Browse content similar to 22/01/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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They're paying ?130 million in back corporation tax | :00:09. | :00:13. | |
We were following the rules as they were and now we will follow the | :00:14. | :00:22. | |
rules as they are, and we want to move fast to make sure that we pay | :00:23. | :00:24. | |
the right amount of tax. Is Google now in the good | :00:25. | :00:28. | |
books or is this a deal From Russia in the week | :00:29. | :00:31. | |
of the Litvinenko inquiry we have an exclusive | :00:32. | :00:34. | |
interview with this man - one of the last remaining thorns | :00:35. | :00:36. | |
in Putin's side who has made a film The thrust of the film is the | :00:37. | :00:47. | |
corrupt officials are gorging on billions of dollars worth of | :00:48. | :00:51. | |
Russia's wealth, just like the seagulls on these chips. | :00:52. | :00:57. | |
It was ugly and acrimonious but it changed newspapers forever. | :00:58. | :00:59. | |
We revisit the Wapping dispute 30 years on. | :01:00. | :01:04. | |
But they thought they could tough it out and they were wrong. | :01:05. | :01:14. | |
Today Google's doodle was of the man who invented the measure | :01:15. | :01:20. | |
The global company will be hoping the heat is now off them in the UK | :01:21. | :01:26. | |
after they announced less than an hour ago | :01:27. | :01:28. | |
that they are going to pay the Treasury ten years' worth | :01:29. | :01:32. | |
of corporation tax to the tune of ?130 million. | :01:33. | :01:35. | |
Tonight the company told Newsnight that the method for calculating | :01:36. | :01:38. | |
the company's corporation tax liability going forward | :01:39. | :01:41. | |
will have an added component - based on a percentage of revenue | :01:42. | :01:44. | |
Google has agreed to pay more than ?100 million of back taxes | :01:45. | :01:57. | |
after an open audit of its accounts by the tax authorities, | :01:58. | :02:00. | |
And they'll pay more to HMRC going forwards. | :02:01. | :02:05. | |
Google paid just ?20 million in UK taxes in 2013. | :02:06. | :02:12. | |
We have announced we will be paying more tax in the UK. | :02:13. | :02:14. | |
The rules are changing internationally | :02:15. | :02:18. | |
and the UK Government has taken the lead in applying those rules, | :02:19. | :02:21. | |
so we are changing what we are doing here | :02:22. | :02:24. | |
and paying ?130 million in respect of previous years, | :02:25. | :02:27. | |
when the rules were to pay in respect of profits | :02:28. | :02:29. | |
you made in a country and, going forwards, we will also be | :02:30. | :02:32. | |
paying in respect of sales to UK customers. | :02:33. | :02:34. | |
Google's name has become dogged by association with questions | :02:35. | :02:40. | |
For example, an anti-avoidance measure | :02:41. | :02:47. | |
introduced at a Budget last year was dubbed the Google tax. | :02:48. | :02:49. | |
The former chair of the Public Accounts | :02:50. | :02:52. | |
Select Committee was pretty fierce with the company. | :02:53. | :02:54. | |
You are a company which says that you do no evil and I think | :02:55. | :02:58. | |
that you do do evil, in that you use smoke and mirrors | :02:59. | :03:00. | |
Tax is a matter of following the laws that are there internationally. | :03:01. | :03:10. | |
We have all heard today how you define this... | :03:11. | :03:16. | |
But the sums being paid out now will not kill off these concerns. | :03:17. | :03:19. | |
If you look at Google's UK accounts for | :03:20. | :03:21. | |
2013, they report turnover of ?642 million, but that isn't | :03:22. | :03:23. | |
all the money Google makes in Britain. | :03:24. | :03:25. | |
If you look at documents filed by Google in the US, | :03:26. | :03:28. | |
they show that Britain accounts for $5.6 billion | :03:29. | :03:32. | |
of revenues in 2013 alone, rising to $6.5 billion in 2014. | :03:33. | :03:38. | |
