28/05/2014 Newsnight

How much did Vince Cable know? Did he sail you down the river? A very

bungled coup. Vince Cable's comrade crashes out of the Liberal

Democrats. After his plot was foiled. How much did Dr Cable know?

We'll ask a Lib Dem minister just what is going on. Sorry statistics

suggest a growing number of us say yes to a question that was a taboo.

We will be discussing - are you racist? My life ain't heaven, it

sure ain't hell. I'm not on top, but I call it swell. If I'm able to

work, and get paid right, and have the luck to be black on a Saturday

night. Hey! No question, she knew how to live. Anglesey's celebrated

voice falls silent. Need a lift? Taxi! An uber battle is brewing as

London's drivers take on the new cabs on the block. The ones using

phone apps to catch our ride. Our technology editor tries to work out

what is fare. What more thing tonight. I'm Professor Hawking, on

Newsnight tonight I will reveal my scientific analysis on how to win

the World Cup in Brazil. Good evening. The attempt to get rid of

Nick Clegg might not have been a very good plot, but it was indeed a

plot. Tonight, it's not entirely clear precisely what part was played

by Vince Cable, one of Clegg's most senior colleagues. Even if he wasn't

holding the dagger, he did, at least, know about it. What did he

know? Morning, sir. Polls ordered up by his long time friend, Lord

Oakeshott, tested the waters for a Vince Cable-led Lib Dem party. The

Business Secretary so beloved by activists, perhaps not quite trusted

by colleagues. REPORTER: Mr Cable, did you know

Lord Oakeshott was conducting these polls? He claims tonight, from

China, he only knew part of what his old comrade was up to. Lord

Oakeshott asked my election campaign manager if we wanted a poll done in

my own constituency. We said, yes. It was a private, local poll.

Nothing to do with national leadership. I was aware that he was

conducting other polls around the country. I had absolutely no

knowledge of, certainly not involved in any commissioning of the surveys

done in Sheffield Hallam and Inverness. I criticised them very

severely yesterday. Matthew Oakeshott described to me as a snake

withen an agenda and money. He didn't just explode out of his party

today. He felled up to having ordered polls in key constituency

saying: -- fessed. He claimed Vince Cable

was aware of what he was doing. Vince amended and approved the

questionnaire, he said. At his request I excluded a question on

voting intentions with a change of leader. That poll worried me so

much, that I commissioned four more, in different types of constituency

all over the country. He claims several weeks ago I told Vince the

results of those four polls too. Despite the disruption, the Lib Dem

leadership is far from sorry to see Oakeshott go. I know I won't be in

politics forever, Matthew Oakeshott will be relieved! Well, just three

or four more general elections to go, Matthew. Can they just shrug off

this attempted coup? Even if it has failed, the angst may not just

fizzle out. With us now is Baroness Kramer, Lib Dem Transport Minister,

and former constituency neighbour to Dr Cable. Thank you for coming in.

The first problem we have here is there are two differing versions of

eef vents. Vince Cable says he didn't know about the poll Matthew

Oakeshott commissioned in Nick Clegg's constituency. Matthew

Oakeshott said he did, who do we believe in Vince has been

categorical. They didn't commission the polls. He didn't know about the

polls, he mentioned Sheffield Hallam and Inverness that is good enough

for me. Vince made a categorical statement I'm comfortable with that.

He said that Matthew's behaviour has been inexcusable. I'm sure you will

ask him questions when he comes back from China. He is doing what he

should do in China working for the British economy and trade. Matthew

Oakeshott was evener in the party for many years and you are clear

that his version of events is not the truth? Look. Matthew is someone

I regard as a friend, if I had a personal crisis, I'm sure he will be

there. When he gets a political idea in his head, he is impossible. You

can't debate with him. You can't challenge him. He doesn't listen.

