:00:00. > :00:07.Get set for a whole new era in British policing.
:00:08. > :00:10.Top cops tell us that impending spending cuts mean they're having
:00:11. > :00:31.We need to reimagine policing. The way we are being asked to operate
:00:32. > :00:33.and respond to crimes is changing. The end of old-style street patrols,
:00:34. > :00:35.some DIY policing, We'll ask whether the police can get
:00:36. > :00:39.by or not, on a reduced budget. is President Putin a threat to
:00:40. > :00:42.the internet? Some worry that Russia is working
:00:43. > :00:45.out which cables to cut to stop And what Erica Jong now thinks
:00:46. > :00:50.of the anonymous sex she wrote In Fear Of Flying,
:00:51. > :01:02.I say the ZF is a platonic idea. It is rarer than the unicorn,
:01:03. > :01:16.and I have never had one. If October has been a month
:01:17. > :01:22.of arguments about tax credits, get set for November
:01:23. > :01:24.which will see the Government It'll be a big moment in Whitehall,
:01:25. > :01:29.but few public services are waiting Theirs is not a "protected" budget,
:01:30. > :01:33.like health or schools, so the police have to brace themselves
:01:34. > :01:36.for cuts over this Parliament Even if they don't turn out to be
:01:37. > :01:44.that deep on the day, the cuts will not involve a little
:01:45. > :01:47.tuck or trim here or there. No, senior police have told
:01:48. > :02:11.Newsnight that we'll be When it comes to policing, we are a
:02:12. > :02:16.romantic lot. We like our bobbies to be on the beat, we want our cops to
:02:17. > :02:20.be chasing robbers. But those days are coming to an end. Crime has
:02:21. > :02:25.changed, and so have those fighting it. The Metropolitan Police will
:02:26. > :02:32.soon move out of its iconic quarters here, into a much smaller building
:02:33. > :02:35.just around the corner. In a way, it is symbolic to look at some
:02:36. > :02:40.pressures on the police at the moment, trying to do as much as they
:02:41. > :02:43.can with a lot less money. And among senior officers, there is no
:02:44. > :02:47.pretending that life will ever be quite the same again. So will the
:02:48. > :02:55.threshold for investigating certain crimes rise? Yes. People won't like
:02:56. > :02:58.that. I think people are far more understanding when they know scale
:02:59. > :03:02.the of the challenge and they understand the choice is having to
:03:03. > :03:08.be made, I think people understand. I think it is game to be very tough,
:03:09. > :03:11.and other things need to change. One of the initiatives we are looking at
:03:12. > :03:16.is whether every police force should do a full range of policing
:03:17. > :03:22.capability. Are there more efficient ways to be organised's another thing
:03:23. > :03:26.that comes up from time to time is whether we need 43 forces in England
:03:27. > :03:32.and Wales, whether in fact it would be cheaper to have fewer.
:03:33. > :03:37.Police demonstrating about cuts. Now they are braced for a much worse. In
:03:38. > :03:45.next month's competent of spending review, budgets will be slashed by
:03:46. > :03:48.25-40%. The winds of change are already through blowing forces
:03:49. > :03:53.across the United Kingdom. Many police stations have been shut, and
:03:54. > :03:56.others will be soon. Figures obtained by Newsnight under Freedom
:03:57. > :04:00.of Information give a snapshot of how life on the front line of
:04:01. > :04:04.policing is changing. Over the last five years, the Met has closed 77
:04:05. > :04:10.police stations. In Merseyside, they have closed 28. Another seven will
:04:11. > :04:15.go. The Police Service of Northern Ireland has shut 29 out of 83, and
:04:16. > :04:20.in Scotland, they have closed 31 police stations. In terms of bobbies
:04:21. > :04:24.on the beat, it is a difficult one, because it is one of those features
:04:25. > :04:30.of policing which the public have come to like and respect over many
:04:31. > :04:34.years, but the evidence would say that random police patrol doesn't
:04:35. > :04:40.prevent crime, solve crime, or make people feel safer. Are the days of
:04:41. > :04:45.the routine patrol over? I think in the future we will always respond to
:04:46. > :04:50.the pub fight, domestic abuse, people in difficulty, and we will
:04:51. > :04:54.always focus our patrol on crime and disorder hotspots. What we won't be
:04:55. > :04:59.doing is focusing patrol is focusing patrols on areas where there is
:05:00. > :05:01.little crime and disorder. Just after 11 o'clock on a Saturday
:05:02. > :05:05.morning, at Piccadilly Circus, if you want ten minutes with a London
:05:06. > :05:10.policeman, you have called me just right. By law, police officers have
:05:11. > :05:13.always been protected from the perils of compulsory redundancy. Now
:05:14. > :05:18.police chiefs believe they could be necessary. In the classroom today,
:05:19. > :05:23.seasoned detectives learning new tricks. There is another operating
:05:24. > :05:32.system inside Windows which might be doing bad things. They are being
:05:33. > :05:36.taught how to look for the tell-tale signs of crime online. Cyberspace is
:05:37. > :05:41.a smoke and mirrors world, and the police are playing catch up. It
:05:42. > :05:46.involves communications data, whether that be IP addresses or
