Browse content similar to 17/10/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Astride the River Tigris, a city of over two million, | :00:09. | :00:13. | |
But now a war zone, the fight to drive ISIS out and to get | :00:14. | :00:25. | |
This is perhaps the closest thing to a straight good-versus-evil | :00:26. | :00:28. | |
battle that will occur anywhere this year, at least, outside of fiction. | :00:29. | :00:36. | |
It's certainly worth understanding it, so we'll be | :00:37. | :00:38. | |
examining the military, humanitarian and political | :00:39. | :00:39. | |
Also tonight, this man was recently thought to be | :00:40. | :00:44. | |
Today he said the party is in a "death spiral" and has | :00:45. | :00:50. | |
This man still wants to be leader of the party - | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
And find out what our technology editor David Grossman is breathing | :00:55. | :00:59. | |
What I'm not separated from is the fumes. You can taste them. But what | :01:00. | :01:13. | |
am I breathing in? This bike has been set with an air quality | :01:14. | :01:15. | |
monitor. Will Brexit mean weaker | :01:16. | :01:16. | |
air quality laws? The battle has been long-awaited: | :01:17. | :01:22. | |
the so-called Islamic State has been in control of Mosul for over two | :01:23. | :01:26. | |
years and is now defending it against an alliance of Iraqi army, | :01:27. | :01:30. | |
Kurdish fighters, some controversial Shia militias and, of course, | :01:31. | :01:34. | |
some US forces, too. This is not the battle | :01:35. | :01:40. | |
to eradicate IS completely. It is a fight to drive the group | :01:41. | :01:43. | |
into a humiliating But there are myriad | :01:44. | :01:46. | |
challenges ahead. It sometimes motivates its fighters | :01:47. | :01:52. | |
by executing the ones Then there is the humantarian | :01:53. | :01:59. | |
challenge, 1.5 million There will, at some point | :02:00. | :02:02. | |
after the battle, be a need Think of how difficult it has been | :02:03. | :02:10. | |
between the republicans and unionists in Northern Ireland, | :02:11. | :02:14. | |
and then ask how hard it will be We'll be looking at all these, | :02:15. | :02:18. | |
but first, here's our diplomatic To the east of Mosul today | :02:19. | :02:23. | |
the first easy victories. But signs also of the IS group's | :02:24. | :02:34. | |
capacity to resist. A car speeds into a group of Kurdish | :02:35. | :02:44. | |
armoured vehicles before IS may be losing, but it's | :02:45. | :02:47. | |
still ready to defend Lots of the Isis leaders | :02:48. | :02:54. | |
and many of the fighters will turn towards Raqqa and Syria | :02:55. | :03:06. | |
as their last stronghold But I think it will be easier | :03:07. | :03:08. | |
to defeat Isis then, because we have to bear in mind Isis | :03:09. | :03:20. | |
is 95, if not more, percent, If they are pushed out of Iraq | :03:21. | :03:23. | |
into Syria I think it The city is now surrounded, | :03:24. | :03:29. | |
or almost so, a narrow corridor is being left open to the west | :03:30. | :03:32. | |
to allow IS fighters Kurdish brigades are now pushing | :03:33. | :03:35. | |
in from the east and north. Shia militias will advance | :03:36. | :03:40. | |
from the south-west. Given the risk of sectarian | :03:41. | :03:45. | |
conflict, these elements are meant Iraqi federal troops and loyal Sunni | :03:46. | :03:48. | |
militia will then enter the city Why leave a corridor open and drop | :03:49. | :03:56. | |
leaflets on the city for weeks before when that would seem | :03:57. | :04:10. | |
to violate any idea of surprise, Well, the answer lies in concerns | :04:11. | :04:12. | |
about the more than 1 million people And the feeling that if there is any | :04:13. | :04:17. | |
sort of prolonged fighting in that urban space it could have | :04:18. | :04:26. | |
dire humanitarian consequences. Mosul, you are talking | :04:27. | :04:31. | |
about 1.5 million of population. Can you imagine if Daesh | :04:32. | :04:37. | |
would take the risk? I'm sure they would do it, | :04:38. | :04:45. | |
to push the civilians to leave the city then you have | :04:46. | :04:49. | |
1 million refugees. It's going to be one | :04:50. | :04:51. | |
of the worst catastrophes. The aim is to keep the different | :04:52. | :04:59. | |
militias apart once the city's taken, because Mosul has long been | :05:00. | :05:04. | |
a cockpit of rivalry between Sunni Isis as a force has more or less | :05:05. | :05:07. | |
kept all the guns pointing In other words, pointing | :05:08. | :05:17. | |
towards Isis themselves. After they are defeated militarily | :05:18. | :05:20. | |
it's much more likely for us to see And we are not just talking | :05:21. | :05:23. | |
about sectarian Shia-Sunni conflict, but Sunni-Sunni conflict, | :05:24. | :05:37. | |
Shia-Shia conflict and And if losing Mosul would be | :05:38. | :05:38. | |
a heavy blow for IS, it still has its Syrian | :05:39. | :05:42. | |
stronghold of Raqqa. The prospect of an assault | :05:43. | :05:44. | |
there is still distant. In Syria I think it's | :05:45. | :05:46. | |
much more complicated. In Syria it took a dimension | :05:47. | :05:57. | |
like Kafkaesque, a crisis, it has I don't know, when we compare it's | :05:58. | :06:00. | |
much easier to see Iraq Ten years ago the Islamic State | :06:01. | :06:07. | |
was proclaimed in And it was overwhelmed | :06:08. | :06:17. | |
by a combination of force and splits The Islamic State in the form | :06:18. | :06:21. | |
