and the

fatwa made it a nightmare within a nightmare. A writer is horrified if

anything he writes - a novel - takes on a sort of concrete meaning in the

real world. It was never meant to be that. That's not what novels are.

But surely he knew what he was doing, for example, naming

prostitutes after the prophet's wives? Well, I had an interesting

discussion with this with Prince Charles. He said at a small dinner

part, in his usual he did xcathedra way, I am sorry if someone sets out

to - I said the novel comes with a kind of shiver, this is an idea that

I can write a novel about it, nothing else that it appeals to you.

Then you start to spore it, and the only restraints on your treatment

are those self- - explore it, and the only restraints your -- I am

sure Salman like all novelists disappeared into the idea for five

years and never thought about what effect it would have when it crossed

the border and came into the real world.

When he discovered what the effect was, did he regret writing in the

terms he wrote? I don't think one can ever quite do that. I know he

felt gangrenous with horror when the death toll started to climb and

whenties translators - when his translators and pull sifts were

attacked, knifed, and shot. It must have been a terrible helter-skelter

experience of escalation, and he writes about it beautifully in his

memoir Joseph Anton. It is like being on a bucking bronchio. It is -

bronco. It has left your control. In the light of what happened in this

particular case, and in the light of t rows that we have had either over

the Danish cartoons, even these rather anodyne Jesus and MO cartoons

in Britain, are writers thinking differently about what they put pen

to paper about? Well, they should not be, I don't think. The late

Ronald Dworkin said that no-one has the right not to be offended, and

that is a fact of the modern world. You don't have that right. The other

great sort of maxim is that writing is freedom. That's essentially what

it is, an expression of freedom, and once it is hedged, it loses that

indivisibility, and you're really like a hack during the Russian

revolution; you're like Myerkovky or Senin. Both those poets committed

suicide because they had talent that was being resisted by the system.

That's almost it for tonight. Our celebration of Shakespeare's 450th

birthday comes to an end tonight with his last play The Tempest.

Simonal low plays Prospero. Our rebels are ended, and these are

actors as I foretold you, are all spirits that are melted into air -

into thin air. Like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud

camped towers, the guard outpalaces, the solemn temples, the great globe

itself, yea, all which it inherits shall dissolve. And, like this

insubstantial pageant faded leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

as dreams are made on. And our little life is rounded with a sleep.