03/11/2015 Newsnight

George Osborne tells the Germans what Britain wants from the EU.

It needs to be a Europe where we are not part of that ever closer union

Ever closer union is not right for us any longer.

If freedom of movement is to be sustainable,

then our publics must see it as freedom to move to work,

rather than freedom to choose the most generous benefits.

And it's that intractable issue of free movement and tax credits

Can or should Britain restrict benefits going to EU migrants?

And would that persuade John Redwood we can stay in the EU?

another army general eventually came to power.

sentenced almost 500 political opponents to death.

He's visiting Britain. Should we welcome him?

You can only imagine the feeling of desperation and frustration

which people would feel when they see that this man,

that is the cause of their suffering,

is actually embraced by so-called Western democratic countries.

The world's most famous interviewer answers the questions for once.

Wouldn't you like to interview Hitler?

Would you decline him? No, I wouldn't.

combs his hair and says, "I am evil".

And this is how the news should be presented.

Later, have the voices of authority changed?

It's been tortuously slow in coming, but we are now at last

getting to see the government's EU wish list,

its demands in the renegotiation of our membership.

letting the Germans in on the secret.

He said Britain wants to not be part of an ever closer union,

and we want Europe to have less red tape and be more competititive.

But his main focus was on the need to protect non-users of the euro,

like Britain, from the consequences of the single currency

like a banking union or further bailouts.

Here is the deal for the eurozone as he sees it.

You get a eurozone that works better.

that eurozone decisions and costs are not imposed on us.

We make sure the voice of the pound is heard when it should be.

And a deal that is good for Germany too.

So the broad outline of the negotiation is becoming clear.

But there is one item on the wish list

that the Chancellor barely mentioned today,

because it has proved too sticky - migration and benefits.

In particular, the Government would love

to be able to tell the British people

that EU migrants can no longer come here

and get their wages topped up through tax credits.

Tax credits look like a migration subsidy.

So is there any way to sort that out?

as Allegra Stratton has been finding out.

It is nearly three years since the Prime Minister announced he would

renegotiate Britain's relationship with Europe, and the time is nearly

come to harvest whatever powers he thinks he can get back. Next week,

his demands will be released, some are low hanging fruit, some berry

high up, out of reach. Today the Chancellor was talking very tucked

in Berlin. We want Britain to remain in a reformed European Union, but it

needs to be a European Union that works better for all of the citizens

of Europe and works better for Britain too. So which fruit will

drop easily? The Chancellor today demand and protections for non-euro

countries like Britain. That could fall into place, but others could go

less well. The fruit trooping off the Lobato is, what the Government

is definitely going to get, includes an opt out on ever closer union and

also the liberalising of the single market, but next is the concept of a

national parliament of ego, moderately hard, but they could get

this. And then George Osborne's topic today, tougher still, but the

hardest is what migrants should get. The most important demand from

Downing Street is that any EU citizen coming to the UK should not

be able to claim benefits unless he or she has lived here for four

years. They made that demand, as they see and, as a more moderate

request than their initial idea, which was to have numerical limits

on EU migrants coming into the UK. Under pressure from Angela Merkel,

the Prime Minister came up with this four year demand. The trouble is, it

would discriminate against EU citizens on the base of their

nationality, give a better deal to Brits, so it is illegal under EU

treaties. Newsnight understands that Britain's

top civil servant Jeremy Heywood has told Cabinet colleagues that they

are unlikely to get back much more than a tax credit ban lasting

a few weeks or months. He is supposed to see that

they have three options. The first, treaty change,

it is unlikely in the time frame Poland would probably reject this

on welfare. parity between EU migrants

and British citizens. this would go down like a bucket

of cold sick. So the third option is that there

would be a ban on tax credits for new EU migrants,

it just wouldn't last very long. The legal experts say a residency

qualification that is shorter could still be seen as indirectly

discriminatory. But when you go down two months, it would be easier to

get away with, I do not think the British would have to much problem

trying to enact that kind of rule. But the problem is that for many

people who see EU migration as a central problem to be solved, this

will leave a sour taste in their mouths. If David Cameron comes back

with a bang of less than a year, he is go to have a very hard time

selling that to the British public, and it may lead to people voting

out. The bigger question is, will Poland and Germany see the UK leave

the EU on this issue of a year here or there on benefits claims? It

could be challenged in the courts, but if you have strong political

agreement in the EU, it will be hard for them to overrule that, and if it

is enshrined in law, it should be fine. One way to lessen the chances

of a legal challenge is to do it by a residency test, but some at the

top of government are still braced for a battle in the courts. One

source says there is some strategy in this, imagine that any welfare

changes do end up being challenged in the courts, imagine it goes on

until 2019. By that point, the ester of the EU may be ready to do proper

treaty change, and that would be the moment when Britain would get more

back on welfare. -- the rest of the EU. A dramatic reveal in ten days'