:05:47. > :05:49.phone numbers. For us to resolve that, that is very resource
:05:50. > :05:56.intensive, and the Met is grinding to a halt under the weight of
:05:57. > :06:01.applications and our ability to process them, because they are not
:06:02. > :06:05.cheap to do. Money is short, and the police need help. We will have to
:06:06. > :06:09.look at computer you different models. There has been a lot of talk
:06:10. > :06:13.as we start to step into this world, why could we not work with
:06:14. > :06:17.industry to fund some of the work we do, and they could help in paying
:06:18. > :06:21.for that? Does that mean direct funding for some of your
:06:22. > :06:25.programmes? Potentially, and I think that is one of the things we are
:06:26. > :06:29.going to have to think about as we go forward. There are also to the
:06:30. > :06:32.ethical challenges and hurdles along the way, but one of the challenge of
:06:33. > :06:39.this size and scale does is 40 to think differently. But the future
:06:40. > :06:43.does offer one nod to the past. If you are a Miss Marple, the police
:06:44. > :06:47.needs you. DIY detectives are back. Would you encourage people to be
:06:48. > :06:51.more proactive in investigating certain types of crime for
:06:52. > :06:57.themselves and helping you by delivering what evidence they have?
:06:58. > :07:04.Yes. Absolutely. Take an example of your home. Many people now will have
:07:05. > :07:07.CCTV or something, on the outside of their home, and those sorts of
:07:08. > :07:12.things, they're all our might go off in the middle of the night. They
:07:13. > :07:15.would look at that, and if there is something on me, give it to us.
:07:16. > :07:20.There has been a lot of commentary where we have talked over the last
:07:21. > :07:23.six or 12 months about people looking on auction sites themselves,
:07:24. > :07:27.prized by extolling from shed, and go on auction sites. I am probably
:07:28. > :07:35.the only person who would recognise my bike. You can say that it is read
:07:36. > :07:39.and made by certain manufacturer, but getting people involved in that
:07:40. > :07:40.crime prevention and that crime detection workers got to be part of
:07:41. > :07:49.the future. The Home Office insists front line
:07:50. > :07:56.services have been detected, and crime is coming down. They say it is
:07:57. > :08:00.how officers are used that matters, not how many of them there are. And
:08:01. > :08:04.for those in uniform, the Finn Lu line is getting increasingly
:08:05. > :08:10.threadbare there. -- the Finn blue line.
:08:11. > :08:12.A lot of provocative ideas in that piece.
:08:13. > :08:28.Joining me now, Joanne McCartney and sociologist Dr Foster. Let's start
:08:29. > :08:32.with bobbies on the beat. It is easy to say, they are not doing anything
:08:33. > :08:35.at all, they'll the first cut on the block. I think bobbies on the beat
:08:36. > :08:39.play an important role in reassuring the public, and increasing public
:08:40. > :08:46.confidence that there is an office of their that can help. The cuts
:08:47. > :08:49.that policing is facing now is taking us back to 1970s level
:08:50. > :08:55.funding, and don't think any of us want to see the police in cars,
:08:56. > :09:02.driving around and waiting for any shoe. But we really want them to
:09:03. > :09:07.spend the money wisely and efficiently, and if they don't
:09:08. > :09:12.prevent crime or catch crime, then bobbies on the beat one of those
:09:13. > :09:19.romantic luxuries we can't afford? They are imported, they are the
:09:20. > :09:22.mainstay of our traditional policing. But you make sure you use
:09:23. > :09:29.them in crime hotspots. There is a need for them. And increases of
:09:30. > :09:33.traditional crime such as violent and treat based crimes are going up
:09:34. > :09:39.in the city, not coming down, so they are still there, but the demand
:09:40. > :09:42.is expanding as new crimes come to the fore. Janet Foster, would you
:09:43. > :09:49.put much money into bobbies on the beat? I probably wouldn't. The
:09:50. > :09:55.research evidence says that the important thing is that the research
:09:56. > :09:58.suggests it doesn't actually reduce crime, having bobbies on the beat,
:09:59. > :10:05.but there is an important element of public reassurance in terms of
:10:06. > :10:08.reducing fear of crime. The interesting thing is that fear of
:10:09. > :10:13.crime is sometimes higher in areas which have very low rates of crime,
:10:14. > :10:19.so the visibility might not be in the places where you need to have a
:10:20. > :10:22.police officer the most. However, the experience of neighbourhood
:10:23. > :10:27.policing over the last ten or 15 years has actually shown that having
:10:28. > :10:29.some kind of visible presence in communities is actually quite
:10:30. > :10:35.important in terms of how people feel. That was limited resources,
:10:36. > :10:40.what we need to do is put the cops where the problems are. We have also
:10:41. > :10:45.heard from the police that community policing and having local people,
:10:46. > :10:48.and bobbies known locally as that they get valuable intelligence,
:10:49. > :10:52.which actually they would be in danger of losing if right
:10:53. > :11:00.neighbourhood policing altogether. And does the evidence back that up?
