Browse content similar to 09/09/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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This is the plan to deliver them, and to set Britain | :00:00. | :00:08. | |
You learn a lot about a Prime Minister by the enemies | :00:09. | :00:19. | |
Theresa May takes on the educational establishment. | :00:20. | :00:22. | |
We're joined by the Head of Westminster School, | :00:23. | :00:30. | |
As election season hots up in France, the father of the far | :00:31. | :00:44. | |
right, Jean-Marie Le Pen, tells Newsnight he has no regrets. | :00:45. | :00:47. | |
And after banning this Vietnam War photo for indecency, | :00:48. | :00:59. | |
We talk to the Norwegian writer who started the whole debate. | :01:00. | :01:16. | |
It was never going to be a popular move with | :01:17. | :01:19. | |
Nor indeed, with the Education Secretary she recently fired. | :01:20. | :01:24. | |
Theresa May has shown an appetite for a battle | :01:25. | :01:26. | |
that may well get the grass roots Conservatives on her side. | :01:27. | :01:29. | |
But huge swathes of the educational establishment | :01:30. | :01:32. | |
Today, she insisted the grammar schools she envisioned | :01:33. | :01:37. | |
were a thing of the future, not the past. | :01:38. | :01:39. | |
She called for faith schools to grow and - | :01:40. | :01:42. | |
in a shot at the sector of privilege - demanded more from private schools | :01:43. | :01:45. | |
in return for the tax breaks they get from their charitable status. | :01:46. | :01:50. | |
Chris Cook, whose film yesterday anticipated many of | :01:51. | :01:54. | |
the fine details of today's speech, asks if she's chosen a fight | :01:55. | :01:57. | |
When she first arrived in Downing Street, Theresa May said | :01:58. | :02:03. | |
she didn't want to lead just a Brexit Government, and she won't. | :02:04. | :02:09. | |
As part of a broad education package, today, | :02:10. | :02:11. | |
I want to relax the restrictions that stop selective | :02:12. | :02:20. | |
schools from expanding, that deny parents the right | :02:21. | :02:22. | |
to have a new selective school open where they want one, | :02:23. | :02:25. | |
and that stop existing nonselective schools from becoming selective | :02:26. | :02:27. | |
in the right circumstances and where there is demand. | :02:28. | :02:29. | |
New grammar schools would require new legislation, | :02:30. | :02:31. | |
but it's far from clear the Government has much | :02:32. | :02:33. | |
of a majority on this in the House of Commons. | :02:34. | :02:39. | |
They certainly don't have one at all in the House of Lords. | :02:40. | :02:42. | |
Lots of that opposition to this idea comes from the experience | :02:43. | :02:44. | |
and evidence from the old grammar system, and the remaining grammar | :02:45. | :02:47. | |
That is perhaps part of why Theresa May was so keen to stress | :02:48. | :02:51. | |
that these new grammar schools would be something new altogether. | :02:52. | :02:55. | |
They would, for example, be required to take a certain number | :02:56. | :02:57. | |
That would help with the main concern about grammars, | :02:58. | :03:05. | |
One chain of grammars does it already, but it's | :03:06. | :03:09. | |
There's a lot of work involved to persuade parents | :03:10. | :03:12. | |
that a grammar school education is right for their children. | :03:13. | :03:15. | |
We've probably been more successful in doing that in some of the Asian | :03:16. | :03:19. | |
parts of the city than in the white working-class parts. | :03:20. | :03:22. | |
That's not to do with the ability of the children, it's more | :03:23. | :03:26. | |
that the outreach has to be more intensive. | :03:27. | :03:28. | |
Academics remain sceptical, though, about this idea. | :03:29. | :03:40. | |
The poor kids who are going to do well in the | :03:41. | :03:43. | |
11 plus or not a random sample, they are probably from family | :03:44. | :03:46. | |
backgrounds that are good in some way, | :03:47. | :03:47. | |
supportive families, interested in education, very possibly from | :03:48. | :03:49. | |
And kids who would probably do well in the system anyway. | :03:50. | :03:54. | |
Rather than have the schools benefit from the | :03:55. | :03:57. | |
presence of these good, intelligent and motivated poor kids, | :03:58. | :03:59. | |
they will be taken out of those schools and | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