time of the demand is, it is expected he will still reach for the

shiniest of all, the ban on tax credits for new migrants. It is just

that behind the ban on tax credits for new migrants. It is just that

behind-the-scenes they are worried the policy may not stay intact.

Well, the issue is a bit thorny, clearly.

Asking Europe to amend cherished principles won't wash.

But the PM has pressures in his own party.

I'm joined by John Redwood, former cabinet minister.

He's a member of Conservatives for Britain,

which wants fundamental reform to the EU or else.

Also with me, Jonathan Portes, former chief economist at DWP

at the ESRC Britain in a Changing Europe programme.

Evening, gents. First of all, is benefit tourism a significant

problem? No, and in fact the European Commission asked the

British Government to submit any evidence that it had that benefit

tourism was a significant problem, and the British Government said,

actually, we don't have any quantitative evidence. What data we

actually have suggests that actually relatively few EU migrants to claim

tax credits very soon after coming. It is true that a lot of you

migrants do work in relatively low paid jobs and do get tax credits,

but not until they have been here several years, after which they have

paid in just as much as the rest of us. Do you see it as a problem? The

public see it as a very big problem, and it is not just the narrow idea

of out of work benefits, it is also school places, hospital capacity and

so forth, which people are very worried about, and that is why the

Conservatives, wisely in my view, stood on an election pledge to get

migration down by a very substantial amount from over 300,000 to under

100,000 per year, and to do that we think the Prime Minister is right to

say in his Bloomberg speech that we need fundamental change in our

relationship with the EU, because we do not see how we honour that pledge

without changing the way we relate to the EU. Do you see it as a

problem, or the public see it as a problem? I am not sure whether you

accept the Jonathan's view that there is a perception of a problem.