that it is now being fought involved many of the same people, | :06:22. | :06:27. | |
tribes and places. And there's the warning | :06:28. | :06:33. | |
from history. If there isn't a convincing | :06:34. | :06:35. | |
political solution for those Sunni communities it's quite likely that | :06:36. | :06:38. | |
another form of the same jihadist ideology will break out | :06:39. | :06:40. | |
into the open again. The Mosul offensive can deal | :06:41. | :06:50. | |
with the immediate problem of a Jihadist group holding a major | :06:51. | :06:56. | |
Iraqi city, but what it do is soothe -- but what it cannot do is soothe | :06:57. | :07:09. | |
the ruling sectarianism of that country and the sense of grievance | :07:10. | :07:12. | |
felt by many Sunnis. Well, Mark has set out some | :07:13. | :07:14. | |
of the difficulties - and we are going to take these step | :07:15. | :07:17. | |
by step now. I'm joined by retired US | :07:18. | :07:19. | |
Army Colonel Peter Mansoor, who was an executive officer | :07:20. | :07:22. | |
to General David Petraeus in Iraq and is now a professor of military | :07:23. | :07:24. | |
history at Ohio State University. Rachel Harvey, who is an emergency | :07:25. | :07:27. | |
responder with British charity ShelterBox, who is joining us | :07:28. | :07:29. | |
from Irbil in Iraq. Toby Dodge, an international | :07:30. | :07:32. | |
relations expert from the LSE, is in the studio along | :07:33. | :07:34. | |
with Renad Mansour, a fellow of Chatham House | :07:35. | :07:36. | |
and Middle East expert. The evening. Let's start with the | :07:37. | :07:52. | |
military. -- good evening. Peter, you are in military expert. How | :07:53. | :07:58. | |
painful can IS make this military operation to get the city back? It | :07:59. | :08:05. | |
is going to the slow grind. As General Steve Townsend, the | :08:06. | :08:08. | |
commander of US forces in Iraq has said, the battle is going to take | :08:09. | :08:14. | |
weeks maybe months to culminate. The Prime Minister of Iraq wants to | :08:15. | :08:17. | |
finish it by the end of the year. The result is inevitable. The Iraqi | :08:18. | :08:23. | |
forces with US air support will end up crashing Isis. But it'll be a | :08:24. | :08:29. | |
hard fight for that to happen. The enemy has had more than two years to | :08:30. | :08:37. | |
dig in to urban landscape. Exciting palls of oil to darken the skies. | :08:38. | :08:42. | |
And make it harder for air strikes to target him. -- igniting pools of | :08:43. | :08:52. | |
oil. He has lit roadside bombs. The Kurdish forces will meet a stiff | :08:53. | :08:57. | |
resistance from an enemy that had a long time to prepare a battlefield | :08:58. | :09:01. | |
all the way. Many have said that the outcome is not really in doubt. That | :09:02. | :09:07. | |
assembly the numbers, is it, the numbers on the offensive to take the | :09:08. | :09:10. | |
city of the outnumbering those in city defending? -- that assessment | :09:11. | :09:20. | |
is the numbers. You may have upwards of 6000, 8000 Isis fighters in the | :09:21. | :09:24. | |
city. Opposing them are tens of thousands of Iraqi troops, Kurdish, | :09:25. | :09:31. | |
Shi'ite militias if they are needed. And they are backed up by US air | :09:32. | :09:35. | |
power and coalition air power that can make any defensive position a | :09:36. | :09:45. | |
shambles at the drop of a bomb. You will see a lot of firepower being | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
used and artillery guided rockets, as well. This will be a one-sided | :09:50. | :09:56. | |
fight. Does that raise the possibility that in rescuing the | :09:57. | :10:01. | |
people of Mosul that a lot of them will be killed in the process? I | :10:02. | :10:06. | |
think that inevitable, quite frankly. This is war. You cannot a | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
bloodless combat. They've left open an avenue for escape for civilians. | :10:12. | :10:18. | |
It is doubtful Isis will allow the civilians to flee. Isis wants a | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
humanitarian catastrophe to use it as propaganda. This is going to be | :10:23. | :10:28. | |
tough on the people of Mosul. But if you want to end the war against Isis | :10:29. | :10:33. | |
you have to take the city. Thanks. Just on the timing. Months, not | :10:34. | :10:40. | |
weeks, is this what we think of this military offensive? The analysis is | :10:41. | :10:43. | |
completely correct. We are not even in the city yet. It is important to | :10:44. | :10:47. | |
note. It'll take some time to move in, take the villages, especially | :10:48. | :10:54. | |
because it is coalition forces, many of them don't agree or coordinate | :10:55. | :10:58. | |
with each other. But they only have one enemy. They are looking to get | :10:59. | :11:02. | |
rid of that one enemy, which is the so-called Islamic State. And they | :11:03. | :11:07. | |
need to limit civilian casualties. Some generals we are speaking to | :11:08. | :11:10. | |
have said it is a matter of interest, inch by inch, and block | :11:11. | :11:15. | |
could take days to take over inside the city. They are conscious of the | :11:16. | :11:19. | |
fact that it isn't just military, they need to make sure the civilian | :11:20. | :11:25. | |
population is OK what happens. That brings us to the issue of the | :11:26. | :11:29. | |