I'm sure he has his own picture of events and what happened. All I can

say is, Vince has been categorical. We in the party need to get on now

with the job we have to do in There is Government. Another important

point. If he is lying about it, did Vince Cable know that Matthew

Oakeshott replaced the questions in the poll about whether or not the

Lib Dems would perform better under Vince Cable's leadership? Looking at

the statement that you described to me, that I looked at from Vince,

when he talked about poll questions, he was talking about a poll in

Twickenham. If somebody came back to me and said back in the days when I

was a Richmond Park MP we would like to run a poll, I would discussion

questions with them. As far as I understand that is where the

discussion was. Vince's statement is good enough - Do you know if Vince

Cable knew that Matthew Oakeshott was asking about him as a potential

Lib Dem leader? I haven't talked to Vince. Knowing Vince, I very much

doubt it. You look at the statements that Vince made before he left for

China. He was very supportive of Nick Clegg. He understands what our

job is for the next year. He has made the same kind of statements

from China. At the very least, though, given Matthew Oakeshott and

Vince Cable's closeness over the years, it tells us rather a lot,

does it not, his close comrade, at times, believed that Vince Cable

would be very interested in knowing whether or not the party would

perform better under his leadership. That tells us a lot about Vince

Cable's ambition, does it not? I am Rae found of Matthew Oakeshott, as

well, they have been friends for many years. As I said earlier,

Matthew Oakeshott has never hidden his dislike of Nick Clegg - Has he

talked to you about wanting to be leader He has never spoke to me

about being leader. He has spoke about the importance of being in

Government. The challenges we face as a party over the next year. This

is precisely the point. Isn't the case that the challenge for the

party is in fact only honestly being confronted by Matthew Oakeshott. The

Lib Dem leadership and ministers are putting their heads in the sand. He

is the one saying - we have to confront this reality? We have to

reflect over the last week, for sure. I mean, we had some very bad

results. We lost some very good people. The main job that we've got

is in this next year we have to make sure we continue to grow the

economy. That is why Liberal Democrats went into coalition. I

will be working on rail infrastructure, that is crucially

important. With Nick Clegg as leader, as many of your activists

believe, as many of your former councillors, former MPs, Matthew

Oakeshott is not the only one who believes this. If no-one will listen

to the case you are trying to make under Nick Clegg, surely Matthew

Oakeshott is right? You can argue we need to make our case better. I

would agree with that. We do need people to know, for example, that on

the face of our manifesto we said we would cut taxes from the bottom. As

a result, 24 million people this year have ?800 in their pockets.

Apprenticeships. Do you think this would have happened without Liberal

Democrats in Government? Will anybody listen to that if Nick Clegg

is still in charge? Isn't what happened today, you shot the mess

injury because you don't like the message? It's a responsibility for

all of us to get the message out. This does not rest on one shoulder.

We a party. We are like a family. Nick Clegg has led us through a

unique time for the Liberal Democrats. It is not the time now to

go all intro spective. We have a job to do in Government and a message to

get out. That is what we need to get on with. Thank you very much for

coming into the studio and giving us your message this evening. You might

expect that a rise in the number of people of different creeds and

colours living in Britain would be matched by a rise in tolerance. Not

so, according to researchers, who have claimed today that Britain is

becoming more racist. Their statistics suggest nearly a third of

people admit they harbour some kind of prejudice. But have attitudes

really hardened in recent years? We've been to Oldham, scene in 2001,

of some of the worst race riots in memory, to see how people there feel

about prejudice now. 10 years ago the National Front were

coming in and causing problems. Gathering up in pubs. Things have

got better, mate. They have got a lot better. I would say, you know,

racism is very, very low. Very low. This area itself is full of Asians.

We have got a lot of different people from different countries

coming here as well. A lot of Romanians coming as well. Yeah,

other than that, it's good. Everyone gets on about colour or race or

religion or everything. Everyone just gets on. Maybe a few years ago,

yeah, there was more racism, but no, we don't say that now. It is like

you said, a mixed community up here. I have been in this country since

2006, and I'm very happy here. I came here with an empty hand. I'm

from Pakistan. I met different people here. I never see any kind of

issue of (inaudible) It's more with the younger kids. The kids have

trouble with orchids, but nothing major. They get chased, name called

and that. Started punching you. Just calling you a "white boy" and that.