I think it can be a problem, the public are right to worry about it,

because we're having to skew our migration in favour of Europe

against the Commonwealth areas, where we perhaps have longer and

stronger historical ties. Benefits in particular? Benefits are part of

it, because it means that the state, other taxpayers have to subsidise

people's employment in relatively low paid jobs, and they may be

better for somebody who is already here. Why should we have to pay

that? Will we be able to reform the laws in this renegotiation? What is

your impression as to whether we can get some kind of reform? Well, I

think it is likely we will be able to get some delay, but the idea that

EU citizens who have come here, have been working for three years should

not be able to get tax credits, whereas... Remember, there is no

residency or contribution qualification for British citizens,

people like you or me. So anybody who has been unemployed for five

years could get tax credits either way, but EU citizens who had paid in

would not, so that would be clearly discriminatory. The idea that you

could have this delay of three or four years without any fairness

justification, I think, is probably pushing it. Are you equally

pessimistic that this is achievable in the renegotiation? Yes, I think

it is very difficult, and I do not think it is sufficient. In order to

meet the promises we made our migration, you have to do more than

that, and what the British people want, by and large, is for the

British Government to make their decisions over how many people to

invite in, they should be and where they should come from, and not to

discriminate just in favour of the EU, and then make sensible rules

about who is entitled to what benefits. The reason that people who

have been settled here get priority is because their families have paid

in, they are part of our community. We do not think someone should just

turn up, and the next day the neighbours should have to pay more

tax. Could we change the benefits system? A lot of European countries

say, you are free to change your benefit system, use national

insurance records or something, and as long as you are not

discriminating against the foreigner, it is fine. Of course we

could, we could abolish the tax credit system tomorrow, and George

Osborne is proposing to cut ?4.5 billion from the system already, so

that will affect EU migrants, just as it well British citizens. The

inquiry about what he is preparing to do is cutting tax credit which is

not right EU migrants come here, and at the same time raising the minimum

wage quite a lot, and actually, the fact that people can come here to

work for the minimum wage is the reason. Paradoxically, the changes

that George Osborne announced in the last Budget, raising the minimum

wage and cutting tax credits, will make our system even more rather

than less attractive for EU migrants. Interesting. John Redwood,

it is pretty clear that if the Government got everything it is

asking for, along the lines of benefits and migration, you will

still want to leave? What I and a lot of my friends and colleagues

want is something very simple. We think that if the British people

want change, and they vote for it in an election, their government should

be able to deliver it. I want to restore British democracy, and a

short shopping list of annoying things is not the whole answer. I

want fundamental change. So you are both on completely opposite ends of

the argument, you kind of agree that what the Government is focusing on

is not really the point. We just have to choose between your vision

and your vision, this is an argument... I don't have a view on

whether we should stay in or get out, but I agree that this is

essentially, the sort of issues that John is focusing on, what is the

proper relationship between the eurozone and on things like the

single market and financial regulation? Those are the big

question is, whether we get a deal that is in our interest is far more

important than this sideshow about benefit tourism. The Chancellor did

warn in his speech, quite rightly, that you cannot take their word,

because he had their word not involving our money in bailouts for

the euro, and then of course they went head and said he had to bail

out Greece after all. It shows you need fundamental change and it has

not been nailed down in treaty. We've learned tonight that

the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, will offer new concessions

for junior doctors tomorrow a day before they vote

whether to strike over the issue. The Guardian is reporting junior

doctors will be offered an 11% pay rise, but the British Medical

Association says they have not been consulted and heard about the deal

when journalists called them up. Our policy editor, Chris Cook,

is here now. That headline implied something

remarkable, that Jeremy Hunt has conjured up a big pay rise. It is

completely wrong. The whole thing about this pay negotiation is pay is

very complicated for doctors. They get basic pay, they get amounts

depending on their specialism and the hours that they work. What has

long been agreed should happen, since the last Labour government was

in, was that the basic pay amount, that you get come rain or shine

should go up for doctors and some other things should be cut. The

Guardian seems to be saying that the deal that we will get details of

tomorrow, or the proposal from the government, will include an 11% rise

in that basic pay amount. But it will be offset by other stuff. That

is the key thing. And from the government perspective, talking to

people tonight in the Department of Health, Dell cleared that there has

not been a concession. The Department of Health are baffled by

the guardians take on it. I thought they had been spinning it is more

generous. So the BMA, what are they saying? Well they have been in

negotiation with the government, they decided not to reopen

negotiations next month. They put out a statement tonight saying that

without assurances on said staffing and hours there is little option but

to continue with plans to ballot members. But tomorrow the government

is going to put online for doctors to see, pay calculator, to see how

they will do. And la lot of technical details. So you can plug

in your own hours? Exactly. And they're grumpy because the BMA had

put one of these up which they say is wrong. So they are keen that they

should not vote to take industrial action. Is the strike inevitable at

this stage? Some industrial action is. Thank you very much.

The President of Egypt, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi,

arrives in this country tomorrow for an official visit.

He'll be meeting the PM among others.

Now, if you need reminding as to Sisi is,

he is the man who was head of the Egyptian army

when it overthrew the elected President Mohammad Morsi in 2013.

He stood in a new election last year,

one where he achieved 93% of the vote.

While here, he won't be getting the sort of treatment

given to Chinese presidents, but he will be taken seriously,

and many people think he should not be granted that dignity.

Nick has been hearing from one of them.

Like the millions of Egyptian youth who took part

in the revolution, we wanted to see change, we wanted democracy.

We wanted human rights and we wanted an end to torture, to the endless

abuses of human rights that were rampant under the Mubarak regime.

Sondos Asem was carried into government

on the tide that swept aside Egypt's military ruler, Hosni Mubarak.

She worked for the country's first elected president,

the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi.

Morsi is in jail, Sondos lives in the UK in exile.

This is the only team she is part of now.

Punishment laid down under Egypt's new ruler, President Sisi,

who will be David Cameron's guest at Downing Street this week.

It's a real shock to me, and to democrats in Egypt

and to people who are the victims of the current military regime

to see that the British Government and other Western governments

that is repressing them and torturing them on a daily basis.