put into these elite schools, leaving behind | :04:05. | :04:06. | |
all of these other kids who | :04:07. | :04:07. | |
would benefit from interacting with them. | :04:08. | :04:09. | |
The so-called 50% rule is set to go, an admission rule for faith schools | :04:10. | :04:19. | |
that discouraged new Catholic faith schools in particular. | :04:20. | :04:21. | |
The 50% rule means that if you build a new school | :04:22. | :04:23. | |
and it is oversubscribed, you are not allowed to select | :04:24. | :04:30. | |
For us, that means that if we build a new | :04:31. | :04:36. | |
Catholic school in an area where there is demand from parents for a | :04:37. | :04:40. | |
Catholic education, we then have to turn | :04:41. | :04:42. | |
50% away because they are | :04:43. | :04:44. | |
Catholic, and that neither makes sense, nor does it fit in with our | :04:45. | :04:50. | |
charitable trust deeds under which we operate, | :04:51. | :04:51. | |
and the canon law of the | :04:52. | :04:53. | |
I have always been relaxed about faith schools, but in the last | :04:54. | :05:00. | |
few years I have become more nervous. | :05:01. | :05:05. | |
More segregation is not to be encouraged, so I am nervous | :05:06. | :05:09. | |
about the proposals, and I think that a lot | :05:10. | :05:11. | |
of people in the House of Lords | :05:12. | :05:13. | |
will be nervous about those proposals. | :05:14. | :05:15. | |
The speech contained a commitment to force private schools to hate state | :05:16. | :05:23. | |
schools, with a bit of a threat. Through charitable status, private | :05:24. | :05:30. | |
schools reduce their tax bills by millions every year, and I want to | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
consult on how we can amend guidance for private schools to enact a | :05:35. | :05:39. | |
tougher test on the amount of public benefit to be derived to maintain | :05:40. | :05:44. | |
charitable status. You might be surprised that hearing a | :05:45. | :05:48. | |
Conservative having a go at private schools, because the party has | :05:49. | :05:51. | |
historically offended their interests. If you look at the | :05:52. | :05:54. | |
Independent schools Council website, you can see that they proudly record | :05:55. | :06:00. | |
the lowest fee increase this year since 1994, but its 3.3%. That's a | :06:01. | :06:06. | |
lot. The average cost of a private sixth form this year is ?21,000 a | :06:07. | :06:19. | |
year. Private schools are now havens of the ultrarich where they used to | :06:20. | :06:24. | |
educate the spine of the middle-class political | :06:25. | :06:27. | |
establishment. All of the changes together will not generate as much | :06:28. | :06:31. | |
heat as the idea of selection. If you look at the last 15 years or so, | :06:32. | :06:35. | |
there has been a group of people across the parties who have been | :06:36. | :06:40. | |
determined to move the whole skiffs -- school system are stop at times | :06:41. | :06:46. | |
that has been controversial and we have taken radical decisions, but | :06:47. | :06:50. | |
there has been consensus. I think there is a real expectation that | :06:51. | :06:53. | |
this will break the consensus, and I think that is a shame, because it | :06:54. | :06:57. | |
has been important to schools and teachers that they feel there has | :06:58. | :07:00. | |
been a broad level of support behind the changes. The Theresa May plan | :07:01. | :07:08. | |
for schools faces huge obstacles, principally parliament, but whatever | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
comes now, one thing is clear: Things changed when the Prime | :07:14. | :07:14. | |
Minister did. Let's talk now about the policy | :07:15. | :07:16. | |
and the politics of all this. With me are Patrick Derham, | :07:17. | :07:19. | |
headmaster of Westminster School, one of the top independent | :07:20. | :07:21. | |
schools in the country, and Conservative MP | :07:22. | :07:24. | |
Mark Field, in whose constituency Also here are Anne McElvoy, | :07:25. | :07:25. | |
senior editor at The Economist, and Philip Collins, chief leader | :07:26. | :07:32. | |
writer at The Times. A warm welcome to you all. Thanks | :07:33. | :07:43. | |
for coming in. We heard from Nicky Morgan, the woman whom your party | :07:44. | :07:48. | |
charged with the nation's education until July, calling these ideas at | :07:49. | :07:51. | |