Your dad went round to the house. Found out where they lived and went

round to their house. It never happened again. We are Muslim,

that's something we are proud of and we're happy with. We won't change

that for anything. It doesn't matter what colour skin you are or

anything. You can get called names because of the colour of your hair,

don't you? It doesn't matter. The EDL, National Front, whoever they

are, they have to remember, we are British, they can't take that us

away from us. If our country ever went to war here, the UK, we would

fight for our Queen, of course we would. I'm born and bred here. All

my neighbours have been here since I've been born. Never been a

problem. We have always got on. Send them curries around now and then. We

have no problems. They're happy. Here with us now to talk about how

attitudes to race have changed in the past generation are Girish

Mehta, who came to this country in 1972, fleeing the regime of Idi Amin

in Uganda and his daughter, Binita, who was born in Watford and is now a

Conservative Cllr there. -- councillor there. How did people

respond to you when you arrived in the UK? When we landed in Stansted

we went to a refugee camp in Devon where we stayed for six months.

There after we were in Lincolnshire for a few months and went to

Glasgow, aided by a family friend. My earliest memories of Glasgow, we

were in Pollock. My brother and I, we were nonwhite people in the whole

school. You could imagine what a shock it was. There were no familiar

faces, as such. The earliest memories of the school - this wasn't

due to maliciousness, because we were different, we weren't sure how

people would take us on. Was there malice towards you or curiousity or

prejudice? More curiousity. I think it was definitely more curiousity. I

don't think there was maliciousness there at all. In Glasgow, at the

time, it was more sectarian. Protestant and Catholic more than

racism. During then your childhood and then your youth, as you entered

adulthood, did you though experience unpleasantness, racism as we would

call it? There were always instances. We used to run to school

and run back home. Not because of the maliciousness, the fear to see

what would happen. We used to be taunted, that was quite a big thing

at the moment. Taunted with the "B" word as such. As time went on, more

people were actually coming into Scotland. More nonwhite people were

coming in. Binita what was your experience like? You heard your dad

talking about his experiences? Very different. Growing up and being born

in Watford meant I was already going to school with a variety of

different people from different backgrounds and very diverse

environment. So, hearing that from my dad, and seeing his experience

from his perspective, is a world away from mine. Obviously, in the

same country, it's so different. research project which is carried on

for years and years suggest we might be going back that way. Do you not

recognise that? I don't agree with that at all. We are so much more

tolerant in society now than when my dad first came to this country. It

is scary for me to see the people thinking they would be more racist

and I think the data is slightly skewed in that sense because it's

not the reality. Do you think, though, some other nationalities now

arriving in the UK, Romanians, Bulgarians, could be experiencing

the same things? Would it economic climate as it is, and the economic

situation, things changed slightly and I think it's more of the picture

at the time rather than a trend because certain times, certain

circumstances, sometimes it's a snapshot, and gives you a different

picture of what the actual picture actually is in the country. Did you

ever think your daughter would become a counsellor, for one of the

main street that stream parties? Absolutely full to it that on

integration, I don't know what is. When she's out campaigning, I don't

think she actually comes across racism as such. I have never really

come across racism at all in my upbringing especially on the

doorstep. Meeting people when there are fears and concerns about

immigration, it's never directed towards me. Do you think you've had

your family life in Watford, a relatively mixed part of the

country, where there are many people from different creeds and colours

and cultures. Do you think that a patchwork exists in the country and

in other that you chose to have stayed in Scotland, Devon, your

experience could have been different? Yes, as the research

shows, in the inner cities it a different picture whereas a up north

or going to the country, because of ignorance and the fact people are

not more familiar with the so-called non-English people, it becomes a

bigger issue, possibly, I think. Thanks so much for coming in and

talking to us. Thank you. The reassuring thing about bubbles

is that, in the end, they burst. But the Bank of England is currently

trying to decide whether it's better to pop what looks very much

like a property bubble in some parts of the countre on purpose, or let

the madness continue, hoping that As our economics correspondent,

Duncan Weldon reports, it's not an If you, like a lot of people,

enjoy talking about house prices, there is a fancy new phrase you can

drop into the conversation. That's right,

macro prudential regulation. Just rolls off the tongue,

doesn't it? Like a lot in economics,

this is a really complicated way The Bank of England might be

about to make it harder One of the things we learned

in the 2000s was trying to have control of the economy by interest

rates isn't a good idea so if you're trying to calm the housing

market, raising interest rates can So macro prudential regulation tries

to either make it more difficult and expensive for lenders to do risky

lending or they try and control the Since the recession,