So you can only imagine the feeling of desperation and frustration which

people who are now inside prison, undergoing all these forms of

torture, would feel when they see that this man, or this regime,

that is the cause of the suffering is actually embraced

by so-called Western democratic countries.

The youngest member of Morsi's government,

Sondos Asem acted as a press officer for the foreign media.

A year later, Egypt's flirtation with democracy ended abruptly.

And those who had supported the previous regime

found themselves hunted down and jailed.

You can see now that most of the liberal, the secular,

the leftist and Islamist activists

who were publicly involved during the revolution

are now either in jail or exiled or have been killed.

So I don't think Egypt now is a safe place for any democrat

or for anyone who opposes the current military regime.

and won a scholarship to study at Oxford University,

any hope she had of returning home disappeared.

I was utterly shocked by the news of this death sentence.

In the same case there are 35 defendants.

with a range of foreign entities to destabilise the country.

So it's basically people are accused of a grand conspiracy

to overthrow the regime, to destabilise Egypt.

The crowds that greeted the fall of Morsi

felt he behaved no better than the authoritarian regime before him.

who fear General Sisi is guilty of widespread abuses

and that David Cameron shouldn't have invited him.

I actually regret that he's been invited.

To actually put out the carpet for him, to invite him in

the way that he has been invited in a way becomes celebratory for Sisi.

That will be how it would be presented

that he is being greeted and warmly embraced by Britain.

He has thrown into prison thousands of peaceful demonstrators.

He has corrupted the legal system and we have seen the passing

of the death penalty on well over 1,000 people,

simply because they were members of the party

and for anyone who can't go back to their country, you know.

I was born and raised in Egypt, it's my country, which I cherish.

And it is a real shock to me to be accused of such serious charges

and to be handed down a death penalty

by the judiciary, by the Egyptian judiciary,

and to be demonised in Egyptian media.

President Morsi was tried and now faces death.

Sondos Asem knows a similar fate awaits her in Sisi's Egypt.

The Government brings its Investigatory Powers Bill

It is the legislative attempt to define the boundary

between our right to privacy and the state's right to snoop,

between freedom and national security.

to some extent, it depends on which danger you most fear.

But is it the issue that defines our time.

Something of a specialist in this area. Tory majority government,

bringing this bill to parliament. What can expect the message from

government has been that the most contentious issues in what is called

the Snooper's Charter have been abandoned. That is partly to but not

completely true. I do not think anyone should be under any illusion

that under this draft Bill, the police and intelligence agencies

will have access to a vast amount of our personal information. Without a

warrant, there will be able to see who e-mails, you called, which

websites you have looked at. If they want to go a step further, if they

want to listen to your phone calls or read your e-mails, if they want

more details of your web browsing history, that requires a warrant.

Under the current regime that means the final from the home secretary.