best a distraction from crucial reforms, and at worst, undermining | :07:52. | :07:56. | |
six years of progressive education. This is pushing things backwards. | :07:57. | :08:06. | |
Things have moved on. Since July. They certainly have moved on from | :08:07. | :08:09. | |
Nicky Morgan. She is no longer in position, and we have a new Prime | :08:10. | :08:14. | |
Minister with a passion for getting a great meritocracy, as she rightly | :08:15. | :08:19. | |
put it. Personally, I think we have seen over the last 20 years | :08:20. | :08:24. | |
prominent politicians of all parties utilising this in a crude | :08:25. | :08:28. | |
calculation in the way they look at an intervention. I think one of the | :08:29. | :08:31. | |
great things about this speech from Theresa May is that it comes from | :08:32. | :08:35. | |
the heart. There is an authentic sense of where she sees education | :08:36. | :08:40. | |
needs to be. What has changed since the 23rd of June is that we are now | :08:41. | :08:43. | |
in the throes of removing ourselves from the European Union. I think it | :08:44. | :08:51. | |
is easy to try and say that this is an old Tory ideological battle | :08:52. | :08:54. | |
coming back. I think it is fundamentally different. If you'll | :08:55. | :08:58. | |
forgive me, what hasn't changed is the evidence which suggests that | :08:59. | :09:02. | |
this hurt the poor. It leaves more people behind than it takes with it. | :09:03. | :09:06. | |
The important thing to recognise that our brightest children from the | :09:07. | :09:11. | |
poorest households have a special educational needs that is not being | :09:12. | :09:20. | |
looked after. It is simply a matter -- if you think it is simply a | :09:21. | :09:22. | |
matter for those with difficulties, this is fundamental. London results | :09:23. | :09:28. | |
are pretty good. You don't need grammar schools. We do. Ask Chinese | :09:29. | :09:34. | |
and Bangladeshi families in my constituency, and they would like | :09:35. | :09:37. | |
nothing more than to see the brightest and best... The change | :09:38. | :09:40. | |
that has taken place since June is that we are in a very competitive | :09:41. | :09:45. | |
world out there. China and India are big nations going forward, and those | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
who want to invest in UK companies for the future will want to see a | :09:50. | :09:55. | |
properly fully educated workforce. Elitism should not be a bad word in | :09:56. | :10:00. | |
the way it has been too often in this debate. Patrick, did you hear a | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
litres or excellence as a bad word when Theresa May was talking about | :10:06. | :10:10. | |
what the private sector must do and that thread about charitable status? | :10:11. | :10:19. | |
-- elitism. I think she recognised the huge contribution that the | :10:20. | :10:24. | |
independent sector makes to the issue of mobility, which is a real | :10:25. | :10:28. | |
concern for myself personally, but also for my colleagues. And she | :10:29. | :10:32. | |
recognised that we are part of the solution and not the problem. I've | :10:33. | :10:35. | |
argued for a long time that we need to change the debate and to look | :10:36. | :10:39. | |
more critically at what is going on. The interesting thing for me is, she | :10:40. | :10:46. | |
picked up on capacity and capability for some schools and recognise there | :10:47. | :10:50. | |
is not a one size fits all solution, which I think is important. She | :10:51. | :10:55. | |
recognised that there needs to be a degree of proportionality, that not | :10:56. | :10:59. | |
all schools of the same. There is a mythology about the independent | :11:00. | :11:02. | |
sector and the type of pupils go to them. And I think she recognised | :11:03. | :11:09. | |
that by what she said. She also recognise that the schools of | :11:10. | :11:12. | |
immense privilege have charitable status for tax breaks, and a lot of | :11:13. | :11:16. | |
the public will say, why on earth are they getting those? Because we | :11:17. | :11:20. | |
are contributing to the greater good in all sorts of ways. Some examples | :11:21. | :11:26. | |
- she name checks Westminster and the work we're doing with the Harris | :11:27. | :11:32. | |
Federation. Not all independent schools are like Westminster and | :11:33. | :11:35. | |
eaten. You think there is room for many of them to do more? Lots of | :11:36. | :11:43. | |