the Bank of England has been given a whole new toolkit of policies

so what's in the box? The power to recommend that changes

are made to Help To Buy. The scheme where the government will

help people with small deposits by Or the bank could make it

more expensive for mortgage If this isn't enough, then the

bank can take more direct action. For example,

putting a limit on the size of loans These tools might prove to

be pretty controversial. Especially amongst

those most affected. I don't think there's a need to

restrict mortgage availability here at the moment but if the Bank of

England felt that was appropriate at some point down the line, we'd have

to be very careful that they didn't institute measures

which did restrict housing supply. The government has said there are

deep problems in this country and he was referring to

the low levels of house building. He would be mindful that any

Midwich I got the interest The reason the bank is considering

using its new tools is that in some parts of the country, but by no

means all, house prices are soaring. According to official figures, they

rose by 8% in the year to March. To put that another way, in the last

year, the average London property earned ?6.96 an hour and it worked

24 hours a day seven days a week. To some economists,

that sounds a bit, well, bubbly. The housing market never left

the bubble. Between 97-2007 the level

of house prices tripled. National statistics obscure

as much as they reveal. For regional patterns,

it's much more varied. In London, the average

home now costs ?459,000. But in the north-east,

it's just 148,000. These big differences mean the Bank

of England could take more targeted So, for example, they helped

by guarantee is currently available Cut that to 300,000,

and it would still help people in the north-east but would be far

less effective in London. The big rise

in the capital is often thought of as being driven by what is known

as the prime central London market. Cash buyers, some of them

from overseas, have snapped up places like this currently

on the market for over ?7 million. Through to the kitchen,

under floor heating. New mortgage rules came

into effect in April. Lenders now have to ask much

tougher questions on spending habits to check the borrower can

really afford the payments. Today Nationwide, one of Britain's

biggest loan providers, said there was a slowing down in the

marketplace particularly in London. Prices may well be rising, but

activity, certainly in the last two or three months, mortgage values are

beginning to decline from still a You normally find

in a housing market cycle that London leads so normally price

growth starts in central London because this is the engine of UK

economy and you begin to see that So far, the ripple effect of rising

central London prices haven't really But it can be felt in the suburbs

and the surrounding commuter belt. One example is Walthamstow

in the east of the city. It's not the kind of place that

Russian oligarchs go shopping for a luxury pad but it tasted is

said to have more estate agents than You do get your own entrance door

at the front which is great. This is a two-bedroom

flat that's just sold. This one went under offer

at the weekend, Is that a big move over

the last few years? We sold pretty much back to the same

flat about four years ago in the same road, two-bedroom, first floor

that achieved 165,000. On streets like this,

prices have basically doubled So it's no surprise people

are talking about a bubble. A bubble implies an market

completely detached from reality. The simple fact is, lots of people

want to move to places like this. And housing supply isn't keeping

up with all that demand. Add in low interest rates

and you got all the ingredients That might not be something to

welcome, So if the issue is that

we're not building enough, It's welcome that we have macro

prudential regulation tools. What is unproven anywhere in the

world is that using macro prudential regulation tools like restricting

mortgage availability and so on has sufficient impact on its own

without monetary policy working. Messing

around with mortgage guarantees Macro prudential regulation

might not be the catchiest phrase But it is the new big thing

in central banking. It could take some demand out

of the market but unless a supply picks up, over the longer run,

house prices will keep on rising. Our obsession with house prices

and wealth is one of the reasons why, according to one of the left's

most prominent intellectuals, we are all, more or less,

on the way to hell in a handcart. David Marquand has influenced

politicians from Roy Jenkins to Gordon Brown

over the past few decades. His latest book, Mammon's Kingdom,

paints the UK as a greedy society fixated

on cash that cannot go on as it is. I asked him earlier if we'd learned

anything from the 2008 crash. I thought I had immediately

afterwards but I'm afraid to think no, it didn't. The governor of the

Bank of England is saying the same kind of behaviour patterns that

existed before the crash scene to be coming back. You can tend in the

book that here in Britain we are more ardent worshippers of Mammon

than any other country. Why do you say that? I don't say than any other

country but I say any other big country, big European country. We

are not more ardent worshippers of Mammon than the USA and many other

social ills that come from inequality in Britain are from the

USA, and they are there in much worse form. I'm not saying nobody

worships Mammon in Germany, France, Italy, but I do think we have been

more ardent worshippers of Mammon than other large western

democracies. What do you put that down to? I think it goes back quite

a long way, actually. Indeed, I tried to say this in the book.

