28/11/2016 Newsnight

Governments of different political persuasions have tried to eradicate

Tomorrow, Theresa May's Government will say how it hopes

But do the solutions match the problem?

We'll look at both sides of the argument.

Also tonight, as government-backed forces take more territory,

They captured the civilians, they took the activists,

they shooted them immediately without any hesitation.

For all his faults, he was a great man.

Or should it be, for all his achievements, he was

Tariq Ali and Peter Hitchens will argue that one out.

A lot changed after the Brexit vote, quite apart from Brexit.

Not least we got a new Government and a new ethos that the economic

rules have to change, they've been tilted too far

in favour of the well-to-do and have left hard-working,

Now the big question is whether this Government or anyone else has

an idea as to what to actually do, apart from making speeches.

The Government is expected to publish its Green Paper

on tackling what it sees as corporate excess,

Will it force companies to reveal the gap between their CEO pay

Or insist workers should have a role in the bosses' remuneration?

The truth is, we've been banging on about this for some time.

Executive pay generally, it could be argued that the bosses

are creaming away money that should rightly go to the shareholders.

Even I have had cause to talk about it.

Well, a lot has changed since then, but chief executive

In fact it several times higher than it's was back then.

Bosses seem very good at controlling costs, except the costs of bosses.

This is recognised as a problem by fans of capitalism

Quite a bit has been tried in those intervening years to curb it and yet

Look, I think there's been a succession over five or six years

of pay outs that have not been in any one's interests.

Some of the banks, I think, paid out disgracefully

There was a time when one or two of them were paying three times

more in bonuses to top executives than in total dividends

That means the pension funds of which you and I are

First on everybody's list of what to do is to force

disclosure, Shine a light on what is happening.

Companies have long had to reveal directors' pay.

It was enshrined in law in 2002 and beefed up under the coalition.

By publishing the pay ratio, the ratio between the total chief

executive compensation and average worker pay,

it will make companies think very carefully about how they're

paying their chief executive and senior directors

I think it will give real focus to that area which I think

The second approach is to give more power to shareholders to thwart pay.

The so-called say on pay gives shareholders limited power,

a binding vote on the remuneration policy, every three years.

But those voting shareholders are generally fund managers looking

after our money but who are wrapped up in a City culture

In the case of BP earlier this year, 59% of shareholders voted

against the chief executive's ?14 million pay package

and the company simply ignored the vote.

But I think by getting shareholders involved right at the beginning

of the process, and in fact give them the power to effectively

approve the remuneration package, a shareholders' committee before it

even gets to the AGM, you can deal with these issues early

before it becomes a very public confrontation at the annual AGM.

It might take really draconian ideas like pay caps to work.

Simply not done, old boy, not in this country.

I'll tell you why this is so difficult.

Basically everybody, the whole sphere of society

that is involved in setting executive pay has a shared sense

of what the going rate for the Chief Executive of a big

company is, it's in the millions of pounds.

That culture or norm is very hard to dislodge.

No single company believes it can do it on its own.

Somehow, you have to reset everybody's expectations.

So, is the 2016 attempt to rewrite the rules going to be any more

And is executive pay the problem most people think?

Joining me now is Sam Bowman, executive director of

And Mariana Mazzucato, Professor of Economics

Is it a problem, first of all? It's a problem. It's been getting worse.

That's very important to say. You just said that you did this

programme 18 years ago saying that there was a problem. 18 years ago

the difference was 45-#1, the average worker earned 45 times less

than CEOs. Today it's 180. Maybe it was wrong before. Sure. But this is

about corporate governance. It's important not to criminalise this,

as though it's just bad behaviour. What have we allowed in a particular

type of capitalism, there's varieties of capitalism. This is

shareholder-driven capitalism. Versus stake holding capitalism. The

number one company in the world in telecoms is a Co-operative and

doesn't have this big difference. Ericson as well. These are companies

that have decided to boost share prices, to boost stock options and

boost executive pay. That's a decision related to corporate

governance. We have to question this corporate governance model. You come

from a more Libertarian angle. I assume you'll say it is up to the

shareholders who own the company to decide what the remuneration is, am

I right? You are right. A more interesting question is - are you

right? Is the increase in the ratio simply because shareholders have

become more lazy? Maybe these committees are better at giving

themselves money? Or perhaps it's because globalisation means having a

good executive is more important than 20 years ago? We look at the

evidence. We look at the share price changes when CEOs either die or

leave their companies suddenly. We can see whether that's changed more

dramatically in the last couple of years than before. It turns out when

we look at the evidence over not just the last 20 years, but 50

years, there's been a steady upward change in the importance of a CEO to

a company. You're not telling me that these people need to be paid -

Yes, I am. You don't need to pay them that to get them to do the job.