humanitarian crisis. Rachel Harvey, I wonder if I can talk to you about | :11:30. | :11:38. | |
that. Set out, you are over in Irbil, just set out how ready you | :11:39. | :11:43. | |
are, and what expectations there are of a humanitarian out poor from the | :11:44. | :11:52. | |
people of Mosul. In a sense it has been a strange response falls. -- | :11:53. | :11:59. | |
strange response. We don't normally get this kind of forewarning of the | :12:00. | :12:03. | |
humanitarian crisis. Normally we are reacting to an event after something | :12:04. | :12:07. | |
has happened. That is a positive. But other than that everything is | :12:08. | :12:10. | |
unknown. We don't know how many people are in the city at the | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
moment. It is all estimates. We don't know how many of those people | :12:15. | :12:18. | |
will be able to flee. We don't know when they will flee or in which | :12:19. | :12:21. | |
direction they will flee. It is a challenging situation to know how to | :12:22. | :12:28. | |
best respond. We've had months of planning. That has allowed | :12:29. | :12:32. | |
organisations to pre-position aid in places as close to the areas where | :12:33. | :12:41. | |
we think people will arrive. ShelterBox Is one of many | :12:42. | :12:44. | |
organisations working together. It'll come down to communication to | :12:45. | :12:48. | |
see our effective this response can be. We will have to be flexible. We | :12:49. | :12:53. | |
will have to adapt to events as they unfold on the ground. The | :12:54. | :12:55. | |
humanitarian response will be dictated by what happens militarily. | :12:56. | :12:59. | |
As the military response on faults we will have to react to the impact | :13:00. | :13:11. | |
of that. -- on faults -- unfolds. The people will probably escaped the | :13:12. | :13:17. | |
Kurdish areas, won't they? That is our working assumption at the | :13:18. | :13:21. | |
moment. But this is a region that has already taken in a number of | :13:22. | :13:26. | |
people, both Syrian refugees and Iraqis already displaced by conflict | :13:27. | :13:31. | |
over the past two years. This area would say it is already struggling | :13:32. | :13:34. | |
to look after those people already here. And now it is going to be | :13:35. | :13:39. | |
expected to take hundreds of thousands more people. There is a | :13:40. | :13:42. | |
scarcity of land on which to build camps. There is a shortage of | :13:43. | :13:52. | |
resources. And with the best well, with all of these uncertainties of | :13:53. | :13:54. | |
war you can plan a military operation as tight as you possibly | :13:55. | :13:57. | |
can but when it comes down to it military operations don't always go | :13:58. | :14:01. | |
100% smoothly. The humanitarian community is trying to make sure we | :14:02. | :14:06. | |
have aid in key places to cover an area wherever people are likely to | :14:07. | :14:09. | |
come. They are going to need shelter, food, they may need health, | :14:10. | :14:14. | |
they will certainly need some kind of protection. We are trying to get | :14:15. | :14:18. | |
all of those things together in key places so we can respond to all | :14:19. | :14:23. | |
their needs. These are likely to be highly traumatised people and | :14:24. | :14:27. | |
exhausted people. The arranges inhospitable. Most of these people | :14:28. | :14:31. | |
will have walked, having experienced the conflict which is getting | :14:32. | :14:35. | |
underway and before that having lived under IS the two years. -- the | :14:36. | :14:41. | |
terrain is inhospitable. They will be in a state before we get to them. | :14:42. | :14:46. | |
What happens when the inevitable military victory, however long it | :14:47. | :14:47. | |
takes, succeeds? That is the There's been a lot of planning and | :14:48. | :15:00. | |
training for the military campaign. My own best research suggests there | :15:01. | :15:03. | |
has been little or no thinking about the political aftermath. If we lock | :15:04. | :15:08. | |
at the aftermath of the invasion of 2003, aftermath of the surge in | :15:09. | :15:14. | |
2007, I think we see military capacity, military power being | :15:15. | :15:18. | |
deployed to deliver political solutions. Daesh, the Islamic State, | :15:19. | :15:26. | |
are violent, barbaric group is simply a cause of a series of | :15:27. | :15:32. | |
political failings and no-one has quite worked out how to reform the | :15:33. | :15:36. | |
Iraqi system to integrate those sections of the population that are | :15:37. | :15:40. | |
alienated and stop the Islamic State recruiting again. The Prime Minister | :15:41. | :15:46. | |
of Iraq, a man who was resident in the UK for quite a few years, | :15:47. | :15:49. | |
Manchester university, everybody seems to say he is something a | :15:50. | :15:57. | |
reconciler. Is he doing his best? Is he a baddie or a goody? He's doing | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
his best. Clearly, if you look at the opinion poll ratings, especially | :16:03. | :16:08. | |
after replacing al-Maliki, he was recognised or greeted with optimism. | :16:09. | :16:17. | |
However, he's incredibly weak in a fractured and internally divided | :16:18. | :16:21. | |
cabinet. He has little or no power. He doesn't control the Shia | :16:22. | :16:25. | |
militias. He doesn't control the Peshmerga. The Ministry of Defence | :16:26. | :16:34. | |