:11:01. > :11:04.Yes, it does, and it is important to remember that the public are the
:11:05. > :11:08.conduit by which police learn about crime, and the interactions police
:11:09. > :11:13.officers have the better relationship with the communities,
:11:14. > :11:17.the more likely you are. But maybe not on the scale that you would want
:11:18. > :11:21.it if you don't have the money to do everything. What about the things
:11:22. > :11:24.that the public say they would like to have before they lose bobbies on
:11:25. > :11:29.the beat. We have been discussing merging police forces for as long as
:11:30. > :11:31.I can remember. Everybody recognises it would save money, and yet it
:11:32. > :11:38.never happens. Why doesn't it happen? It is not popular with
:11:39. > :11:41.police forces themselves, and now we have elected police commissioners, I
:11:42. > :11:44.can't imagine them wanting to abolish their own positions, which
:11:45. > :11:50.is what would be needed. In London, which operate on a command unit,
:11:51. > :11:54.each London authority borough has its own command unit, but that is
:11:55. > :11:57.one of the proposals about scrapping that and perhaps having one
:11:58. > :12:01.commander in charge of two or three of those boroughs, so those
:12:02. > :12:07.processes are being looked at. Janet, any view on that one? I think
:12:08. > :12:14.there are whole series of issues and difficulties that are related to
:12:15. > :12:20.these things... Just remind me of the question again? About merging
:12:21. > :12:24.forces. It is to do with the politics of this, and politics are
:12:25. > :12:28.and policing is something that took don't mix very well, but all the
:12:29. > :12:31.time the political the sessions are driving certain kinds of decisions
:12:32. > :12:36.about policing, so for example the whole emphasis on police numbers is
:12:37. > :12:40.something that is a politically driven thing that looks at policing
:12:41. > :12:48.as being about crime fighting in a very narrow form. The public clearly
:12:49. > :12:54.think numbers is the best single snapshot of what you would want in a
:12:55. > :13:01.police force. And the public, it is just a bit simplistic? Absolutely.
:13:02. > :13:07.And if we look at the 2011 riots, police numbers did pen important
:13:08. > :13:10.part. 8000 in a forceful size of the mat, that is about a quarter. It
:13:11. > :13:13.seems impossible you could contemplate that without
:13:14. > :13:21.re-engineering the whole idea of what the leaves are doing. The thing
:13:22. > :13:24.to consider here is that what you have got is the backroom functions
:13:25. > :13:29.which have already been taken away and cut as far as possibly they
:13:30. > :13:33.probably can be cut, and the irony of that is that in some of those
:13:34. > :13:38.services, there are things that would deliver more effective and
:13:39. > :13:42.efficient policing. But the scenario has been that you have needed to
:13:43. > :13:47.focus on police numbers. We have certainly got the stage where it is
:13:48. > :13:51.policing that is going to be hit, but it is an all our best interest
:13:52. > :13:55.to have a safe and secure situation, and the interesting thing
:13:56. > :14:02.as you said in your introduction is that the focus has been on ring
:14:03. > :14:09.fencing health and education, and yet actually policing is a vital
:14:10. > :14:14.service. Do we need to readjust our expectations? If somebody goes wrong
:14:15. > :14:16.in the street, some movies takes off their clothes and run naked or
:14:17. > :14:23.something, you would basically think, call the police. That is who
:14:24. > :14:24.you would go to. Do we have to stop thinking that the police can do all
:14:25. > :14:34.that? I think we do and there is work
:14:35. > :14:39.going on at the moment to understand what expectations are. A lot of
:14:40. > :14:43.their work is to do with mental health issues and that is not part
:14:44. > :14:48.of core policing. As you say if you saw someone in distress you would
:14:49. > :14:51.call the police. There is a perfect storm gathering over policing
:14:52. > :14:56.because they are the emergency service of last resort. And with to
:14:57. > :14:59.authority budgets and to help service and voluntary sectors, who
:15:00. > :15:05.will pick up the pieces if the police do not. I think what is
:15:06. > :15:09.important is we fundamentally misunderstand what the role of the
:15:10. > :15:14.police is. All of these functions that are now for example dealing
:15:15. > :15:19.with mental health issues, with all kinds of order maintenance issues
:15:20. > :15:22.not necessary to do with crime, but the important thing we need to do is
:15:23. > :15:26.to understand what it is that the police do. I think the political
:15:27. > :15:30.agenda has been about policing as crime-fighting. So the police have
:15:31. > :15:35.always done a multiplicity of tasks. Many of which are thankless, that
:15:36. > :15:40.they do not particularly enjoy themselves. But as you said they are
:15:41. > :15:44.the agency of last resort. We will have to have this discussion when we
:15:45. > :15:45.know exactly what the cuts are. Thank you.