But Google earns a lot of money in Britain that doesn't go | :03:39. | :03:45. | |
So this isn't the end of the issue for Google, | :03:46. | :03:50. | |
not least since other European countries would also like more tax | :03:51. | :03:52. | |
from them, so where does it leave Google's | :03:53. | :03:54. | |
My colleague Kamal Ahmed enquired today. | :03:55. | :03:58. | |
How reputationally damaging has the tax controversy been? | :03:59. | :04:06. | |
I think it's right that, where there is | :04:07. | :04:08. | |
public concern and politicians and the press are concerned | :04:09. | :04:15. | |
about international companies, not just | :04:16. | :04:17. | |
us, that you should change when the rules change. | :04:18. | :04:19. | |
As a business, we want to focus on building amazing | :04:20. | :04:23. | |
products and hiring people to help the UK make the most of the Internet | :04:24. | :04:26. | |
That is what we want to spend our time doing. | :04:27. | :04:30. | |
It has taken years to complete this audit, which covers a decade of tax, | :04:31. | :04:33. | |
but it isn't over for Google or anyone else. | :04:34. | :04:36. | |
The European Commission is currently looking into whether Ireland has | :04:37. | :04:38. | |
been too favourable to Apple and deals of this size won't take | :04:39. | :04:41. | |
Joining me to discuss this is the economist and director | :04:42. | :04:50. | |
of Tax Research UK, Richard Murphy, one of the lead voices | :04:51. | :04:52. | |
in the campaign to make Google pay more tax, | :04:53. | :04:54. | |
and from the Financial Times, Vanessa Houlder. | :04:55. | :05:01. | |
Richard, who is the winner? Superficially, the UK, we have ?130 | :05:02. | :05:10. | |
million. That is a tiny amount of money, Google must be laughing all | :05:11. | :05:13. | |
the way to their bank in Bermuda with this one, to be honest. This is | :05:14. | :05:18. | |
a settlement which seems minuscule in proportion to the amount of tax | :05:19. | :05:21. | |
they have saved, and if the future tax is paid in proportion to this, | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
they are getting a settlement which is extraordinarily small. Do you | :05:26. | :05:31. | |
agree? Hey Jim RC insists this is the right amount of tax, -- Pecs MRC | :05:32. | :05:37. | |
insists this is the right amount of tax, the Treasury says this is a | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
ground-breaking decision, reflecting what the government has been doing, | :05:42. | :05:45. | |
but in terms of public perception Richard is right, people will look | :05:46. | :05:48. | |
at the very large amount of sales going into the many billions of | :05:49. | :05:52. | |
dollars and say, actually it is not very much in relation to that. How | :05:53. | :05:58. | |
did they make such a calculation? Well, we don't know, and we probably | :05:59. | :06:05. | |
will never find out, the details, but they have told us a bit about | :06:06. | :06:10. | |
the mechanisms. As Chris said in the base, they have a cost plus formula | :06:11. | :06:15. | |
which they normally use, and they are adding a slice of Cyres, how do | :06:16. | :06:22. | |
they define that slice? -- sales. No one needs to pay more tax than they | :06:23. | :06:25. | |
are due to play, we should say, but what is not clear, going forward, | :06:26. | :06:31. | |
this is a percentage of the revenue from UK advertising, and it does not | :06:32. | :06:34. | |
define what that percentage is, is that quite unusual? We do not tax | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
corporations, profit taxes on their Cyres, this is unusual, it is the | :06:41. | :06:44. | |
wrong basis for taxation -- on their sales. It raises a question about | :06:45. | :06:50. | |
the international settlement, it looks like Google might not become | :06:51. | :06:53. | |
resident in the UK, it will do an adaptation of the existing scheme | :06:54. | :06:57. | |