In 45 minutes, one earns what the average worker earns in a year -

that's not excessive? The importance of a CEO is huge to a firm. If you

were Sony or Samsung 15 years ago. Samsung invested in smartphones.

Sony didn't. They made the right call. CEOs the decisions they make

matter enormously. We look at share prices. When Burberry lost their CEO

they lost ?500 million in one day. You're not going to dispute the fact

that they make a big difference to corporations presumably? Many

companies that have this excessive difference, I think it's excessive,

have not, during the time that this pay difference has increased, become

more productive, produced better products. If you look at the

pharmaceutical - It's not a question of the company. It's the question of

the executive. Is the executive more important than 20 years ago? Because

of globalisation the answer is yes. This goes back to the theory of

where wealth comes from. The stake holder model doesn't say that

executives are not important, it admits there are other people who

are also important. For example the workers, would do sit on the board

in many parts of the world. This isn't just a big idea that Theresa

May had. Scandinavia, Germany and Austria, where I was last week, this

is an admission that there's different collective actors that

take part in making companies successful. If you're right, then

all stock markets, all institutional investors with billions of pounds on

the line, other people's money and their own money are wrong. Adam

Smith, that your institute was named after, what he meant by the free

market was free from rent, free from rent. We're talking about massive

rent seeking. I tell you what - Talking about value creation as

though the executives have, over time, become more important for the

creation of value. That's what the evidence tells uses. Wait -- tells

us. Wait, wait. I did want to get into the practicalities. Let's

accept that your objective is to narrow the gap and get executive pay

down. We can carry on afterwards, do you think the kind of things you've

heard about publishing ratios, putting a worker on the remuneration

committee, does that match the scale of it? It's not a worker. It's trade

unions, yes. They're very important in negotiating and also thinking

about future investments. They should be on the boards, not just to

limit the pay. This is also, though it sounds defensive, this is of the

opportunities that are needed so when profits of companies are

re-invested in the future, in innovation, this is good for society

as a whole. Workers on the board would be fighting for that as

opposed to things like share buy backs, which have increased

massively. Workers on the board is a terrible poll similarity it's been

done in Germany. It's failed. One of the reasons Volkswagen went down is

because the board's atmosphere was poisonous. The chief executive

collaborated with the union represents and drove up costs. We

should encourage firms to give stakes in the firm. Publishing

ratios, does it carry the risk if you publish the ratio of the

executive pay to the average, they will outsource the low paid staff,

as lots of companies do, in order that the average pay of the

remaining staff looks higher. This area is replete with perverse

incentives. Why should they publish these payments of the differences?

Not because this is crim that behaviour, but -- criminal

behaviour, but as an indicator of something that is problematic. We

should focus on what's happening in the companies. Are they investing

the profits in the future growth? We have record level hording,

financialisation, using profits to boost your stock options which is

the main way these executives get paid. It's not that executives

aren't good. It's how important the executive is to the well being of

the company. You are generally seen on the right of politics, are you

worried by the drift of where society's going. Clearly, populism,

governments coming in are saying we've had enough. We hear about

post-truth politics. The evidence is clear that executives matter a lot.

What the Government's doing, maybe Theresa May believes in what she's

doing. More likely, she's trying to win votes. It's really sad that

very, very few people, even executives themselves, because

they're worried about how it looks to the public, are willing to say

look at the evidence, look at the importance of good CEOs because of

globalisation now, to the well being of their firms. We have to leave it

there. They're getting paid, so they're more valuable, that's wrong.

That's not what we're saying... Thank you very much indeed.

These are dark days for Syria's rebels in Aleppo.