:15:46. > :15:48.Yesterday the Government faced its big defeat in the Lords.
:15:49. > :15:52.David Cameron announced that he was asking Lord Strathclyde,
:15:53. > :15:57.the man who was the Conservative leader in the Lords for many years,
:15:58. > :16:00.to lead a rapid review into the relationship between
:16:01. > :16:08.Labour have accused the Government of trying to bully the Lords.
:16:09. > :16:11.With me now, Baroness Smith, Angela Smith, who is the Labour
:16:12. > :16:24.Good evening. In what way is the Prime Minister trying to bully the
:16:25. > :16:29.Lords? We do not have the standards often, this is the first time we
:16:30. > :16:33.have spoken about it for many years. But when it was first mentioned that
:16:34. > :16:37.the Lords thought about voting on tax credits, we had the cover -- the
:16:38. > :16:45.government announced that they would have 150 extra peers and then it was
:16:46. > :16:48.going to click their wings. The Lord has done nothing unusual, it acted
:16:49. > :16:52.within the constitution and within its rules. But the government does
:16:53. > :16:58.not like defeat. That is the bullying. As a Labour peer and you
:16:59. > :17:01.do agree that the upper house, the unelected upper house should not
:17:02. > :17:14.have power over financial bill. Whether you regard yesterday as a
:17:15. > :17:18.bad thing. What the House of Lords does is to look at the detail and
:17:19. > :17:24.scrutinise the government measures. This could come before the House of
:17:25. > :17:28.Lords in the normal way that the government chose not to do that. Do
:17:29. > :17:33.you think it was arguable that the Constitutional Convention says you
:17:34. > :17:39.should not have voted this down. That it was not even an argument. It
:17:40. > :17:45.is not even worth having that discussion? I think after discussion
:17:46. > :17:49.but at the end of the day we were perfectly within our rights. The
:17:50. > :17:55.clerk 's Department, independent experts, said it was no problem at
:17:56. > :17:59.all. Is it not reasonable and not bullying of government to say, we do
:18:00. > :18:05.not like the argument you talk, we want to have a look at this. That is
:18:06. > :18:09.reasonable. It is a short memory, let's face it, when this government
:18:10. > :18:15.was the opposition they did exactly what we are doing now. Tom
:18:16. > :18:18.Strathclyde in 2008 did exactly the same on the Labour government
:18:19. > :18:25.financial measures around national insurance contributions. So what we
:18:26. > :18:32.do in government is OK, but not in opposition! Well supposing Lord
:18:33. > :18:36.Strathclyde's review said there would be in agreement, a bit of
:18:37. > :18:41.tinkering, and the Lords would not vote on finance instruments of that
:18:42. > :18:45.kind. Would you support such a convention was they know, that the
:18:46. > :18:50.Lords should have the right to vote on that kind of thing. On this kind
:18:51. > :19:00.of thing we do have the right to vote. If Lord Strathclyde said the
:19:01. > :19:04.only change is that the Lords should not vote on financial matters like
:19:05. > :19:11.this? I do not think he has made the case. The government bowed one --
:19:12. > :19:17.the government lost one vote. Let's see what change will come in. The
:19:18. > :19:21.government could have said we do not think the law should vote on this,
:19:22. > :19:26.in the normal way, we will bring forward a bill on these measures.