which leaves it selling from Ireland, and that leaves it looking | :06:58. | :07:02. | |
like one of these deals which is the revenue did which led them into so | :07:03. | :07:05. | |
much trouble with Parliament and the public and everyone. They must think | :07:06. | :07:09. | |
that this is copper bottoms otherwise they would not have | :07:10. | :07:14. | |
announced it. I agree with Richard, in the way that we were expecting | :07:15. | :07:19. | |
this to pan out, Google announcing they had a permanent presence in the | :07:20. | :07:26. | |
UK, and the signs are that is not what is going to happen. That is a | :07:27. | :07:32. | |
win for Google? It is probable that that is the way it sees the | :07:33. | :07:36. | |
international rules going, and these people are experts, HM RC are | :07:37. | :07:43. | |
experts, this might be a sign of how the settlement is going to pan out | :07:44. | :07:46. | |
for multinationals generally. It makes it less competitive? For the | :07:47. | :07:55. | |
UK? Yes. The UK has been pushing tax competitiveness very strongly for | :07:56. | :08:02. | |
the last five years, and along with that putting pressure on companies | :08:03. | :08:05. | |
to pay their fair share, as well, and my guess is the Treasury will be | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
very pleased with this outcome, it would think it has the best of both | :08:10. | :08:13. | |
of those worlds. I wonder if other global companies will think about | :08:14. | :08:19. | |
this, there's the row with Apple, for example. But them it is also | :08:20. | :08:25. | |
news, but it is very bad news for the OECD and their plans to bring in | :08:26. | :08:29. | |
a new international tax regime if the stands up, but this could be a | :08:30. | :08:33. | |
spoiler by George Osborne, as well. He brought in the diverted profit | :08:34. | :08:38. | |
tax, called the Google tax, as a spoiler to that process, has he done | :08:39. | :08:42. | |
this settlement to spoil the implementation of the agreement? | :08:43. | :08:47. | |
This is not straightforwardly the diverted profits tax. No, this is | :08:48. | :08:52. | |
the corporation tax, but does the settlement undermines the way that | :08:53. | :08:55. | |
process works, and if it does that is bad news for everybody. There are | :08:56. | :09:01. | |
sounding is coming from France, that Google is actually trying to reach | :09:02. | :09:04. | |
agreements with other European governments, and that will be | :09:05. | :09:10. | |
interesting to watch. 1 billion euros which the French government | :09:11. | :09:13. | |
thinks that Google knows it and we will see what happens. -- owes it. | :09:14. | :09:22. | |
You still going to be campaigning? Heavens, yes, this is a success, but | :09:23. | :09:26. | |
this is a small one, we have a long way to go to get what we really | :09:27. | :09:28. | |
want. Thanks for joining us. The state-sponsored assassination | :09:29. | :09:31. | |
of Alexander Litvinenko raises questions about law and order | :09:32. | :09:33. | |
in Russia, or the lack thereof. One man who is an expert on this | :09:34. | :09:36. | |
subject is Russian opposition activist and blogger Alexei Navalny, | :09:37. | :09:39. | |
who has several short spells His brother, Oleg, is in jail now, | :09:40. | :09:41. | |
on, critics say, trumped-up charges In a Newsnight exclusive, | :09:42. | :09:47. | |
Alexei Navalny has spoken to John Sweeney about Litvinenko, | :09:48. | :09:53. | |
his own fight to free Russia from corruption and whether | :09:54. | :09:55. | |
it is worth the risk. Welcome to Siberia. Actually, this | :09:56. | :10:27. | |
is Southend. But you don't need a Visa to get to Essex. We are here | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
because Alexei Navalny, the effective leader of the Russian | :10:34. | :10:37. | |
opposition, has declared war on the Seagull, in Russian. That is the | :10:38. | :10:44. | |
name of Vladimir Putin's top law enforcement officer, Russia's | :10:45. | :10:51. | |