has been sacked over a vote of no confidence in the Parliament. Do you | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
agree with what we've heard about the state of the political set | :16:40. | :16:46. | |
newspaper Iraq? 100% agree. The biggest problem with Abadi is he is | :16:47. | :16:50. | |
facing many forces. The biggest are within his own camp, including the | :16:51. | :16:54. | |
former Prime Minister. He's still there. He's still looking for a | :16:55. | :17:08. | |
chance to bring Abadi down. Don't talk about sectarianism, there's an | :17:09. | :17:12. | |
internal Shia struggle that he is facing. This is what I heard in | :17:13. | :17:20. | |
Mark's piece. I was not aware - we all know Sunni-Shia. It's the | :17:21. | :17:27. | |
multiple dimensions. Post-2003 system is so ill legitimate, so | :17:28. | :17:33. | |
broken that it's not only Sunnis, it's Shias. There's a mass protest | :17:34. | :17:39. | |
movement from the summer of 2015 onwards de crying almost universal | :17:40. | :17:42. | |
corruption amongst the governing elite asking in a once oil-rich | :17:43. | :17:47. | |
country why they can't get electricity at the height of the | :17:48. | :17:51. | |
summer. We have a completely dysfunctional system. No-one has | :17:52. | :17:54. | |
come up with a plan to fix it. What would be your plan to fix it? What | :17:55. | :17:58. | |
is the political settlement that you're waiting for that would be | :17:59. | :18:02. | |
different to the period after the surge or original invasion, when it | :18:03. | :18:07. | |
did basically retreat into the most awful situation very quickly? I | :18:08. | :18:12. | |
think the period after the surge might offer a good example of | :18:13. | :18:16. | |
bringing the disenfranchised populations back to the bargaining | :18:17. | :18:21. | |
table. We need to sustain that. We have a military victory that we're | :18:22. | :18:24. | |
looking for. No-one is talking about the political victory. We have | :18:25. | :18:28. | |
plans, many different plans, but no plan. When you bring them back to | :18:29. | :18:32. | |
the table, what is this that you're going to get them to agree on? Is it | :18:33. | :18:38. | |
an autonomous region for the Sunnis so they're like the Kurds and it's a | :18:39. | :18:45. | |
more federal system? Again, it's very complicated. They have | :18:46. | :18:50. | |
different ideas of what they want. This is complicated. We need to give | :18:51. | :18:56. | |
them autonomy, to build systems of local governance in local provinces | :18:57. | :19:02. | |
so they can start to deal with their own affairs. This is what the former | :19:03. | :19:09. | |
Prime Minister did. They need to get them to discuss because | :19:10. | :19:13. | |
communication is the key to this. We've learned enough tonight, | :19:14. | :19:15. | |
probably enough for one evening. Thank you all very much indeed. | :19:16. | :19:18. | |
Stephen Woolfe, the man who was among the favourites to take | :19:19. | :19:23. | |
the leadership until that altercation in Strasbourg, | :19:24. | :19:25. | |
There are no hopes as far as I'm concerned. | :19:26. | :19:40. | |
I will be withdrawing my application to become leader of Ukip. | :19:41. | :19:43. | |
I'm actually withdrawing myself from Ukip. | :19:44. | :19:44. | |
I just don't think that Ukip, in this bible it has got, | :19:45. | :19:48. | |
where you have elected politicians fighting | :19:49. | :19:55. | |
each other, where there is just this visceral | :19:56. | :19:59. | |
hatred, in some cases toward Nigel or anyone | :20:00. | :20:02. | |
that is seen to be associated with him. | :20:03. | :20:04. | |
Some people call me his puppet for standing, and things like that. | :20:05. | :20:07. | |
Whilst that's happening, not only are they letting down the members, | :20:08. | :20:10. | |
but they are actually letting down themselves. | :20:11. | :20:11. | |
And I don't think at this stage Ukip is governable. | :20:12. | :20:14. | |
I'm joined now by Raheem Kassam, a Ukip leadership candidate | :20:15. | :20:16. | |
and the editor in chief of Breitbart London. | :20:17. | :20:19. | |
What's happened to Stephen and his ambition to be leader? I think he's | :20:20. | :20:25. | |
been through a really tough time. He went through a gruelling leadership | :20:26. | :20:28. | |
campaign the last time. The tactics got nasty. I don't think we should | :20:29. | :20:33. | |
see that inside our own party. We are a family. It shouldn't come to | :20:34. | :20:36. | |
those things. Stephen was particularly, more than anyone, on | :20:37. | :20:40. | |
the receiving end of the bullying, quite frankly. The fight, was he | :20:41. | :20:44. | |
going to be found guilty of partaking in a fight or starting it? | :20:45. | :20:49. | |
Because some said he was the one who said "Come outside." He said he | :20:50. | :20:54. | |
wasn't doing that meaning let's have a fight, but to take the argument | :20:55. | :20:57. | |
outside. Is that part of the thing here, that he was going to be | :20:58. | :21:01. | |
blocked from the leadership? Stephen wasn't innocent in that fracas. I | :21:02. | :21:07. | |
think he will admit, at least privately, that he bears some cull | :21:08. | :21:11. | |
pability for what happened there. I'm not going to prejudge. But from | :21:12. | :21:16. | |
what I've heard there's equal cull pability. He's saying he was hit. | :21:17. | :21:21. | |
We're not there, we await other investigations. The leadership | :21:22. | :21:26. | |