:19:27. > :19:30.Why did the government not want to do that, why try to sneak it through
:19:31. > :19:40.through a statutory instrument without proper discussion? If lost
:19:41. > :19:47.track guide -- if Lord Strathclyde did suggest that, you would not
:19:48. > :19:52.agree with codifying the fact that you should not vote on it. What Lord
:19:53. > :19:55.Strathclyde is doing, on the basis of one defeat for the government,
:19:56. > :20:00.which only said go back and have a look at the matter at ten, which is
:20:01. > :20:06.perfectly reasonable and a common-sense approach, they now want
:20:07. > :20:09.to change the rules. Clearly that defeat is in their mind but how many
:20:10. > :20:17.defeats have the government had since May? I think about 16. Not on
:20:18. > :20:24.financial matters. And he is looking at financial matters. They face an
:20:25. > :20:30.in-built majority basically. Against them in the upper house. They do.
:20:31. > :20:37.Did you never complain when they were in-built Tory majorities? Part
:20:38. > :20:40.of the problem here as well, no Labour government ever had a
:20:41. > :20:43.majority in the House of Lords. This is the first time ever that the
:20:44. > :20:49.Conservative Party has not had an automatic majority. You would be
:20:50. > :20:54.happy now to carry on with the idea of not having a majority in the
:20:55. > :20:58.House of Lords? I think you do things properly and if you look at
:20:59. > :21:01.the votes, not some of the more serious issues that the Labour
:21:02. > :21:07.government lost on like terror issues, crime issues every one of
:21:08. > :21:13.those votes, you do not vote everything down, you examine things.
:21:14. > :21:17.More often than not, far more cases, the government accepted the changes
:21:18. > :21:18.the House of Lords recommended, because it recognises it has not got
:21:19. > :21:24.it right first time. Thank you. Of all the malicious threats to
:21:25. > :21:26.our way of life, from terrorist bombs to cyber warfare, there is
:21:27. > :21:30.one you may not thought about - the potential for an enemy to cut
:21:31. > :21:32.deep sea communications cables. The issue has been highlighted
:21:33. > :21:35.by a New York Times report that security sources have been concerned
:21:36. > :21:38.to see Russian naval activity near Could the Russians sever the cables,
:21:39. > :21:44.close down the internet, Our technology editor has been
:21:45. > :21:55.looking at how scared we should be? They are the arteries
:21:56. > :22:05.of the internet. About as thick as a garden hose but
:22:06. > :22:06.thousands of miles long. Without them there is no global
:22:07. > :22:08.communications network. The undersea cables carry
:22:09. > :22:10.the vast majority I mean, satellite is a bit
:22:11. > :22:15.of a rounding error. Anything that is sending information
:22:16. > :22:17.that is travelling internationally, whether the Skype call or any
:22:18. > :22:20.telephone call or any e-mail or any They are so vital that it is hard to
:22:21. > :22:25.imagine what would happen We would have a complete failure
:22:26. > :22:32.of global communications. According to the New York Times,
:22:33. > :22:36.Russian submarines and spy ships, although not necessarily piloted
:22:37. > :22:39.by Vladimir Putin himself, are aggressively operating close to
:22:40. > :22:44.these vital undersea cables. Unnamed high-level American military
:22:45. > :22:48.and intelligence officials told the paper that the Russians might
:22:49. > :22:51.be planning to attack these lines This is part
:22:52. > :23:01.of the geopolitical response we're seeing out of President Putin
:23:02. > :23:04.and it is of a piece with flying It is of a piece with increasing
:23:05. > :23:09.the military forces in the Arctic. It is of a piece with
:23:10. > :23:11.the increase in military activity This is another geopolitical signal
:23:12. > :23:20.that the Russians are sending that they're in the game and they're
:23:21. > :23:23.going to be very assertive going But in practice, how vulnerable
:23:24. > :23:25.is the undersea internet? If we look at the busiest part
:23:26. > :23:29.of the network, under the Atlantic, there isn't just one cable
:23:30. > :23:31.for a would-be aggressor to chop, Plus another couple that go via
:23:32. > :23:37.Greenland or South America. In practice, say experts,
:23:38. > :23:40.it would be almost impossible for someone to cut enough of these
:23:41. > :23:46.to make a meaningful difference. If anyone
:23:47. > :23:49.of those systems is broken, capacity will simply move to another system
:23:50. > :23:53.and the break would not be felt. If they were to target multiple
:23:54. > :23:57.systems at once, my guess is that we would see that coming a long way off
:23:58. > :24:01.and we would be able to prevent it. And these cables are damaged all
:24:02. > :24:03.the time. Sometimes, believe it or not,
:24:04. > :24:05.by sharks. There are about three cable breaks
:24:06. > :24:09.a week worldwide. Here are pictures from last weekend
:24:10. > :24:12.of the cable between France This specialist team,
:24:13. > :24:18.always on stand-by, haul out the damaged section,
:24:19. > :24:21.fix it, and drop it back in. The most common cause,