them do not have the huge playing field. And ovary were | :11:44. | :11:47. | |
# And overwhelming proportion of independent schools are affected. It | :11:48. | :11:53. | |
is not just the sponsoring of academies and free schools or the | :11:54. | :11:56. | |
provision of bursaries, though that was the talk in 2010. One bursaries, | :11:57. | :12:04. | |
look at the ground-breaking work that has been done by some of them | :12:05. | :12:08. | |
in fundraising and really reaching out to underprivileged members of | :12:09. | :12:10. | |
the community will stop look at the Arnold foundation, started at Rugby, | :12:11. | :12:16. | |
which has given birth to Springboard, a national charity, and | :12:17. | :12:21. | |
private schools raising aspirations amongst those most in need of that | :12:22. | :12:25. | |
type of education. You raise an interesting point. Does it surprise | :12:26. | :12:30. | |
you that as a Tory Prime Minister stepping into this debate -- is it | :12:31. | :12:38. | |
surprise you that there is a Tory Prime Minister. Going back to the | :12:39. | :12:45. | |
Tory DNA on grammar schools, very brave and bold, but not so difficult | :12:46. | :12:49. | |
for her to do. You can see she clearly believes it. She is a | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
beneficiary herself of grammars goals, and she believes she can | :12:54. | :12:56. | |
deliver more meritocracy through it. A lot of people will doubt it, but | :12:57. | :13:00. | |
she will get the chance to make the case. Her whole pitch as Prime | :13:01. | :13:04. | |
Minister after David Cameron, who was a bit of a posh boy, was not | :13:05. | :13:12. | |
being like that. Trying to engage the private sector more and turning | :13:13. | :13:16. | |
the screws to an extent on the private sector is something she is | :13:17. | :13:21. | |
serious about. I have to do -- disagree with Patrick. The Academy | :13:22. | :13:28. | |
's chains and private schools got involved, and sometimes they walked | :13:29. | :13:32. | |
away when it got difficult. They will find their feet will be held to | :13:33. | :13:35. | |
the fire to deliver a bit more, and that may be no bad thing. All we | :13:36. | :13:40. | |
have heard about for the last six years is academies and free schools, | :13:41. | :13:44. | |
and suddenly everyone is on board behind Theresa May and grammar | :13:45. | :13:49. | |
schools are the rage. It is a big change in rhetoric. The first half | :13:50. | :13:54. | |
was real boilerplate. Every Prime Minister makes that speech after | :13:55. | :13:58. | |
review weeks. They all talk about meritocracy. Everyone has done it. | :13:59. | :14:03. | |
Did you write that for Tony Blair? Yes. I didn't write the one today, | :14:04. | :14:08. | |
but I could have done. It was cut and paste from things I have done | :14:09. | :14:12. | |
with a bit of rhetorical flourish. The second half of the speech wasn't | :14:13. | :14:17. | |
as good as that. When you get to the policy things, I think there are | :14:18. | :14:21. | |
some problems buried in there. I think it will be difficult to do. | :14:22. | :14:24. | |
You're talking about grammar schools particularly? Yes. That is partly | :14:25. | :14:30. | |
the politics within Westminster, the parliament rather than the school or | :14:31. | :14:34. | |
the constituency. The politics of grammar schools are difficult over | :14:35. | :14:39. | |
time. Any policy which takes 20% of people and says, your school is | :14:40. | :14:43. | |
better than the other 80%, the arithmetic is not good. Can I go to | :14:44. | :14:46. | |
an educationalist for one second? I think the interesting thing about | :14:47. | :14:57. | |
her speech was what she didn't say. The key thing is not the school | :14:58. | :15:01. | |
structure, it is the quality of the interaction between a pupil and | :15:02. | :15:05. | |
teacher. The real issue facing this country, and quite a lot of the | :15:06. | :15:10. | |
Western world is the issue of teacher recruitment, teacher | :15:11. | :15:12. | |
retention and the quality of teaching. I also think what she | :15:13. | :15:16. | |
didn't talk about was, I am not convinced, I think we need to take a | :15:17. | :15:20. | |
step back and say is tinkering with school structure | :15:21. | :15:37. | |
is the the real issue for me is too often governments in this country | :15:38. | :15:41. | |