situation now. Would you support Nigel Farage saying look, I'm going | :21:27. | :21:31. | |
to stay on or I'm going to stand in this leadership election? He seems | :21:32. | :21:34. | |
to be the only one who can hold the party together. He's told me he's | :21:35. | :21:39. | |
not going to. You'd like it if he did, though? Other than it would | :21:40. | :21:45. | |
slightly thwart your ambitions. I'm young, I'm all right. It's up to | :21:46. | :21:49. | |
him. I think there's a lot of appetite in the party for Nigel | :21:50. | :21:52. | |
Farage. I've already said if I become the leader, he will be the | :21:53. | :21:55. | |
honorary president of the party. I think it needs to retain him in some | :21:56. | :22:02. | |
way. Ukip is Nigel. Nigel is Ukip. Some post that keeps him on the | :22:03. | :22:06. | |
side. The other candidate, because there was a determination about the | :22:07. | :22:13. | |
rules. Suzanne Evans, a frequent guest on this programme. She can | :22:14. | :22:16. | |
stand this time. She was blocked last time. Would you welcome her? | :22:17. | :22:21. | |
Absolutely. I've always said throughout the last, crazy ten days | :22:22. | :22:25. | |
that we should have an open contest. You could serve under her. If she | :22:26. | :22:29. | |
won you'd be delighted to serve under her? We know the party is | :22:30. | :22:34. | |
riven by splits and divisions and you're in a different division to | :22:35. | :22:39. | |
her. Could you unite under Suzanne Evans? It's a tough question. I'm | :22:40. | :22:43. | |
not sure she would take the party in the direction I would want it to go. | :22:44. | :22:46. | |
I would commit to this: Not attacking her if she won the | :22:47. | :22:51. | |
leadership. You might even leave the party if she became leader? No, I | :22:52. | :22:56. | |
wouldn't. People need to stick with this. People want Brexit. They don't | :22:57. | :23:01. | |
want a one party state. They want real opposition to the Tories. | :23:02. | :23:05. | |
Labour's not delivering it. Who are you supporting in the American | :23:06. | :23:08. | |
election? I would probably support Donald Trump. Patrick O'Flynn, | :23:09. | :23:14. | |
himself a candidate in the general election, he tweeted the choice | :23:15. | :23:19. | |
ahead for Ukip, in a way it encollapse late everything, is | :23:20. | :23:23. | |
whether to be the patriotic party of the common sense centre of of UK | :23:24. | :23:32. | |
politics or go Trump, ult-right. Doesn't that just encapsulate the | :23:33. | :23:36. | |
split in your party, between the Trump ones... I replied. I said it's | :23:37. | :23:45. | |
a silly, false dichotomy. You think Trump is a common sense patriot? No, | :23:46. | :23:51. | |
everybody in Ukip. Don't you think people think Trump is completely off | :23:52. | :23:56. | |
the scale who would say if you're a Trump person, I'm not for you. Trump | :23:57. | :24:02. | |
divides the world. Look, we're in Central London right now. It's | :24:03. | :24:06. | |
disgusting to support Donald Trump in Central London. I'm not taking a | :24:07. | :24:12. | |
view on it. I'm explaining this - If you say Trump is an inspiration to | :24:13. | :24:17. | |
you... Now you're putting words in my mouth. It's not so much that he's | :24:18. | :24:22. | |
an inspiration to me but I think Hillary Clinton would be bad for | :24:23. | :24:26. | |
America. That's all it comes down to - who is better. Do you think | :24:27. | :24:31. | |
there's a sort of fight gene in Ukip supporters, I don't just mean in the | :24:32. | :24:40. | |
boxing match, but all seem to just pick arguments. On Twitter tonight | :24:41. | :24:45. | |
arguing with Al Murray. What is it about you guys and fighting. A | :24:46. | :24:51. | |
already Murray -- Al Murray is funny, he gets the Jock lar element | :24:52. | :24:56. | |
of it. There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek behind some of this | :24:57. | :24:58. | |
stuff. It's not all animosity all the time. There's a lot of | :24:59. | :25:03. | |
playfulness here. Honestly. You're looking at me exceptically. I mean | :25:04. | :25:09. | |
that. But I also think it has come a point where it's too much because of | :25:10. | :25:13. | |
the crisis in Ukip, it doesn't know what it stands for. I want to make | :25:14. | :25:19. | |
the party great again. I will do it, 100,000 members if I'm leader. Thank | :25:20. | :25:21. | |
you very much for coming on. ( If there is one organisation that | :25:22. | :25:24. | |
has been competing with Ukip in the struggle to settle | :25:25. | :25:26. | |
on a leader, it's the independent It just cannot break free | :25:27. | :25:29. | |
of distracting headlines about itself and its personnel | :25:30. | :25:33. | |
problems, rather than The chair, Alexis Jay, | :25:34. | :25:36. | |
today tried to clarify the inquiry's But the legacy of the last chair, | :25:37. | :25:42. | |
Lowell Goddard, lives on in the form of argument and recrimination, | :25:43. | :25:47. | |
involving the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, and her | :25:48. | :25:50. | |
permanent secretary. What did they know | :25:51. | :25:52. | |
about Lowell Goddard, Our political editor, Nick Watt, | :25:53. | :25:54. | |
has been following the row. it is one of the most ambitious | :25:55. | :26:08. | |
inquiries in British history, but it has been plagued by disputes at | :26:09. | :26:13. | |
almost every stage. Today the three people who have the future of | :26:14. | :26:16. | |