:24:22. > :24:24.dragging anchors. To go out and sabotage them,
:24:25. > :24:30.you have to contend with the large voltages that are flowing
:24:31. > :24:34.through them. So I wouldn't suggest walking onto
:24:35. > :24:36.the surf But in a sophisticated way,
:24:37. > :24:41.could the cables be cut? Their locations are
:24:42. > :24:46.quite well-known. There are very good maps that are
:24:47. > :24:49.meant to keep ships But it leaves the question of,
:24:50. > :24:53.you know, what message are you It doesn't make a whole lot
:24:54. > :24:57.of sense. Given the redundancies
:24:58. > :24:59.in the system. It is a very aggressive,
:25:00. > :25:02.very obvious act. And if
:25:03. > :25:05.the Russians did somehow manage to strangle the West's internet, well,
:25:06. > :25:11.apparently in the process they would So, well,
:25:12. > :25:22.there would be little point. Because of the domestic
:25:23. > :25:24.infrastructure built up within the major telecom hubs of Western Europe
:25:25. > :25:28.such as London, Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam, the effect would be less
:25:29. > :25:31.felt there than it would be felt in other parts of the world where they
:25:32. > :25:34.are more reliant And I think Russia would certainly
:25:35. > :25:38.fall into that category. They are heavily dependent
:25:39. > :25:40.on Western Europe, so anything that affects Western Europe would
:25:41. > :25:42.ultimately affect them. So there are plenty of things for us
:25:43. > :25:46.to worry about in the world today. An impossible conflict with Russia
:25:47. > :25:50.is undoubtedly one of them. But one thing it's probably not
:25:51. > :25:55.worth losing any sleep over tonight The statistics on death by suicide
:25:56. > :26:08.are strikingly gender related. Men take their own life at almost
:26:09. > :26:11.four times the rate of women. In fact, that gap has widened
:26:12. > :26:14.considerably in recent decades. But important as statistics are,
:26:15. > :26:18.they are not the only way of understanding an issue like
:26:19. > :26:21.suicide - individual stories also And in that vein, tonight on
:26:22. > :26:27.BBC Three there was a documentary from the rapper, Professor Green,
:26:28. > :26:30.about the death of his father. It was part of the gender season
:26:31. > :26:36.on the channel. I suppose there's very few ways
:26:37. > :26:39.in which you can look at anything Because I would never make
:26:40. > :26:46.the mistakes that he has. There's one theme between the
:26:47. > :26:51.carpet and the sofa, isn't there? Well, I'm joined by Professor Green
:26:52. > :27:06.- that's his stage name. He's otherwise known as
:27:07. > :27:19.Stephen Manderson. Thank you for coming on. Why men,
:27:20. > :27:25.you think? I guess there's still a of pressure on men to be the
:27:26. > :27:29.archetypal man, to be hard. A lot of men feel the need to project that
:27:30. > :27:35.image and the carry a lot of Rivaldo and pressure. Perhaps we have a
:27:36. > :27:42.society developing not quite far enough yet. -- a lot of bravado. So
:27:43. > :27:47.bottling things up? Feeling you have to be behaving in a certain way to
:27:48. > :27:53.be a man. If you allow yourself to be vulnerable, you're less of a man.
:27:54. > :27:59.If you go back and you talk to your father's best friend, best man, he
:28:00. > :28:03.had no idea, it was a complete surprise to him that your father
:28:04. > :28:08.would have taken his life. I think that is the same in so many cases.
:28:09. > :28:12.We did a lot of research for the programme and many stories are the
:28:13. > :28:17.same. I spoke to a lot of people on social media since we started to
:28:18. > :28:20.help raise awareness and so many stories, all with original to the
:28:21. > :28:26.present but they are similar in many ways. The culture of jocular guys
:28:27. > :28:32.slapping each other on the back, playing practical jokes, does that
:28:33. > :28:37.get in the way? Maybe, it is quite difficult. When you have something
:28:38. > :28:41.going on, I think the owners is on all of us to ask the right
:28:42. > :28:46.questions. Sometimes it is difficult, you do not want to delve
:28:47. > :28:52.too deep even though something is going on. So the onus is on us to
:28:53. > :28:57.take better care of each other. One of the things that came out, one of
:28:58. > :29:02.the experts you spoke to, at this point about a generation because if
:29:03. > :29:07.you look at where the high rates are, it seems to be my generation,
:29:08. > :29:14.actually, that of your father, born in the early 1960s, who had a higher
:29:15. > :29:19.rate of suicide in their 30s and now has moved up into the 40s. I think
:29:20. > :29:25.it was in their 20s actually. I was not really a round before that but
:29:26. > :29:29.there was a political change, a lot of things they endured in their
:29:30. > :29:33.lives but also the stiff British upper lip. Society is different but
:29:34. > :29:38.I do not think men in particular have caught up. The role of a woman
:29:39. > :29:44.has become more defined and that of a man less so. Stress used to be if
:29:45. > :29:47.you are under attack, or starving, but now it exists in every aspect of
:29:48. > :29:52.our lives. We have not dealt with that.