prosecutor general. The scourge of the seagulls, Alexei Navalny, is | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
banned from leaving Moscow and rarely gives interviews to the | :10:57. | :11:04. | |
foreign media. He led anti-Putin protests four years ago. More than | :11:05. | :11:10. | |
any other Russian, he is fighting the Kremlin over corruption. How | :11:11. | :11:15. | |
much money is being sucked out of the Russian economy every year? | :11:16. | :11:19. | |
Through corruption, at least something like $50 billion a year. | :11:20. | :11:27. | |
How corrupt do you think is Mr Vladimir Putin? He is the basement | :11:28. | :11:35. | |
of this corruption. He is personally involved in corruption and he is | :11:36. | :11:41. | |
encouraging our officials into corruption, because it is his way of | :11:42. | :11:46. | |
rolling the country. Alexei Navalny knows only too well what happens to | :11:47. | :11:50. | |
people that challenge the Kremlin's power, when you go his friend and | :11:51. | :11:55. | |
opposition leader was shot dead in Moscow. -- one year ago. Boris was | :11:56. | :12:03. | |
my friend and he was shot dead, maybe 100 metres from the Kremlin. I | :12:04. | :12:07. | |
asked him about the strange murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Is it | :12:08. | :12:13. | |
possible to buy polonium in a shop in Russia? That is why I guess your | :12:14. | :12:21. | |
investigation shows it was an FSB operation. The British investigation | :12:22. | :12:28. | |
about Mr Litvinenko, one of the conclusions from the investigation | :12:29. | :12:34. | |
was that Mr Putin personally, probably, was involved it in giving | :12:35. | :12:43. | |
orders to commit such a crime. On Monday, Alexei Navalny will launch | :12:44. | :12:46. | |
the English language version of his documentary on corruption in Russia. | :12:47. | :12:52. | |
The thrust of his film is that the corrupt officials are gorging on | :12:53. | :12:56. | |
billions of dollars worth of Russia's 12, just like the seagulls | :12:57. | :13:05. | |
on these chips -- Russia's wealth. The film alleges multi-million | :13:06. | :13:09. | |
dollar corruption, by the sounds of prosecutor general. Seen here with | :13:10. | :13:24. | |
the Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, and the patriarch, Russia's version | :13:25. | :13:28. | |
of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Corruption in Russia is not | :13:29. | :13:35. | |
something like White collar crime or something, and we wanted to show | :13:36. | :13:39. | |
this level of the degradation of Russian power. In the film, he | :13:40. | :14:00. | |
alleges that Artem has been involved at all levels. They have been | :14:01. | :14:06. | |
involved in torture and murder. The hotel is worth 30 million Euros, | :14:07. | :14:11. | |
welcome to the opening ceremony for the pomegranate wellness spa in | :14:12. | :14:21. | |
Greece. Cutting the ribbon, Russian people turned out for the gig, this | :14:22. | :14:27. | |
man said that Russians have an extra chromosome which make them supermen. | :14:28. | :14:32. | |
He is not a geneticist, but the Russian Minister of culture. His | :14:33. | :14:42. | |
business associates have been close to the crime family, allegedly, six | :14:43. | :14:44. | |
years ago the gang committed a massacre. It was a crime, which | :14:45. | :14:52. | |
shook all of Russia, because it was a real massacre and 12 people were | :14:53. | :14:58. | |
killed including four children, one newborn child, they threw him into | :14:59. | :15:00. | |
the fire while he was alive. The film also alleges that he sold a | :15:01. | :15:13. | |
shipping company from underneath its owners. Its director complained | :15:14. | :15:21. | |
about him. The next day, he was found dead with a rope around his | :15:22. | :15:27. | |
neck. Suicide, said the authorities. But, according to the paper from the | :15:28. | :15:34. | |