There's been a sort of... The state and financial sector are big Siamese

twins almost in this country in a way which is not true of other

countries. Actually since the beginning of the 18th-century, but

right back then, the foundation of the Bank of England at the end of

the 17th century and the foundation of the national debt which is more

or less contemporaneous, actually created a very curious kind of sin

by a Swiss to use another pompous word, between the political elite

and the financial elite. But the success of that sector has also

brought enormous wealth to the country through the payment of tax

revenues, which have been available for successive governments to spend.

You can't really have one without the other. Well, you don't have to

have this degree of the dominance of the financial sector and I think

it's been very unhealthy. Also, it's true that a very large amount of the

wealth that has been treated by the financial sector has been

squirrelled away in tax havens and the avoidance of tax has been pretty

remarkable, so I don't think we should think that we've been the

nation as a whole has necessarily benefited very much from the

dynamism and undoubtedly miss the financial sector. Successive

politicians including from the left, and you are seen as an intellectual

godfather to some on the left, having courage development in the

city. How has that been allowed to happen? At any stage, having told

politicians to stop it? I'm not in any party at the moment. I did have

a curious flirtatious ablation shipped with Gordon Brown but it was

about constitutional reform, not about finance. I think Gordon Brown

was, in this respect, he was a disaster. He actually boasted, he

said not just light touch regulation but unlimited touch regulation, and

we were engaged in the period when Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the

Exchequer, in a kind of competition with America to undercut the

regulations that they had so that we would get a business in the city

from Wall Street. Just briefly, would get a business in the city

may, given your past record, Exchequer, in a kind of competition

Lord Oakeshott someone you would have come across in your career.

What you make of what has happened today? I like him as a person.

Here's a bit of a bull in a china shop, actually. I've seen this

happen before but never like this, and I think he's clearly blown it.

When I was an MP in the 1970s, I thought Harold Wilson was a dreadful

person. I don't now full that I think I was very silly and very

young. I was involved in all sorts of plots to get rid of Harold

Wilson. And it didn't do him any harm at all and it possibly

strengthened him, actually. Thank you very much for talking to us.

Thank you for having me. Now who would take on the London

cabbie or, for that matter, Phone apps that allow minicabs to

scoop up their fares now face a legal challenge to stop them

operating. Newsnight has learned that London's

taxi regulator. Transport For London,

will tomorrow begin seeking the high court's opinion as to whether

a minicab app is legal or illegal. What happens could affect

the trade up and down the country. Here's our technology editor

David Grossman. NEWS REEL:

Minute cabs have begun to invade the streets of London. Taxi drivers

think, blimey, they will be using scooters next! This isn't the first

time that London cabbies have seen their livelihoods under threat from

newcomers. These days, it's something more advance than a

stretched Fiat. What has got the cabbies worried is uber. It's a car

company that runs via a smartphone app. I can just jab a couple of

buttons here and select a cab. I can see who the cab driver is. In this

case, it's Ben. The car he's driving. It 's a Toyota, the

registration number and even how far away he is. He should be getting

here fairly quickly, according to this! Let me just check you look

like your picture. I suppose that is you. Hello, Ben. Hello, David. Can I

get in? London black taxis are an I con of London. I'm a Londoner. I

love black taxis I'm sure they are here to say. -- stay. Transport of

London welcome the use of smartphone apps. The Black Cab drivers were

given two important protections. The first one, taxi! You can only do

this with a Black Cab. If you want a minicab, you have to ring up the

office and they will despatch someone out to you. Protection

number two, that thing up there that you struggle to keep your eyes off,

the meter. Only a licensed taxi is allowed to have a meter, with a

minicab, you have to agree the fare in advance. According to the law, no

minicab shall be equipped with a taxi meter. Which is defined as a

device for calculating the fare to be charged in respect of any journey

by reference to the distance travelled or time elapsed since the

start of the journey, or combination of both. So how does Uber work out

its fares? The driver hits the start button on his iPhone when we go. At

the end he hits stop. When I get my bill for the journey, which is

charged to my credit card, I can see it's based both on the distance

travelled and the time taken. It it is therefore a meter, cry the London

cabbies. It's, therefore, illegal. We haven't got any objections to

Uber what so ever. What we have problems with is Transport for

London not enfortsing the law. It's a meter as far as anyone is

concerned. How can a device that measures, time, distance and

calculates the fare not be a meter. The cabbies are planning a legal

challenge and a protest which will, they say, bring thereoned a

standstill on June 11th. Other cities in the world have had similar

Uber-inspired demonstrations. Uber say this is is matter for

regulators. The roll of Transport for London is to regulate the

industry. That is really a question for them. We very much welcome their

statement a few weeks ago welcoming smartphone apps in the private hire

industry. I think it's important to know the intent behind that

regulation is public safety. That is where Uber goes above and beyond.

Newsnight understands as early as tomorrow Transport for London will

commence legal proceedings to get the High Court to give a binding

judgment as to whether Uber is legal or illegal. The hope being that will

be enough to get the cabbies to call off their protest. Uber isn't the

end of this disruptive technological journey. One of their biggest

shareholders is Google, they announced they will begin building

these driveless cars. If this project works, Uber, or something

like this will power a driverless taxi revolution. Using cars that

look similar to those old minicab Fiats. "My mission in life is not

merely to survive, but to thrive. And to do so some passion, some

compassion, some humour and some style." Anglesey probably described

the way she lived her life bitter than anyone else will in the coming

days as she is mourned. The American author of I Know Why the Caged Bird

Sings died today. Tonight, artists, performers, even Presidents, are

vying to pay tribute. With his, here's Stephen Smith. My life ain't

heaven, but it sure ain't hell. I'm not on top, but I call it swell. If

I'm able to work, and get paid right, and have the luck to be black

on a Saturday night. Hey! They say write what you know. Anglesey had

plenty to draw on. Most of it come by the hard way. Raised by her

grandmother in the south. She was raped by her mother's boyfriend when

still a child. It shocked her into a silence that lasted five years.

During which she read and read. I remember never believing that whites

were really real. White folks couldn't be people because their

feet were too small. Their skin too white and see throughy. She was a

singer and dancer and toured Europe. She had a spell as a journalist and

then came the volumes of autobiography which made her name.

Telling a story America had hardly heard before. By the 90s her work

was heard in a presidential inauguration. History, despite its

renting pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be

lived again. . I thought. She was eternal. I thought she would always,

always be there. And the second thing was. It hurts so much that I

have no credible, elegant, powerful, even interesting words to say what I

feel about that. Maya Angelou told Jerry Paxman how she overcame her

fear of death. The fear of death visited me so, so real, so palpable,

at a couple of times in my late teens and my early 20s. Then somehow

I lived through it. And came to the condition of admitting that I will

die. Admitting that is incredible. Because it lib rates one.

With us from New York is the novelist and professor of creative

writing Tayari Jones and in the studio the poet and author, Ben

Okri. To you, Tayari Jones, explain her significance, particularly to

African-Americans? You know, Maya Angelou wrote her famous memoir, I

Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in 1969. Keep in mind, in 1945, Richard

White had written Black Boy which was said to be the definitive black,

southern coming age during Jim Crow. 15 years later comes this amazing

memoir of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. That is a woman's story. Her

story was told in a way in the intro said, "a story that America hadn't

heard" I think for African-Americans, for many ways, it

was a story we had heard, but had not yet read. Even with that just

the recognition of seeing one's self in print. She broke such a taboo in

writing about her rape. Now, lots of people write memoirs and they talk

about rape and sexual violence, but in 1969, she really broke ground.

She opened the door so wide that younger writers, like me, don't even

know necessarily that there was once a door there. I think that's what

happens when trailblazers do their work well. We forget that there was

ever a block there. I think that is one of the real significance of her

legacy, but there are One of many. The big significance is her role in

the civil rights campaign. It wasn't just her writing about her own life,

but her political role? I mean, absolutely. I mean, she was good

friends with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. She wrote, but lived a

life that was interested in transformation. She was a true

citizen of the world. She lived in Cairo, lived in Ghana. I think her

experiences growing up in the Jim Crow Southmead her curious about a

larger world. She wasn't in exile, the way some of the others were in

exile when they were abroad. She was just Wydening her community.