have brought into schools can fix mentality, and I think there is a | :15:42. | :15:43. | |
real problem with that. I think there is an issue about empowering | :15:44. | :15:46. | |
parents and what has not been touched on is the issue of technical | :15:47. | :15:48. | |
schools. It is a very technical process where you share grammar | :15:49. | :15:51. | |
schools with a lot of other people. I want to touch on the issue of | :15:52. | :15:54. | |
mandate. Where does this come from and who supports that? I think we | :15:55. | :15:59. | |
know a lot of the Conservative Party supports it. The mandate question, | :16:00. | :16:06. | |
the technical understanding of it, in terms of how the Lords will view | :16:07. | :16:10. | |
it if it wasn't in the manifesto, then her right to overrule this very | :16:11. | :16:16. | |
dubious indeed, I have a bit of sympathy to her and any government, | :16:17. | :16:21. | |
which changes after such a disruption, as Brexit and the change | :16:22. | :16:24. | |
of leadership in the Conservative Party, she is not going to get up | :16:25. | :16:33. | |
there and do a David Cameron... Are you saying this is a massively fresh | :16:34. | :16:37. | |
sheet and you can get away with it? There is no constitutional | :16:38. | :16:39. | |
requirement to seek an extra mandate. So you don't think this is | :16:40. | :16:44. | |
part of a ploy to bring forward an election if she loses? I doubt it | :16:45. | :16:49. | |
is, actually. In my view she would be well advised to have an election. | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
She could crucify the Labour Party and gain the majority I think she | :16:55. | :16:57. | |
might need to get some of these things through. She doesn't have any | :16:58. | :17:02. | |
votes to get this through? I think she will have the votes in the | :17:03. | :17:07. | |
Commons. One reason why the issue of independent schools has been brought | :17:08. | :17:11. | |
up here, and it will put more flesh on the bones of technical schools, | :17:12. | :17:16. | |
it will be part of parcel of a more broad review of education. How can | :17:17. | :17:20. | |
you be confident that you will get this through? We heard from Michael | :17:21. | :17:28. | |
Wilshaw, the ex-head of the Hackney Academy, part of that academy's | :17:29. | :17:34. | |
push, a lot of people have committed years of their life to the academies | :17:35. | :17:41. | |
programme. And a lot of Conservative ministers were committed to the | :17:42. | :17:45. | |
academies programme. There is no mention of it. That is a bit | :17:46. | :17:50. | |
problematic. We are just wrapping up. The last word. I am not | :17:51. | :17:55. | |
convinced there will be many schools that will go for it. The conditions | :17:56. | :17:59. | |
for doing the grammar school bit quite onerous. I am not convinced | :18:00. | :18:05. | |
that there will be many schools which will find that attractive. | :18:06. | :18:06. | |
Thank you for coming in. In France, election season | :18:07. | :18:09. | |
is kicking into gear. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy has | :18:10. | :18:11. | |
thrown his hat into the ring, for the centre-right Republican | :18:12. | :18:14. | |
Party. The incumbent, Francois Hollande | :18:15. | :18:16. | |
hasn't said whether he'll run again. Some in his centre-left | :18:17. | :18:19. | |
Socialist Party would like to replace him, | :18:20. | :18:20. | |
given that his popularity ratings There's really only one thing | :18:21. | :18:23. | |
you can say for certain about this election, and that is | :18:24. | :18:26. | |
that Marine Le Pen So what does the rise of the far | :18:27. | :18:29. | |
right mean for French politics? Gabriel Gatehouse has sent this | :18:30. | :18:34. | |
report from Paris. The wheel of political | :18:35. | :18:46. | |
fortunes is turning. A centre-left president | :18:47. | :18:50. | |
with the lowest approval ratings in French history | :18:51. | :18:52. | |
is fighting for survival. His predecessor from | :18:53. | :18:56. | |
the centre-right whom once claimed that dubious honour for himself | :18:57. | :18:59. | |
is trying to stage a comeback. But the real winner might be | :19:00. | :19:04. | |
someone quite unexpected, someone who doesn't | :19:05. | :19:08. | |
really feel much like Jean-Marie Le Pen's days of standing | :19:09. | :19:11. | |