coroner's office, a trace on his neck showed that it wasn't a | :15:35. | :15:42. | |
suicide. But Russian investigating bodies, they just refused to have | :15:43. | :15:49. | |
any investigation. Newsnight asked this man for a response, but got no | :15:50. | :15:56. | |
answer, but his dad, the prosecutor general, is said of Navalny's film | :15:57. | :16:01. | |
that it was a black PR action and a hatchet job and the information in | :16:02. | :16:07. | |
response it -- presented is deliberately. Fight with no basis in | :16:08. | :16:11. | |
fact, adding that it was paid for by the British and Americans. Navalny | :16:12. | :16:18. | |
isn't just challenging if you people called Seagull. He is also taking | :16:19. | :16:24. | |
aim at the system in Russia, which he thinks is rotten, and, of course, | :16:25. | :16:29. | |
the man in charge of that system, Vladimir Putin. | :16:30. | :16:35. | |
Rupert Murdoch might be making the headlines now for his impending | :16:36. | :16:37. | |
marriage to the former model Jerry Hall, but 30 years ago this | :16:38. | :16:40. | |
weekend he was in the eye of the storm - not for love | :16:41. | :16:43. | |
When his 6,000 printers went on strike, threatening the future | :16:44. | :16:47. | |
of his four titles, Murdoch hoodwinked them by swiftly moving | :16:48. | :16:50. | |
production out of Fleet Street to a brand new plant in Wapping, | :16:51. | :16:53. | |
which he had pretended was for the launch of a new Sunday paper. | :16:54. | :16:57. | |
Stephen Smith takes us back to the dispute. | :16:58. | :17:10. | |
It was mayhem in the streets around Rupert Murdoch's printing | :17:11. | :17:12. | |
Hundreds of police and thousands of demonstrators vied for control | :17:13. | :17:17. | |
of the roads in and out of the plant. | :17:18. | :17:25. | |
The audacity with which it was done, the switch to Wapping. | :17:26. | :17:38. | |
It was very much a Thatcherite phenomenon, the changes in the law | :17:39. | :17:41. | |
And also, the cult of individualism rather than collectivism. | :17:42. | :17:45. | |
Many, though not all journalists, at Rupert Murdoch's titles came | :17:46. | :17:49. | |
to when the papers decamp from Fleet Street | :17:50. | :17:51. | |
6000 other workers had been given notice after | :17:52. | :17:57. | |
What did the dispute look like inside | :17:58. | :18:01. | |
Apart from the computer blowing up about half a dozen times, the rest | :18:02. | :18:15. | |
of it has been absolutely fantastic. It was a nightmare in the sense that | :18:16. | :18:20. | |
I had three bodyguards, I was driven in, and everybody knew the cars was | :18:21. | :18:25. | |
not especially when we came out of the factory, there was shouting and | :18:26. | :18:29. | |
early aching and generally trying to cause a problem. What Murdoch and | :18:30. | :18:37. | |
Coe were turning their backs on was cold, hot metal technology. As well | :18:38. | :18:44. | |
as the alleged Spanish customs of the print unions. They were not only | :18:45. | :18:48. | |
getting their share but everybody else's. They were taking money home | :18:49. | :18:54. | |
in wheelbarrows, were checking -- working virtually no hours, refusing | :18:55. | :19:02. | |
to embrace new technology. To make any change, | :19:03. | :19:04. | |
to embrace new technology. To make lasting years. They were not moving | :19:05. | :19:09. | |
with the times. Therefore, they paid the price and, actually, they | :19:10. | :19:13. | |
deserve it. There were undoubtedly people who were double jobbing it, | :19:14. | :19:19. | |
signing on, as Mickey Mouse etc. In a way, the boss class colluded. They | :19:20. | :19:25. | |
wanted their product out, sharpish and soon as. Other proprietors | :19:26. | :19:32. | |
subsequently said that -- showed that negotiations could be carried | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
out in a civilised fashion. Murdoch showed -- chose not to. He is very | :19:37. | :19:42. | |