In practice, that sounds quite a lot without a warrant that they can

search, in practice what does it mean? The normal requirements, the

law will require telecoms companies in the UK to store this information

for 12 months. What I understand is the Home Office wants to take this a

step further, it was to be able to link all the different databases

from all these different companies and that will make it easier for the

police to search them. If you are a detect if this is great news it will

speed up enquiries, if your privacy campaigner you are thinking, if the

government not in of creating a giant new state-controlled database

and they will be looking for reassurances from the Bill that

there is proper oversight. And the debate starts tomorrow. More than

any other interviewer, perhaps Larry King is known around the world

rather than just his own country. He is famous for interviewing the same

as in showbiz, politics. You steps aside in 2010 to be replaced by

Piers Morgan. But he has not retired but has been making his own

programmes. Including the it or not, the English language channel backed

by the Russian state. He is here in the UK because here that channel are

about to start showing his programmes. I took the chance to

interview him this afternoon and began by asking him how American

politics have changed over the decades since he first started in

broadcasting. Well, in 58 years of interviewing,

I've interviewed many, many politicians, moderated many

debates, watched a lot of politics. At the crux of it,

politics is a tough game. And we are asking people to vote

for us. It is ego driven,

it has always been that way. The difference now is with social

media, the avenues of expression are such that the campaigns in America

begin two years before the race. The public is tired

of it a year before it happens. So what happens is now,

you can have a Trump or And then because

of the constant exposure and too Not only has politics changed over

the decades in the US, obviously here and in the US,

interview styles have changed, or the interviews that the politicians,

the interviewers they will put You get a lot of, I suppose,

hard interviews in some decades. Then the politicians went

for a more chat show style. Now they seem to end up

on the night comedy shows. I don't mean to boast,

I thought that my style... In other words,

if you ask good questions, and you elicit thoughtful answers,

you learn more about the person. If I begin an interview by saying,

Evan, why did you do that, That may be thrilling television,

but you don't learn a lot. I learned that the more I drew back,

asked good questions, listened to the answers, cared about

the guest, the biggest compliment you could get, as Sinatra once said,

you make the camera disappear. Because sometimes people say oh,

Larry King, too softball and so on. I never understood

the softball question. When I've been told that, I asked,

well give me an example Do you ask good questions,

do you ask shorter questions, Do you listen to the answers

and do you follow up This is useful

for a relative rookie compared to One of the ways in which I think

people distinguish is an open question, tell me why you did this,

or more closed question, did you do The problem with a did you is,

all I can say is no. So in other words,

I want to be a little kind of dumb. My friend Herbie said the secret

of my success was being dumb. So if I ask questions like,

did you go to that meeting? Did you or did you not go to that

meeting is even more closed, isn't Why have you got so involved in a

ridiculous personal spat with your All I try to do is when I'm asked

a question, I answer honestly. And when I'm asked about

Piers Morgan I say, I like him personally, I didn't

like his style of broadcasting. If he is thin-skinned,

he's thin-skinned. If you don't like the way I work,

say it. If you like the way I work,

say that. And what didn't you like

about his programme? He became famous at CNN

for his personal crusade What did you think about that

in particular? I think the gun laws are wrong

in the US. I wish the NRA didn't have

as much clout as it has. I try to ask good questions

of people who favour it. But I never screamed at a guest.

It wasn't my style. I'm not a browbeater.

It is not my style. I don't like that style, no matter

who is doing that kind of style. I think no-one would have guessed

Larry King was going to come back on RT,

which we think of as Russia Today. They have changed the name,

it is just RT. You are the all American

interviewer. We do the programme for RT and we

distribute by Hulu in the States. We have a wonderful arrangement

with RT. They never have interfered

with anything I have ever done. Have they ever said,

"We don't want that episode?" "We'll take that one."

I've never had that happen. We have Putin criticised

frequently. You've never self censored when you

are making a programme, thinking, "This would be a bit awkward?"

I've never done that in my life. If the audience trusts me,

if you trust me to ask good questions, that I don't come with

any agenda, then you can watch me in complete comfort, knowing that

nobody is telling me what to ask or what to do or what not to do.

So I'm happy to be on RT. One or two journalists have left,

some very publicly, did you see the clip where she is reading the news

and says, "We are being told what to I've heard about it,

I've interviewed Putin twice, spoken to him on the phone

a few times. I didn't know the story,

it never happened to me, If she was told to say,

I think that is wrong. I think if anybody is fired

for having an opinion, that is wrong,

I just don't agree with it. And you actually got on quite well

with Putin, you interviewed him more than once, one of your last,

latter interviews on CNN. He asked to come on, he said,

"You can't leave yet." He's pariah in the West

at the moment. He is a pariah,

but he is a good guest! What we want is a good guest, right?

You want a good guest. Yeah, we have a slot for him if he

is willing to come on, I'm sure. You don't want a guest,

"OK, maybe, I don't know," You want someone who is forceful,

has an opinion, and sometimes people who are against

the grain of the best interviews. If you ask me who in history

would you like to interview, I'd want to interview Lincoln,

I'd want to interview Christ, What made Hitler tick?

Doesn't that fascinate you? We've read about this horrible man,

what made him tick? Why did he like...a whole group of

people just because of their faith? Don't you wonder about that?

No, I... Wouldn't you like to know?

Indeed. Wouldn't you

like to interview Hitler? Wouldn't you like, Evan,

to sit down with him? No, it's a really good

and pertinent question. Think about it,

would you decline him? No, I wouldn't, and I wouldn't put

Putin in the category of Hitler, No, what I'm saying is, nobody

nobody gets up in the morning, combs his hair and says, "I am

evil, I am a terrible person, and today I'm going to do more horrible

things to make people dislike me." Since they don't do that, I want to

learn why people who do evil things Why do people want

to conquer nations? I'm going to ask you

a closed question, because I know a lot of people

in the audience are sitting there saying, "He did it for the money."