Britain's national child abuse inquiry in their hands moved to draw | :26:17. | :26:21. | |
a line under this most troubled of investigations. But first, remember | :26:22. | :26:26. | |
this... Order. Statement the Secretary of State for the home | :26:27. | :26:35. | |
department. Secretary Theresa May. I would like to make a statement about | :26:36. | :26:39. | |
the sexual abuse of children... Theresa May has enormous political | :26:40. | :26:44. | |
capital invested in this inquiry, after she overcame some scepticism | :26:45. | :26:48. | |
to set it up and then had to appoint three consecutive chairs after the | :26:49. | :26:54. | |
first two stumbled. With questions raging about the resignation about | :26:55. | :26:59. | |
her third chair, the Prime Minister is keen to focus on the main purpose | :27:00. | :27:06. | |
of the inquiry. Dame Lowell Goddard resigned shortly after the Home | :27:07. | :27:08. | |
Secretary and I talked about these issues. Let's remember, the point of | :27:09. | :27:14. | |
the inquiry is that there are many people who have suffered from child | :27:15. | :27:18. | |
abuse, who over the years, have felt that their voice was being ignored. | :27:19. | :27:22. | |
Nobody was listening to them. They deserve justice. Until today, this | :27:23. | :27:28. | |
was the Government's official explanation for the abrupt | :27:29. | :27:33. | |
resignation of Goddard on August 4. Ultimately she found it too lonely. | :27:34. | :27:36. | |
She was a long way from home. She decided to step down. That's all the | :27:37. | :27:40. | |
information I have about why she decided to go. Last week, the Times | :27:41. | :27:47. | |
reported that this man, Mark Sedwell, her most senior official | :27:48. | :27:52. | |
was alerted six days earlier to criticism of her management skills | :27:53. | :27:56. | |
and allegedly racist views. Today, the Home Secretary offered a fresh | :27:57. | :28:01. | |
explanation. Dame Lowell had not spoke ton me about her reasons, so I | :28:02. | :28:06. | |
relied on the letter she had sent to the committee. In her letter, she | :28:07. | :28:11. | |
said she was lonely and felt that she could not deliver and that was | :28:12. | :28:18. | |
why she stepped down. Dame Lowell strongly refutes the allegations | :28:19. | :28:21. | |
about her. The only way we could understand properly why she resigned | :28:22. | :28:31. | |
would be to hear from Dame Lowell. That original appearance before the | :28:32. | :28:34. | |
Select Committee may still cause trouble for the Home Office. | :28:35. | :28:38. | |
Newsnight understand that's there is unease amongst some MPs that Mark | :28:39. | :28:47. | |
Sedewell sat in silence when Rudd made her statement last month. One | :28:48. | :28:51. | |
observer said Sedwell, highly regarded by the Prime Minister, | :28:52. | :28:55. | |
faces a decisive day when he appears before the committee tomorrow. | :28:56. | :28:59. | |
As MPs debated the inquiry, along the river its new chair issued a | :29:00. | :29:04. | |
rare public statement. This was short on specifics, but Professor | :29:05. | :29:09. | |
Alexis Jay appeared to nod towards a scaling back of its work. If we were | :29:10. | :29:16. | |
to pursue the traditional public hearing model that people associate | :29:17. | :29:20. | |
with inquiries of this kind to the thousands and thousands of | :29:21. | :29:24. | |
institutions in England and Wales, we would fail. There is no | :29:25. | :29:28. | |
possibility that we can do that. However, we will apply it to some, | :29:29. | :29:33. | |
that will not be the main ways in which we will take this inquiry | :29:34. | :29:35. | |
forward. The Prime Minister, the Home | :29:36. | :29:44. | |
Secretary and a new enquiry chair will be hoping some answers into a | :29:45. | :29:48. | |
dark past may be provided by the end of the decade. But for now questions | :29:49. | :29:52. | |
will continue to hang over this enquiry. | :29:53. | :29:54. | |
As you heard, tomorrow the Home Secretary and her permanent | :29:55. | :29:57. | |
secretary will appear before the Commons Home Affairs | :29:58. | :29:59. | |
One of its members and a candidate for the chairmanship, | :30:00. | :30:02. | |
Good evening. Do you think Amber Rudd unreasonably misled the | :30:03. | :30:14. | |
committee when she met before and said, you know, Dame Lowell Goddard | :30:15. | :30:21. | |
art resigned because she was isolated and wanted to go home? When | :30:22. | :30:30. | |
the Home Secretary gave evidence to us on the committee she was | :30:31. | :30:34. | |
referring to the reasons that were given to her by Dame Lowell Goddard | :30:35. | :30:38. | |
art as to why she left. Whether at that point there was more, we don't | :30:39. | :30:46. | |
know. There might have been legal reasons to speculate why she had | :30:47. | :30:55. | |
gone. But Dame Goddard has gone now. There are a number of issues that go | :30:56. | :30:59. | |
beyond the head of enquiry. One is the extent to which the controlling | :31:00. | :31:03. | |
mind of the enquiry is impacted or influenced by the Home Office. | :31:04. | :31:07. | |
Before 1971 the Home Office had a role in inspecting and approving the | :31:08. | :31:12. | |
heads of children's homes were a lot of these awful things happened. If | :31:13. | :31:15. | |
you have an enquiry that is dominated by Home Office personnel | :31:16. | :31:23. | |