clever. It was a long ago dispute over a product nobody cares about | :19:43. | :19:45. | |
any more, or so we are always being told. In fact, there are still at | :19:46. | :19:51. | |
least two sides to be dispute. Didn't allow Murdoch and other less | :19:52. | :19:57. | |
obtrusive proprietors to put off the end of newsprint, or was it an end | :19:58. | :20:04. | |
-- a moment of infamy in the history of workers' relations? In a way, you | :20:05. | :20:10. | |
miss the smell because the plant isn't where the papers are made by | :20:11. | :20:15. | |
the journalists, but honestly, the conditions were shocking, kind of | :20:16. | :20:22. | |
medieval, and the idea of dropping lead into a molten pot and mucking | :20:23. | :20:27. | |
about with it, it is quaint, but the truth of the matter is, a | :20:28. | :20:32. | |
ten-year-old could do it today. It is a time that has come and gone. | :20:33. | :20:36. | |
With me from New York is Sir Harry Evans, editor | :20:37. | :20:39. | |
of the Times newspaper under Rupert Murdoch in the early 1980s, | :20:40. | :20:42. | |
and Ann Field, who was involved with the Sogat print union | :20:43. | :20:44. | |
Harry Evans, how did Rupert Murdoch operate during that whole Wapping | :20:45. | :20:58. | |
time? Was he leading from the front or was it all from behind? He led | :20:59. | :21:07. | |
from behind by absolutely brilliant planning before the Wapping | :21:08. | :21:10. | |
confrontation took place. I had by that time left the Times, I was | :21:11. | :21:16. | |
editor of the Sunday times, and my recollection of all of this was how | :21:17. | :21:20. | |
very hard it was at the Sunday Times to get into one -- get into | :21:21. | :21:26. | |
operation what was lovingly called new technology, computer | :21:27. | :21:31. | |
typesetting, and just efficiency. So the actual Wapping dispute | :21:32. | :21:38. | |
overshadowed the previous seven or eight years when the management at | :21:39. | :21:43. | |
the Sunday Times, and I was on board so I agreed with it, tried very to | :21:44. | :21:48. | |
introduce computers, offered lifetime guarantees for the workers, | :21:49. | :21:55. | |
but we didn't get it. On top of that, the Sunday Times was sabotaged | :21:56. | :21:59. | |
week after week in the press room. We were very close to the print | :22:00. | :22:07. | |
people, the people who put the type. By the way, I have a high | :22:08. | :22:12. | |
appreciation of their skills in a previous speaker does. He doesn't | :22:13. | :22:13. | |
understand what was really happening. Having said that, the | :22:14. | :22:19. | |
press room unions were completely hostile. When I published the final | :22:20. | :22:26. | |
thalidomide investigation, which had taken eight years, they sabotaged | :22:27. | :22:32. | |
the run. Were you shocked that he managed to hoodwink the print unions | :22:33. | :22:37. | |
by that new plant at Wapping? Were you quite shocked? I wouldn't say | :22:38. | :22:46. | |
shocked but impressed. I don't want to sound like a complete boot in the | :22:47. | :22:54. | |
face employer, but all of the journalists, who were very | :22:55. | :22:57. | |
frustrated, frustrated with the management of the company, of | :22:58. | :23:03. | |
course, but also very frustrated with the guys in the press rooms, | :23:04. | :23:09. | |
who actually sabotaged the work of their colleagues upstairs. So I | :23:10. | :23:12. | |
wasn't shocked at what happened. I thought nothing would ever break the | :23:13. | :23:20. | |
complete deadlock. Ann Field, were you impressed or shocked when, | :23:21. | :23:24. | |
suddenly, the move to Wapping happened and left you high and dry? | :23:25. | :23:31. | |
The real word is shock and disgust at the overnight dismissal of 5500 | :23:32. | :23:36. | |
people. Kelvin MacKenzie says that there were avenues open for new | :23:37. | :23:44. | |
technology discussions... There were no avenues open. Murdoch laid down | :23:45. | :23:48. | |