Did you do it? Did you sell your programme to RT

for the money? I never did anything for the money.

No. I never got into this business

for the money. I've gone to do a show,

but I haven't gone to work. You're not working now, Evan,

we are sitting here talking and they pay you.

Who are you kidding?! I wonder if you will outlive CNN.

Outlive CNN?! they are having a difficult time,

aren't they? Well, CNN is in a tough spot,

because in America we have Fox News, which is all the way to the right,

the Republican Party ticket, MSNBC, which is to the left,

and CNN in the middle. so cnn depends on big stories, and

they do a lot of documentaries. I don't know

how I would programme CNN. I would go the old-fashioned way,

I would hire a lot of Larry Kings. Larry King,

it's been a great pleasure. My pleasure, Evan, thank you. A

broadcasting legend. It was sad to wake up this morning

to the news of the death of the man who was long the voice

of Radio 4, Peter Donaldson. If you love Radio 4, you'll

probably know his distinctive sound. He was able to be sombre

or subversive or sympathetic with just a fractional change

in timbre. Much loved in his years at the BBC,

his passing led us to wonder so distinctive, authoritative

and memorable. is Peter's fellow Radio 4 voice,

Zeb Soanes. Would it have killed you to put

a tie on?! Tonight we are asking have

the voices of authority changed? Once upon a time it meant

dinner jacketed announcers. Here is an illustrated summary

of the news. It will be followed

by the latest film of events The American Secretary of State

Mr Dulles has said... Yeah, I'm really happy

I'm on BBC Breakfast. In cycling shorts with a padded

crotch and a grey singlet! # You say either

and I say either... # Let's remind ourselves

of our old friend and colleague, thousands of disembodied voices

are invading people's homes. Currently the faces behind the

voices remain unknown... Years ago, I was asked to record some

announcements in case of nuclear attack. And this subsequently leaked

out to the press am I was dubbed the voice of doom. And now the dead

ringer himself, Jon Culshaw, I have heard he does a very plausible

Jonathan Dimbleby. I think there are certain news

presenters where, if the news has been particularly serious, where you

almost need to hear it from them And I don't think all news

presenters can achieve that. Peter Donaldson was certainly

one of those. If you heard it from Peter,

then you believed it. He conveyed that sense of trust

and warmth. And if the world was coming to an

end, you wanted Peter to tell you. And in fact, had it come to an end,

Peter would have told you, because he was the voice

of four minute warning. As to what people thought of me, I

have never asked, and the only and prompted postcard I received was

saying, what do you look like? You sound fat, 50 and balding.

Newsnight as they speech expert to find out whether top people still

speak good, like what I do. That is a bit unfair! My first speech as

leader, I had just been elected on a huge mandate, very proud of that...

I would say he comes across as humble and fairly and assuming. He

is physically leaning back, and his head is tilted to one side, which

makes it, in animal language, that is slightly back for the door

slightly cowering. So it is not a strong, assertive position. -- it is

slightly back footed. He has a scratchy sense of impatience, he

will be questioned, and the more he is irritated, the more angry he will

become. A very consistent attempt to paint Ukip to be something that it

is not... He has got a good, resonant voice, it is connected to

his diaphragm, not stuck in his throat, which is great, he knows how

to use his words, giving emphasis, painting a picture, and yeah, I

think he has got power as a speaker, he is landing his ideas.

I am Zeb Soanes, North and, these, I am out.

Just about it, a quick look at the papers, the Guardian leading on

Jeremy Hunt and the junior doctors pay rise. Judges get right to veto

anti-terror operations, that is the Times, building up to the

Investigatory Powers Bill tomorrow. The Telegraph on a similar story,

different angle, prison officials who abuse snooping powers. The V,

a change of heart over whether they should take misses Thatcher's

clothing collection. The FT, HMRC want poor service poses threat to

tax collection. We leave you with images just

released by Nasa of our own star, filmed in ten invisible frequencies

of ultraviolet, and then re-rendered

into the visble spectrum to show the workings of the sun

as you've never seen them before. Hello. A mild start to Wednesday,

but a rather cloudy one with showery outbreaks of rain, as you can see

quite