In the last two days, Syrian government forces have

captured more than a third of rebel-held territory in eastern

Assad's forces seem to have all the cards, and it could be

that we are heading to some kind of last phase in what has

How far as the situation deteriorated? This war's been going

on for years, terrible suffering, a stalemate in so many ways. We have

seen in recent weeks quite a big change in Aleppo, what was the

commercial powerhouse of Syria in many ways, the great prize. If we

look at a map, we can see what's been happening since the summer.

You've got the crimson there, the rebel control and the green for the

government control. The yellow area are Kurdish group YPG who are

effectively allied to Assad in this battle. Over the summer, we've see

shrinkage on various fronts, the Syrian army has pushed the rebels

back and made that pocket smaller and smaller. Then this dramatic

change in the last few days, hundreds of air strikes, advances

from the east. That whole area in purple now gone for the rebels.

We've seen thousands of people on the move. We can look at video. Some

of these people heading towards that Kurdish area, seen as being in some

way not as dangerous for them having been on the rebel side. Others we've

seen boarding these notorious green buses that come to take people into

Assad territory. This has happened in many places like Homs and other

cities, when deals have been done to take the civilians out, when frankly

they've had enough. It is a big change. People in the city, many of

them feel the end is near. The end is near for Aleppo. What's

the significance of that in the bigger Syrian Civil War? It is very

significant in itself. President Assad is preoccupied with gaining

the prize. All sorts of things are lining up in his favour. Until the

US elections he thought he might deal with a Nato no-fly zone in the

north of the country. He knows that's not going to happen now.

President Obama has been pretty quiet about this. President Trump

has promised to defund the so-called moderate opposition. Things are

stacking up against them on all sides. Possibility that they may

even go into some sort of compact with the Russians, particularly

against Isis in the east of Syria. Things are really stacking up

against the armed opposition groups, but as always in this conflict,

there aren't enough people who support the Assad government to

really take control of all those areas they capture. In that sense,

there is no military solution. #12k34r thanks very much.

Earlier tonight I spoke to Ismail Alabdullah, who volunteers

with the White Helmets, a rescue organisation

I spoke to him two months ago and conditions were very bad then.

Actually the situation has become worse than ever, and I mean ever.

Since 15 days until now, Aleppo city under heaviest bombing ever.

Nonstop bombing from the very beginning in the morning up

until midnight by all kinds of weapons.

The bombing intensified more and more.

You're sounding exhausted, have you been up for

Actually I was trapped by the bombing, I couldn't move

When I tried to move, another mortar hit my place there.

I survived, I ran quickly to somewhere safe.

That time, another warplane dropped a rocket and a big explosion.

This situation, how can anyone do his job, to save

It's appalling, what you're describing.

You and I spoke two months ago and I asked whether you thought

it would be better to get out,

And you said no, not right now, that was two months ago.

And then you said if it gets much worse, maybe it will change.

What is the mood as to how to respond?

Now, most of the people want to leave the city.

Most of the people want to leave the city because they know now,

Russians, Assad's forces and maybe the new president of the US,

all of them want to kill those people who said no to Assad.

Now, the international community has let us down, let the people down.

Even this, even food kits for the poor people,

for the widows and for the orphans, medication, medicine

Even to get new doctors to the city.

Evacuate the injured people, they didn't respond.

Now, all the world let us down and we are facing big...

I don't know, maybe a big massacre will be in the coming days

Do you think if you put up a white flag, if you put up

the white flag and say, we surrender, do you think

the Syrian forces, the Russian forces would recognise that white

flag and protect you or do you fear that you would be

This has happened many times, it isn't the first time.

That happened in Daraa, that happened in Al Ghouta,

that happened, many massacres from Assad's forces,

and that happened today in one of the neighbourhoods

which was taken control of by Assad's forces.

They captured the civilians, they took the activists,

they shooted them immediately without any hesitation.

Thank you very much for talking to us and I hope to talk

A lot has been said about Fidel Castro in the last three days,

with the usual competing narratives of his life.

Looking back on his record, many on the left are keen

to give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to his

Of course, they wouldn't extend that benefit to a Conservative prime

minister and find it unconscionable when right-wing figures defend

So we'll discuss what makes some offences forgivable,

But much of the recent commentary has been from those

One person who did was our own Stephen Smith, who wrote

a book about the country and its then president.

There's an argument that the 60s began not in 1963

but in '59 with the Cuban Revolution.