an ultimatum in the autumn of 1985, after a period of silence of about | :23:49. | :23:54. | |
five months, where the trade unions were pressing the company for | :23:55. | :23:58. | |
negotiations on the move to Wapping. The company said that they were not | :23:59. | :24:02. | |
prepared to discuss anything about the move. Unless we agreed to lesser | :24:03. | :24:12. | |
conditions for the London post, which was a fictional newspaper | :24:13. | :24:17. | |
which never existed. The long-term ramifications for this, one way of | :24:18. | :24:21. | |
putting it is is that he was ahead of his time. I wonder if you agree? | :24:22. | :24:28. | |
No, I actually think he acted like a barbarian, ignoring all basic human | :24:29. | :24:31. | |
rights and dignity of workers, and it was a conspiracy, nothing to do | :24:32. | :24:38. | |
with formal, proper negotiations. Harry Evans, what do you think the | :24:39. | :24:42. | |
ramifications were for journalism, looking back? Just a quick comment, | :24:43. | :24:51. | |
I was in the management of the Times newspapers forced we were very | :24:52. | :24:58. | |
civilised. We tried for 12 months. The previous speaker, who is totally | :24:59. | :25:03. | |
sincere, has no experience of what it is like for the journalists and | :25:04. | :25:07. | |
the press men when your work is destroyed. You have been offering | :25:08. | :25:12. | |
lifetime guarantees, all of this, to get new technology, so I have a | :25:13. | :25:17. | |
different view. But I wasn't part. Many of my journalists were in | :25:18. | :25:20. | |
Wapping and didn't like what they saw. Having said that, obviously, | :25:21. | :25:26. | |
the decline of print associated with the rise of digital has made | :25:27. | :25:30. | |
investigative journalism more difficult to be sustainable, and you | :25:31. | :25:36. | |
have seen a serious decline in long-term investigations. It is so | :25:37. | :25:40. | |
sad to me, so very, very sad, that all of those crafts men, with whom I | :25:41. | :25:45. | |
worked for 15 years, getting out the paper, having very good results, | :25:46. | :25:51. | |
ending cervical cancer, all of these things, were sabotaged by the | :25:52. | :25:54. | |
complete disunity among the print unions. Do you think there is an in | :25:55. | :26:03. | |
security now in the whole medium? I am sure you are right, no question. | :26:04. | :26:09. | |
Nowadays, the people who are falling by the wayside by the journalists. I | :26:10. | :26:14. | |
have total sympathy. The people I worked with on the print site were | :26:15. | :26:18. | |
at absolutely wonderful, all of them. They were desperate to keep | :26:19. | :26:23. | |
the paper. They were frustrated week after week by the engineers in the | :26:24. | :26:29. | |
press room. The NGA in the composing room at a different view. The thing | :26:30. | :26:37. | |
to do, now, is the fact, when you say shocked about Murdoch, listen, I | :26:38. | :26:42. | |
had my own battles with Murdoch and I have written about them. That is | :26:43. | :26:46. | |
one reason I am not in the UK. Thank you, both. | :26:47. | :26:49. | |
The funeral was held today in Israel of one of Britain's most | :26:50. | :26:52. | |
influential, philanthropic and cultured non-grand grandees | :26:53. | :26:53. | |
Lord Weidenfeld got out of Austria at the age of 19 | :26:54. | :26:58. | |
with his parents after the German invasion, | :26:59. | :27:00. | |
but not before fighting a duel with a Nazi. | :27:01. | :27:02. | |
He worked in London for the BBC Monitoring Service | :27:03. | :27:05. | |
after which he co- founded the publishing house | :27:06. | :27:07. | |
He published De Gaulle, Harold Wilson, Kissinger and a host | :27:08. | :27:12. | |
Here he is talking to Hard Talk in 2015, about his bold decision | :27:13. | :27:17. | |
to publish Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. | :27:18. | :27:20. | |
I was very impressed by Nabokov firstly. | :27:21. | :27:25. | |