that's possible. I dated anybody has an issue with Herrerin abilities. | :31:24. | :31:28. | |
She was in the social work profession for over three decades. | :31:29. | :31:33. | |
-- with her abilities. We shouldn't sweep that under the carpet. That | :31:34. | :31:38. | |
needs to be dealt with. Are you suggesting maybe it needs another | :31:39. | :31:46. | |
chair? Alexis J isn't the right chair? I'm not saying that. -- | :31:47. | :31:54. | |
Alexis Jay. Some survivors will not trust a social worker. The question. | :31:55. | :31:59. | |
I'm not raising that. The survivors are. -- that is a good question. | :32:00. | :32:06. | |
They have got to be the primary concern. If they say that is an | :32:07. | :32:09. | |
issue for then you have to deal with it, you cannot pretend it away. Some | :32:10. | :32:14. | |
hope we can just get on with this, we cannot keep changing the head. | :32:15. | :32:17. | |
Absolutely. I think people chair that view. The professor will be | :32:18. | :32:26. | |
appearing tomorrow in front of the committee. She wants this to be done | :32:27. | :32:31. | |
by 2020. One of the controversy is coming out the Department of Dame | :32:32. | :32:37. | |
Goddard is that you should forget about the past and focus on the | :32:38. | :32:41. | |
future. I would say that would be wholly unacceptable to my | :32:42. | :32:44. | |
constituents. What happened to them may have been in the past but they | :32:45. | :32:47. | |
live with it every day and will continue to do so in the future. One | :32:48. | :32:54. | |
of the things Dame Goddard suggested was that there was under sourcing of | :32:55. | :33:00. | |
the enquiry. But they refounded the Home Office. This is why it would be | :33:01. | :33:19. | |
good to have judge Goddard B there. -- Goddard be there. Were they | :33:20. | :33:29. | |
sitting on this? I don't know. That will be a line of enquiry. Thanks | :33:30. | :33:33. | |
very much. At one point, we were | :33:34. | :33:34. | |
expecting a decision It's probably next week now, | :33:35. | :33:36. | |
but hey, we've been waiting 48 years so another few days is neither | :33:37. | :33:41. | |
here nor there. But Nick Watt is back with me | :33:42. | :33:43. | |
with news on how the Government might push Heathrow, | :33:44. | :33:47. | |
if it is selected as the favoured What are they thinking? The Cabinet | :33:48. | :33:56. | |
will discuss tomorrow whether or where to build a new runway in the | :33:57. | :34:01. | |
south-east. We know that the Cabinet subcommittee will meet next week, | :34:02. | :34:04. | |
will make a decision, announced it next week. The government is | :34:05. | :34:09. | |
planning to hold a Commons vote within a week of that announcement. | :34:10. | :34:13. | |
They are obliged to hold a formal vote. It is a national strategy | :34:14. | :34:20. | |
policy statement. Within a few months. But they want to go much | :34:21. | :34:23. | |
earlier to stop opponents building up steam. If they were to go to | :34:24. | :34:28. | |
Heathrow, Zac Goldsmith could have his by-election but they would hope | :34:29. | :34:31. | |
they would have the numbers in parliament to have parliament | :34:32. | :34:35. | |
approve it by then. There is speculation they might overheat and | :34:36. | :34:39. | |
Gatwick. I am told they will go for one of the three options. -- there | :34:40. | :34:44. | |
is speculation they might have one at Heathrow and Gatwick. Tell us | :34:45. | :34:52. | |
which one. You must know. If you are going to one option, it looks like | :34:53. | :34:55. | |
you are following the airports commission. If you are following | :34:56. | :34:59. | |
Howard Davies you are going for a third runway at Heathrow. But | :35:00. | :35:03. | |
ministers are saying no decision has been made yet. The Prime Minister | :35:04. | :35:06. | |
wants to hear from the Cabinet. They will follow the information. Those | :35:07. | :35:11. | |
members on the subcommittee have a pile of papers, they need to do | :35:12. | :35:14. | |
their homework, then they will publish it. | :35:15. | :35:16. | |
Well, airports and aeroplanes are often seen as one of the main | :35:17. | :35:19. | |
culprits of toxic emissions by those who seek to improve | :35:20. | :35:22. | |
But those of us who bought diesel cars, thinking that would help, | :35:23. | :35:26. | |
have known for a while now that we are actually poisoning our fellow | :35:27. | :35:31. | |
citizens with toxic emissions that are far worse than we'd | :35:32. | :35:33. | |
down or use Brexit as a chance to dump the EU-mandated levels | :35:34. | :35:51. | |
Our technology editor, David Grossman, has been looking | :35:52. | :35:54. | |
at the UK's commitment - or lack thereof - to cleaner air. | :35:55. | :35:59. | |
The cycle path up the side of the A3 is not the prettiest | :36:00. | :36:07. | |
but it is pretty fast, and at least I am separated | :36:08. | :36:09. | |
What I'm not separated from, of course, are the fumes. | :36:10. | :36:18. | |
This bike has been fitted with an air quality monitor. | :36:19. | :36:26. | |
The main thing it's measuring is nitrogen dioxide. | :36:27. | :36:29. | |
What that does to the human body can be pretty nasty. | :36:30. | :36:34. | |
In simple terms that's going to increase your susceptibility | :36:35. | :36:36. | |
It's going to increase your risk of having, say, | :36:37. | :36:43. | |
It's going to make you more susceptible | :36:44. | :36:46. | |