In the 60s, you were nothing if there wasn't

And Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the others were lucky

in their court artist artist, Alberto Korda, in

His image of Che appeared on the walls of student digs more

And even inspired revolutionaries close to home, not

I was never keen on T-shirts and badges at the time

of the anti-apartheid struggle and the radicalism in which I grew

up in British politics in the late 60s and 70s.

I always, I was always interested in the Cuban revolution,

very sympathetic to it, as a battle for justice

against a fascist dictator, but I never had a starry eyed view

The world wasn't used to seeing political leaders

They embodied a revolutionary chic that just had not been seen before.

You had to think of the traditional men in power, and they were men,

tending to be dressed in suits, definitely without the beards.

There was something different about these revolutionaries

who weren't afraid to dress in fatigues and carry rifles,

But they also, I think, in terms of the culture,

they encouraged people to come to the island,

Cuba has always been cool, though perhaps less

The classic film, Soya Cuba, I Am Cuba, which was using long

uncut shots 50 years before Birdman, and portrays the last years

of the Batista regime, when the island was a flash pot

In Latin America, Cuba showed what was possible.

After the Cuban revolution, change and alternative

to capitalism, an alternative to the kind of dictatorships that,

like Batista's, like Trujillo's, seemed possible and this

was a radically new opportunity for Latin America compared

Alongside Cuba's much vaunted achievements in health

and education at home, anti-apartheid campaigners credit

Castro's decision to send troops to Africa with adding

I think he played a very important role in the anti-apartheid struggle

by defeating the South African army with his Cuban troops in Angola,

I also think he did lots of fantastic things for health

and free education as well, and conquering poverty in a region

where poverty and bad health and education was rife.

But I cannot justify his human rights abuses.

Over a pub in London tonight, the Cuba Solidarity Campaign pressed

ahead with film night, despite the official mourning

They don't doubt Castro's contribution.

I think his legacy will not just be on education,

on health and the social life of Cuba, which has improved

Nothing compared with the bordello that it was before.

The revolution is about more than one person.

The revolution has brought forth a society, a model

of society that will endure because it is a model that works.

Castro famously claimed that history would absolve him.

What's less well-known is the riposte from a dissident

Cuban writer who settled in London and said that history

In a moment we'll debate the attitudes of the British

from France over the internet by Erik Durschmied, a journalist

who went to find Castro in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra

in the autumn of 1958, before the revolution,

where he conducted one of the first interviews with him.

There is not communism or Marxism in our ideas.

Our political philosophy is representative democracy,

and social justice in a well-planned economy.

You didn't think you would hear that from Fidel Castro!