I read his earlier works, I knew his background, | :27:26. | :27:27. | |
Also people like Graham Greene, whom I value, etc, encouraged me | :27:28. | :27:34. | |
to fight the battle and I think we blazed the trail for a change | :27:35. | :27:38. | |
When Lord Weidenfeld died he was in the midst of setting up | :27:39. | :27:47. | |
a charity to help Syrian and Iraq Christians persecuted | :27:48. | :27:49. | |
One of his closest friends, whom he also published, | :27:50. | :27:52. | |
was the writer and historian Simon Sebag Montefiori. | :27:53. | :28:04. | |
When you met him at first, what was he like? He was wonderful, and | :28:05. | :28:12. | |
amazing friend. He existed in this rarefied world, international, | :28:13. | :28:18. | |
Cosmopolitan, sophisticated. When you were talking to him at his | :28:19. | :28:23. | |
apartment, full of Francis Bacons and Renaissance Popes, you felt that | :28:24. | :28:30. | |
you could be in the chancellery of Cardinal reseller or in the palace | :28:31. | :28:38. | |
of a floral time prints. What drove him? It wasn't just to have these | :28:39. | :28:45. | |
things. He was first and foremost an amazing publisher who published | :28:46. | :28:50. | |
everyone from Nabokov, Hook, Edna Rob Brydon, Antonia Fraser. -- Pope. | :28:51. | :29:00. | |
He was also a philanthropist. He really believed in building bridges | :29:01. | :29:04. | |
between Jews and Germans, between the three great Abraham Lincoln | :29:05. | :29:09. | |
religions. From his very deathbed, he was trying to help Syrian | :29:10. | :29:18. | |
Christians -- the three great Abrahamic religions. He was a whit. | :29:19. | :29:28. | |
When you were with him, the conversation, he knew his art, his | :29:29. | :29:33. | |
music. Of course, the written word. He was enormously good fun. And he | :29:34. | :29:39. | |
was enormously kind to everyone. I was just one of the very young | :29:40. | :29:42. | |
writers who he encouraged and helped. When you were with him, | :29:43. | :29:48. | |
again, he was a character who seemed to belong in a variety of great | :29:49. | :29:53. | |
works. He was a Christian character. He could have been in a novel by | :29:54. | :30:03. | |
Disraeli. -- Proustian character. Do you think that bringing outsiders in | :30:04. | :30:09. | |
to bring a new kind of culture, do you need that? He arrived as a | :30:10. | :30:16. | |
refugee from the Nazis. He was a last blossoming of that now | :30:17. | :30:19. | |
blossoming Jewish-Viennese culture which was so persist -- so | :30:20. | :30:27. | |
sophisticated and both high and low, witty and playful. He brought back | :30:28. | :30:30. | |
to England and he was a huge ornament to Europe. He led an | :30:31. | :30:35. | |
extraordinarily long life. You wonder if, with his passing, you | :30:36. | :30:41. | |
treasure the memory, because there are very few people like him left. | :30:42. | :30:49. | |
Even his generation, he was a one-off, but he was one of those | :30:50. | :30:54. | |
amazingly talented, mainly Jewish refugees from Middle Europe. He was | :30:55. | :30:59. | |
very generous. There was nobody like him and there won't be again. You | :31:00. | :31:05. | |
knew him when he was much younger and he encouraged you and nurtured | :31:06. | :31:11. | |
you. Do you have a favourite memory? The way he would ring up and say in | :31:12. | :31:15. | |
his soft Viennese voice, Simon, come over for a quick tour de reason. We | :31:16. | :31:24. | |
would have an amazing chat about great people, Chancellor Kohl, John | :31:25. | :31:30. | |
Paul II, the Pope, any of the amazing people he published. He | :31:31. | :31:35. | |
lived in a great world but he was extremely generous with that | :31:36. | :31:41. | |
greatness. Lord Biden felt, whose funeral was held today in Israel. | :31:42. | :31:46. | |
That is all we have time for. -- Lord Weidenfeld. Emily will be with | :31:47. | :31:50. | |
you on Monday. | :31:51. | :31:52. |