If you've got asthma or sensitive lungs it might make you more prone | :36:47. | :36:55. | |
A strict EU limit came into force in 2010. | :36:56. | :37:01. | |
An annual mean of 40 micrograms per cubic metre of air. | :37:02. | :37:04. | |
However, the government won't enforce it until 2024 | :37:05. | :37:06. | |
for the UK as a whole, and even later, 2025, for London. | :37:07. | :37:11. | |
Frankly it's enough to make you want to hold your breath | :37:12. | :37:17. | |
And here is the 40 micrograms annual mean limit. | :37:18. | :37:28. | |
My journey up the A3 was swimming in nitrogen dioxide. | :37:29. | :37:31. | |
But the biggest spike of the day was appropriately enough | :37:32. | :37:33. | |
Tomorrow the environmental lawyers Client Earth are continuing their | :37:34. | :37:37. | |
We need to go back to court now with the government because this | :37:38. | :37:47. | |
government in the 35 years that I've been doing environmental work | :37:48. | :37:50. | |
is the most reluctant to follow the law when it comes to important | :37:51. | :37:53. | |
We have 40,000 people a year dying early in the UK | :37:54. | :37:56. | |
And the government has done in its heels and said we're just not | :37:57. | :38:01. | |
going to comply anywhere near the time we are supposed to. | :38:02. | :38:04. | |
They were supposed to comply in 2010. | :38:05. | :38:06. | |
They are now saying in London it will be 2025. | :38:07. | :38:08. | |
But their own plan shows it won't be anywhere near 2025. | :38:09. | :38:16. | |
So why has the UK struggled to meet air quality laws that were supposed | :38:17. | :38:22. | |
Up until May Stephen Heidari-Robinson was David Cameron's | :38:23. | :38:26. | |
adviser on energy and the environment. | :38:27. | :38:28. | |
He says one reason is we do too much computer modelling and not | :38:29. | :38:31. | |
As you've done today, going around and actually measuring | :38:32. | :38:38. | |
things, it's probably the right way forward. | :38:39. | :38:42. | |
I think the second is you sort of look at these numbers | :38:43. | :38:45. | |
and you struggle to see why they are not going down. | :38:46. | :38:48. | |
And that's a large proportion of what happened with the VW scandal. | :38:49. | :38:51. | |
It turns out that actually emissions from diesel vehicles are six times | :38:52. | :38:54. | |
This problem is largely about diesel vehicles. | :38:55. | :39:00. | |
Really we need to address that issue if we want to solve | :39:01. | :39:03. | |
But given the scale of solving that problem, and meeting | :39:04. | :39:12. | |
those EU legal limits, there is some concern | :39:13. | :39:15. | |
that the government might try to use Brexit to abandon them or perhaps | :39:16. | :39:18. | |
Last month the Commons environment audit select committee couldn't get | :39:19. | :39:21. | |
Are you giving a commitment that standards will be higher, | :39:22. | :39:26. | |
or at least at the level of the European standards? | :39:27. | :39:28. | |
I'm saying to you what I've said to you previously, | :39:29. | :39:33. | |
that we want better air quality we have today. | :39:34. | :39:39. | |
-- that we want better air quality than we have today. | :39:40. | :39:42. | |
And that's what we'll be working, to that outcome. | :39:43. | :39:45. | |
Today we have enforceable legal standards. | :39:46. | :39:47. | |
I'm just wondering if you were going to keep them, that's all, | :39:48. | :39:50. | |
Will the government which is so reluctant to comply | :39:51. | :40:06. | |
with the law try to move away in the Brexit process? | :40:07. | :40:09. | |
And so will thousands of our citizens. | :40:10. | :40:16. | |
It would actually give us the best standards in the world. | :40:17. | :40:20. | |
In the meantime air pollution continues to damage thousands | :40:21. | :40:24. | |
As for me I think I'll take the long route through the park from now on. | :40:25. | :40:43. | |
in The Times on a story that David Cameron wasted ?1 billion on the | :40:44. | :41:00. | |
Troubled Families Programme. They suppressed the report. They wasted | :41:01. | :41:04. | |
money on that particular scheme. That's almost it for tonight, | :41:05. | :41:08. | |
but if you're not fortunate enough to have a baby boomer index linked | :41:09. | :41:11. | |
final salary pension, you probably didn't attend | :41:12. | :41:13. | |
the Desert Trip concert in California this weekend, | :41:14. | :41:15. | |
unkindly dubbed Oldstock The average age of the | :41:16. | :41:17. | |
headline acts was 72, The cheapest seat was $199, | :41:18. | :41:20. | |
the most expensive $3,000. Anyway, for everyone else, | :41:21. | :41:27. | |
here it is in 40 seconds. # People try to put us down | :41:28. | :41:46. | |
# Talking about my generation #. # Been around for many a long year | :41:47. | :41:55. | |
#. # I hope I die before I get old #. | :41:56. | :42:03. | |
# All we are saying... #. # We are just two young souls | :42:04. | :42:08. | |
swimming in a fishbowl # Year after year #. | :42:09. | :42:13. | |
If you have managed to avoid the showers over the past few days it | :42:14. | :42:18. | |
has felt good in the sunshine. A chillier feel thanks to a cold front | :42:19. | :42:23. | |
which will sweep down the country in the next few hours. Away from that, | :42:24. | :42:27. | |
sunshine, but some showers tomorrow in northern parts of the UK, | :42:28. | :42:33. | |
Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Temperature is | :42:34. | :42:34. |