Bringing others into the fold. All of which enriched her writing. Ben

Okri, in terms of her writing, she wasn't universal popular with all

authors. What do you make of what she achieved as a literary figure? I

think she achieved something very significant. As you heard Tayari

say. She didn't invent the bearing witness memoir, she certainly

transformed it. She enriched it. She wrote a very lyrical, under stated

pros that reflected very, very carefully minutely the details of

African-American life in the early part of the 20th Century. She wrote

carefully. She wrote with passion. And, heretic territory is the

territory of the memoir. Of the autobiographicle writing. It's a

powerful tradition in African-American writing, by the

way. That is an area you have played with in your writing. What did she

mean to your writing? To many of us, throughout Africa, and in England,

she was a very inspiring figure. Because she spoke very eloquently

about survival. Under very difficult circumstances. Survival with grace

and forgiveness and understanding. She reached across in her writing

and as a person to different communities. I remember once a very

beautiful reading she gave, where she was talking about the love

poetry of Lang son Hughes. She was concerned about bridging the gap

across againeders. I think many people that I spoke today, they

called me up, left message on my cell phone saying how deeply touched

they were at her passing. She meant a lot to individuals who were aware

of the difficulty of life. She trance figured this in her writing.

Did she manage, through her writing, to bridge that divide between the

genders? Absolutely. I mean, you may know she was very influential to a

whole generation of even hip-hop stars. Tpau connected with her. She

made a joke and called him Six Pack. She balanced art and commerce. She

kind of felt like everyone's aunt, everyone who provided wise counsel

and also who listened. You meet so many people who are every day

people. Yes, she was friends with the stars, you can meet every day

people at a book event. You say that you are a writer. They may say, do

you know Dr Angelou? I would say, I met her a few times. They would say

- I know her, she has been to my house. She connected with people

across all kind of lines, she was a true citizen of the world. She never

stopped growing, changing and learning. She understood the way we

grow, we change, we learn is through connection with people across any

barrier. OK. Tayari Jones in New York and Ben here with us in the

studio. Thank you for joining us. He has solved some of the greatest

mysteries of the universe. Stephen Hawking's turned his considerable

brain power to one of the biggest unsolved puzzles. Why is the England

football team never quite as good as its fans expect it to be? One of

that benighted number, our reporter Jim Reed, went to hear what the

Professor'S predictions of what will success mean or failure at this

year's tournament. Heartbreak, missed penalties, shattered dreams.

England fans are of course used to it all.

COMMENTATOR: A red card for David Beckham. Now though our best-known

scientists thinks he can help out. -- scientist. Professor Hawking has

analysed every tournament since 1966 for the bookmakers Paddy power, he

says he never bets on sports and has donated his veto charity. As we say

in science... The bad news, England don't stand much of a chance, the

heat will be a problem. Brazil should lift the Cup this summer. It

is of course more complex than that. So we asked one of the world's most

celebrated minds the big important questions you would expect from

Newsnight. scorer this summer? I'm going to

stay -- say Daniel Sturridge. You don't need to be a big

mathematicians to work this out. If the scores once every 108 minutes,

compared to Wayne Rooney, once every 144 minutes, he is in the form of

his life and Wayne Rooney has never scored in the World Cup final.

When you look at penalties, who should be taking England's penalties

from mathematical point of view? A no-brainer. 100% record this season.

Lampard has been consistent from the spot. And Gerard. The fifth spot as

the one I worry about. Neither Wayne Rooney or Daniel Sturridge have good

records despite their otherwise great attacks on goal. What are the

chances of us beating Germany this year? The answer is not great, I'm

afraid. I'm assuming you are referencing the war. We have won

only 33% of games against countries we have officially declared war on,

compared to 58% of those that we haven't. Maybe our opponents.

Germany has more of a history. Professor Hawking was just 24, the

last time England won the World Cup. That second victory still feels a

world away. But then statistics never tell the whole story. Surely

even the top minds get it wrong sometimes. Place your bets now.

That's all we have got time for. Good night.