for president are long gone. The 88-year-old veteran | :19:12. | :19:28. | |
of France's colonial wars is, in many ways a has-been, | :19:29. | :19:30. | |
sidelined and then expelled by his own daughter from the party | :19:31. | :19:32. | |
he founded 45 years ago. But the Front National is riding | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
high in the polls, and Mr Le Pen's right-wing anti-immigration rhetoric | :19:37. | :19:40. | |
is stiking the right chord. Jean-Marie's daughter, | :19:41. | :20:17. | |
Marine Le Pen, will almost certainly reach the second round run-off | :20:18. | :20:20. | |
is in the presidential election. She has modernised the party, | :20:21. | :20:24. | |
tried to detoxify the brand, but at heart says Le Pen pere, | :20:25. | :20:28. | |
the Front National message remains Such sentiments may be bluntly | :20:29. | :20:30. | |
expressed, but they are no longer In the aftermath of the attacks | :20:31. | :21:18. | |
in Paris and Nice, the most devastating attacks on French soil, | :21:19. | :21:25. | |
this election will be fought largely on the issues of who should be | :21:26. | :21:28. | |
allowed in this country who was nicknamed the hyper | :21:29. | :21:32. | |
president, the diminutive is pitching for his second | :21:33. | :21:42. | |
round of the presidency. Nicolas Sarkozy is running on the | :21:43. | :21:49. | |
slogan "Everything for France." It is a rallying cry calculated | :21:50. | :21:56. | |
to appeal to nationalist sentiment. It is also a play on a previous | :21:57. | :22:00. | |
slogan from a previous centre-right president, Jacques Chirac, | :22:01. | :22:04. | |
in the mid-'90s, who ran under This inversion tells you everything | :22:05. | :22:08. | |
you need to know about how far mainstream political discourse has | :22:09. | :22:15. | |
moved to the right. Sarko's talk is all about | :22:16. | :22:27. | |
borders, about identity. Never mind the burkini, | :22:28. | :22:31. | |
he says he wants to widen the ban on wearing the veil in public, | :22:32. | :22:34. | |
and he said he wants to rewrite the law which says if you're born | :22:35. | :22:37. | |
in France you can become a citizen. To some, such rhetoric sounds | :22:38. | :22:50. | |
straight out of a Front National playbook, but Sarkozy's | :22:51. | :22:54. | |
supporters say he is simply Meanwhile, the Muslim community, | :22:55. | :22:57. | |
nearly 5 million strong, might be excused for feeling | :22:58. | :23:20. | |
a little under siege. As the political temperature rises, | :23:21. | :23:23. | |
parties of all persuasions seem to be focusing much of the national | :23:24. | :23:26. | |
angst on to the question of And some fear it has disturbing | :23:27. | :23:29. | |
implications for the cherished When you see policemen on the beach | :23:30. | :23:38. | |
asking, ordering women to undress, we are not anymore | :23:39. | :23:45. | |
in a state of law. and it is dangerous | :23:46. | :23:49. | |
for freedoms, in fact. None of this is worrying Le Pen | :23:50. | :23:59. | |
in the slightly surreal grandeur It is not hard to see why | :24:00. | :24:01. | |
he supports Donald Trump. He is also an admirer of | :24:02. | :24:06. | |
Vladimir Putin, a man of authority But what does he say to those | :24:07. | :24:09. | |
who accuse him of poisoning the well If history is anything to go by, | :24:10. | :24:16. | |
Marine Le Pen will make it through the first round and then | :24:17. | :24:52. | |
lose to an anyone-but-Le-Pen But these are not normal times, | :24:53. | :24:55. | |
and whether she wins or loses, some of the values she inherited | :24:56. | :25:02. | |
from her father are making an ever But the problem arises | :25:03. | :25:05. | |
when the image in question is considered one of the most | :25:06. | :25:22. | |
important of the 20th century - like this one, the Pulitzer Prize | :25:23. | :25:25. | |
winning Napalm Girl The image was recently posted | :25:26. | :25:27. | |
by Norwegian novelist Tom Egeland as part of a piece on photographs | :25:28. | :25:33. | |
that had changed history. It was soon removed by Facebook, | :25:34. | :25:37. | |
sparking outrage and the editor of Norway's largest printed | :25:38. | :25:39. | |
newspaper to write an open letter The iconic image was widely shared - | :25:40. | :25:42. | |
including by the Norwegian prime minister, until her | :25:43. | :25:47. | |
post was also removed. Just before we came on air, | :25:48. | :25:53. | |