:29:53. > :30:02.One of the things I was struck by was family. Your father was strange,
:30:03. > :30:06.he left you as a child. He had had similar problems in his family.
:30:07. > :30:12.Something I only found out about the first time on camera. I wonder
:30:13. > :30:15.whether UK match feeling more conservative about family life and
:30:16. > :30:24.the importance of trying to keep bonds together and keep
:30:25. > :30:28.relationships working? I think family is important and keeping
:30:29. > :30:32.those relationships intact. As a child, it was hard for me because I
:30:33. > :30:37.thought it was my responsibility, and what led the last time we
:30:38. > :30:40.spoke, was me making myself vulnerable and reaching out to him
:30:41. > :30:42.even though I said I never win again, because my great-grandmother
:30:43. > :30:48.would write letters to his best friend Ken Bailey who would put us
:30:49. > :30:56.back in touch, but I put my neck on the line to speak to him again, and
:30:57. > :31:02.he let me down again. It has to be said, only again this was something
:31:03. > :31:08.I learned watching a film, was the degree to which if you are exposed
:31:09. > :31:18.to someone who has taken your life and you are vulnerable, you are more
:31:19. > :31:22.likely to need help. And my dad's brother took his life a couple of
:31:23. > :31:25.years before, so there is obviously something there. All of the things
:31:26. > :31:31.that contribute to that, my dad had been through, and to find out stuff
:31:32. > :31:34.like that was... To think about what anyone goes through when they are in
:31:35. > :31:38.that position, and this is the one thing I hope comes from the
:31:39. > :31:40.programme is that we change the perception of people who take their
:31:41. > :31:47.own lives, because there is busy roads towards it which only helps
:31:48. > :31:52.the taboo and makes more stick around it. People who take their
:31:53. > :31:59.lives are not selfish, they often think quite the opposite. What would
:32:00. > :32:04.you say to him now? My dad? You Muppet. You idiot. All right, thank
:32:05. > :32:07.you very much. To a very different perspective
:32:08. > :32:09.on gender now. The American novelist and poet
:32:10. > :32:12.Erica Jong took the women's movement by storm with her 1973 novel Fear
:32:13. > :32:15.of Flying with its phrase that Except she didn't use
:32:16. > :32:19.the word copulation. Whatever word you choose,
:32:20. > :32:22.it refers to a fantasy described by the heroine of the book
:32:23. > :32:26.as "rarer than the unicorn". That was back then - we're now more
:32:27. > :32:30.than 40 years on, and many books later, Erica Jong is on a new quest
:32:31. > :32:34.with a book called Fear of Dying, this one billed as a novel about
:32:35. > :32:37.sex and death in the internet age. Kirsty went to meet
:32:38. > :32:44.the indefatigable Erica Jong. If Betty Friedan,
:32:45. > :32:53.Germaine Greer and Simone de Beavoir wrote the textbooks of feminism,
:32:54. > :32:55.Erica Jong's Fear of Flying was the witty erotic and whipsmart book
:32:56. > :32:59.on on the feminism fiction shelf. It was the kind
:33:00. > :33:01.of book you can remember where you In my case, a damp student house
:33:02. > :33:06.in Edinbugh in my final year It has stayed the course -
:33:07. > :33:11.more than 27 million copies sold, Now aged 74, Erica Jong's
:33:12. > :33:21.protagonist Vanessa, aged 60, is back on the trail of the ZF, via
:33:22. > :33:25.internet dating, but also dealing with death - her parents, her dog,
:33:26. > :33:33.and she has a very sick husband. In Fear Of Flying,
:33:34. > :33:41.I say the ZF is a platonic idea. It is rarer than the unicorn,
:33:42. > :33:44.and I have never had one. So it is kind
:33:45. > :34:02.of mystifying to discover myself It was because it was such a phrase
:34:03. > :34:07.that stuck in the consciousness for so long, it is become part of the
:34:08. > :34:12.lexicon. The book struck unnerve at the time in history in particular,
:34:13. > :34:19.and there are things in your life you can't control, that is true. It
:34:20. > :34:24.came at a time when people wanted to believe in the ZF and in the
:34:25. > :34:36.possibility of it. So they didn't really read, " and I have never had
:34:37. > :34:41.one". The idea at the time that the Internet might be a way of
:34:42. > :34:51.delivering the ZF, was that a false dawn? I think six changes, but six
:34:52. > :34:58.doesn't change. I think people want connections in their lives, they
:34:59. > :35:00.want love and intimacy, but we go through these periods of madness
:35:01. > :35:05.where people will say, the Internet will deliver! Identity anybody who
:35:06. > :35:14.is not 12 years old actually believes that you will find love on
:35:15. > :35:18.the Internet. The ageing process is something I think women worry about
:35:19. > :35:26.more than ten. Do you think that is true? My heroine is an actress, and
:35:27. > :35:31.actresses fear ageing because they are out of work when they age. So
:35:32. > :35:37.there was a reason I made her an actress. People are making a fuss
:35:38. > :35:48.now about Monica Baluchi is a bond woman because she is 50. I will make
:35:49. > :35:52.a fuss when we have Jane Bond. I will not make a fuss about Monica
:35:53. > :35:57.Baluchi being gorgeous at 50, because women are gorgeous and 50.
:35:58. > :36:03.In your novel, you have Vanessa, your heroine, having a face-lift.
:36:04. > :36:09.You said you had one, too. Ages ago. Do you regret doing that now? I
:36:10. > :36:13.regret nothing. And what do you think about yourself? In a sense
:36:14. > :36:18.that you still feel you are at the height of your powers? When it comes
:36:19. > :36:22.to publication, I get panic stricken, as I always have, but in
:36:23. > :36:29.the process of writing, I take great leisure in my power. Do I think I
:36:30. > :36:36.look 20? Absolutely not. Do I think I look 30? No. But I feel very good
:36:37. > :36:41.about getting older. I feel very strongly my work, and all kinds of
:36:42. > :36:45.opportunities are rising in my work that never arose before. You have
:36:46. > :36:51.been criticised in the past about mining your family for some plot
:36:52. > :36:57.lines and characters. Who doesn't? The secrets were Vanessa takes her
:36:58. > :37:04.daughter to rehab, and your own daughter was in rehab, it seems to
:37:05. > :37:06.me both an apology in a way and a realisation that things that had
:37:07. > :37:13.been done in the past, you felt guilty about. She came to me and
:37:14. > :37:18.said, mummy, I have to go to rehab. My first thought was, it cannot be.
:37:19. > :37:25.And then I said to myself, shut up and listen. She was very certain
:37:26. > :37:33.that that moment in her life that she wanted to live. Had she not have
:37:34. > :37:43.that quality, I could not have done anything. And I have seen it with so
:37:44. > :37:47.many of my friends. The child has to want life, not death. And I consider
:37:48. > :37:58.myself the most fortunate person in the world that my child reached out
:37:59. > :38:02.for a life. Fear of Flying has never been out of print, more than 27
:38:03. > :38:13.million copies. But I wonder what young people reading it now in
:38:14. > :38:17.2015... What I hear from women in their 20s is that not enough has
:38:18. > :38:21.changed. They also that. What I hear from men, and in California I was
:38:22. > :38:26.amazed that half of my audiences were young men, what they say to me
:38:27. > :38:32.is, now I understand women better, now I understand myself better. So
:38:33. > :38:38.the book is made quite a journey. Feminism is like democracy. Once you
:38:39. > :38:45.stop fighting for it, the fascists creep Atkin. The world is full of
:38:46. > :38:50.places in which women are being raped, abused, denied their rights,
:38:51. > :38:58.shot in the head that advocating school, think of Malala. That is the
:38:59. > :39:05.norm in the world. Shooting women in the head for seeking education is
:39:06. > :39:17.the norm. We are the exceptions, and we still don't have equal rights. So
:39:18. > :39:24.there is a lot of work to do. Erica Jong, thank you very much indeed.
:39:25. > :39:27.That is almost it for tonight. If you want to watch the Professor
:39:28. > :39:28.Green interview, you can do so on the website.
:39:29. > :39:31.We leave you with the local election campaign in the
:39:32. > :39:34.Ukranian city of Odessa, where Darth Vader is standing as a candidate.
:39:35. > :39:36.Local police had to get involved when the Wookie was caught
:39:37. > :39:38.along with a Stormtrooper outside a polling station,
:39:39. > :40:17.Prisoner transfer from cell block 1138.
:40:18. > :40:18.Hello. It is a very unsubtle theme through the rest