Facebook reversed its decision But does this call into question | :25:54. | :25:56. | |
both the power and the judgement We're joined now by the Norwegian | :25:57. | :26:04. | |
Writer - Tom Egeland - And Tom, thank you for joining us | :26:05. | :26:17. | |
this evening. Do you have any sympathy with an organisation that | :26:18. | :26:21. | |
on one hand says it is not responsible enough, and on the other | :26:22. | :26:28. | |
says it is guilty of censorship? Well, yes, and in fact, I support | :26:29. | :26:35. | |
Facebook's policy against nakedness. We don't want pawn on Facebook so | :26:36. | :26:41. | |
the disagreement and the great disagreement in this case is whether | :26:42. | :26:51. | |
or not the iconic picture of this Vietnamese girl is about nakedness. | :26:52. | :26:56. | |
To me, it is not. It is a picture about war, about horror and about | :26:57. | :27:01. | |
children who are victims of war crimes. And fortunately, Facebook | :27:02. | :27:12. | |
tonight realised that their rather harsh judgment on this picture was | :27:13. | :27:19. | |
wrong and they have reversed their standpoint. It is a difficult one | :27:20. | :27:24. | |
where there is so much content and there is one algorithm. To take an | :27:25. | :27:29. | |
example, there was a young naked Syrian girl from a war that is still | :27:30. | :27:35. | |
going on and that was pictured on Facebook, would you consider that to | :27:36. | :27:41. | |
be a moment of history and war, or abuse and exposure? And that is the | :27:42. | :27:48. | |
exact dilemma that has made me want to focus on this case. Because, | :27:49. | :27:58. | |
unlike BBC, unlike the times, or newspapers, Facebook does not have | :27:59. | :28:05. | |
an editor. Facebook does not have an institution where somebody evaluates | :28:06. | :28:10. | |
different aspects and different values regarding a picture. To | :28:11. | :28:18. | |
Facebook, the world is a set of algorithms and rules. Do you think | :28:19. | :28:23. | |
it should be an arbiter or should it just be a platform? They insist they | :28:24. | :28:31. | |
are a technological platform. I disagree. Facebook is so huge. It | :28:32. | :28:39. | |
has so many followers, and all over the world, newspapers use Facebook | :28:40. | :28:47. | |
as a platform for not only spreading their news, but also their reader | :28:48. | :28:57. | |
comment. If Facebook's rule should overrule any newspaper rules, then | :28:58. | :29:04. | |
who is the editor? So in my view, Facebook should have, not only | :29:05. | :29:10. | |
editors, they should have national editors. So you would actually want | :29:11. | :29:15. | |
to see Facebook becoming, if you like, a world editor of other | :29:16. | :29:21. | |
journals and other publications who use it? In many ways, Facebook is | :29:22. | :29:28. | |
already those things. In certain regions of the world, Facebook and | :29:29. | :29:36. | |
the Internet are the same. Two people, Internet is Facebook. If you | :29:37. | :29:43. | |
see all the newspapers that use Facebook today, I find it hard to | :29:44. | :29:49. | |
differentiate between a technological platform and an | :29:50. | :29:54. | |
editorial platform. Tom Egeland, it is fascinating to speak to you. | :29:55. | :29:58. | |
Thank you for sharing your story will with us. Tom Egeland, the | :29:59. | :30:02. | |
Norwegian writer who we understand is still currently banned from | :30:03. | :30:05. | |
Facebook. That's all tonight, but before | :30:06. | :30:08. | |
we go, an extraordinary rescue operation in one of the most | :30:09. | :30:10. | |
dramatic locations on earth. More than 100 tourists were stranded | :30:11. | :30:13. | |
yesterday at an altitude of more than 12,000 ft above the glaciers | :30:14. | :30:16. | |
of Mont Blanc after wires carrying their cable | :30:17. | :30:18. | |
cars became tangled. It took some extraordinary flying | :30:19. | :30:20. | |
and an aerial ballet worthy of any Bond film before the first | :30:21. | :30:22. | |
passengers were rescued by helicopter, and it's given us | :30:23. | :30:24. | |
some pretty spectacular pictures. MUSIC: "You Only Live | :30:25. | :30:27. | |
Twice" by John Barry The weather looks mixed over the | :30:28. | :31:51. | |
weekend. This weather front will pop up at times, bringing rain through | :31:52. | :31:55. | |
central and south-eastern parts of England. Breezy and cloudy here. | :31:56. | :31:57. |