Good evening, what is the story, how did you find him? Very simple, I

took my old car it was an old folks for them and I drove from Canada

into Cuba into the mountains -- it was an old Volkswagen. I thought I

would get hold of this man. I got out of the car and I told him who I

was and he said, come with us. It took us three weeks to get up the

hill, I guess they took us on a very tortuous road but I've finally made

it and got to the top of the hill and I is the Nene knew who he was

because he was so much taller and impressive compared Mac anybody

else. -- than anybody else. He was the great manipulator, he was full

of himself, he believed in his own gospel, I guess and at that time I'm

sure he was not a Cobeno because there was certainly no indication in

his camp -- not a communist. It was like an aboriginal tribe living in

trees and the whole myth about the great forces of Castro, there were

never more than 200 people at the most in the camp. There was no other

front. Remarkable that the merry band could go on and take the

country. What were the attributes, when you observed him, did he look

like a brutal man, a thoughtful man? Or just an alpha male lording it

over a gang? At the beginning, I thought of him as a sort of band it

up in the mountings, a revolutionary, I guess. Bans a

bandit. I'd never met a revolutionary before that. He was

quite years older than I am. But we struck it off quite well and I

stayed several months with him. It was quite an amazing time. I've

finally got to know him well. I'm sure he was very sincere in what he

was trying to do. What happened later to him is something else but

in these days in the mountains I think he was, he was like Moses

coming down from the mountain. Wow. He had one weapon that nobody

understood at the time, neither the Americans and certainly not Batista,

he had his voice, which was on the radio every night. Were you fooled

by him, seduced by him? Did you find yourself going native and deporting

the guy? It sounds like it a bit! I was certainly impressed by him. He

was so charismatic. It was incredible. He's just... I guess he

manipulated everybody. I think at the time, and I said it many times,

and the time he was really sincere. I've met him on a few occasions late

on, he invited me back and opened the doors for me. But it was a

different man, it wasn't any more that man that I had lived with and

met up in the mountains. It's interesting because the romantic

myth of the rabble in the mountings plotting to oust the brutal

dictator, that myth has lasted. It may not have lasted for you but it

has lasted for many people. And maybe that is wiped some people, on

the left, have overlooked things that they wouldn't overlook for

other people. I think he changed. Whether he was

pushed into this change by the Americans who didn't understand him,

I mean, you know, when you came to Havana in these days, I mean I only

went through Havana on my way into the mountains. But it was a sort of

bordellos and casinos and the rich and the happy. At the same time, he

talked on the radio every night and he said, "I'm going to do something

else. I'm going to change this country. We're going to be free.

We're not going to be any more linked to the Americans." There was

this joke, story going in Cuba about what's the longest cow in the world,

and the answer was - the head is in Cuba and the udders are milked in

the United States. That basically was the way that the Cubans felt, I

guess. He managed to talk to them on the radio, because even when they

finally won the revolution, I am convinced there were not more than

400 fighters. Batista had an army of 40,000. Thank you very much.

Joining me now is Tariq Ali, who, among many other things,

has written the introduction to a book of Fidel

We're also joined by Peter Hitchens, who is a columnist for

Just picking up from that kind of revolutionary in the hills, do you

think that will shape the romantic love for the man in the years after?

People wanted to believe it. Much of it was a myth from the start.

Batista was really overthrown by the Americans, who withdrew arms

supplies and told him he would have to quit. Castro simply moved into

the vacuum left by the collapse. The interesting thing about that is how

pit filly small Castro's band of brothers were. Yet he used

expressions such as moss coming down from the Mo -- Moses coming down

from the mountain. It's pathetic. Why do people want to swoon over

him? He was a young guy and maybe - OK, it is just one of those strange

things which people seem to want to believe in great leaders and great

men. You were a swooner, weren't you? You definitely swooned. I read

you some stuff. You put your name to aler in the Guardian about 11 years

ago. There has not been a single case of disappearance corpsure or

extra judicial prosecution since 1959 in Cuba. Is that true? Those

were the figures we obtained before I signed that letters. Why don't we

start with what Cuba was before the revolution? It was effectively an

American brothel run by the Mafia, seen as an American colony. The

Cuban revolutionaries, partially because the Americans withdrew

support from the dictator organised more and more support. It wasn't

just 200 people. The July 26 movement became a huge mass movement

and got rid of that. The reason for the support Castro enjoyed was

largely because people didn't want to go back being what they were, an

American colony. That is the key thing to understand. Like all

revolutions, they kill the one king and then they have to put something

in its place. But they didn't want to become a Soviet Colony. None of

that had any idea that was going to happen. Castro pretended or

genuinely Ted, and we don't know what the truth is, that he wasn't a

Communist and wasn't going to do this. Yet very quickly they became a

Soviet Colony, in which opposition to Castro was treated with the most

extraordinary brutality. It may be that people didn't officially

disappear, but I have to say, they were certainly tortured. One of the

Castro's original comrades and very much a strong opponent of Batista

when he said to Castro, I don't support your turn towards Soviet

Communism, Castro threw him into prison for 20 years, 16 in solitary

confinement and arranged for him to be tortured. I have to finish,

because the torture issue is here. His own account of this says his

genitals were pierced during his imprisonment, if that's not torture,

I don't know what is. Do you accept that there was solitary confinement,

gay people sent for re-education. Hang on one at a time. Why one at a

time. They go together or they don't. I don't deny that. I think

the way gay people were treated was appalling. I think the way in which

political prisoners at that time were treated was not great either.

If Mike Pence did that in the United States, if Mike Pence in Indiana had

been sending - you would be the first complaining and protesting and

saying this man is a monster. I would also see which side I'm on.

This is it. I was on the side and am on the side of the best things that

revolution has done. I don't deny that at all. Of course, it's not

flawless. They made huge number of mistakes. They, many of them, admit

it, and it wasn't, they never pretended they were a democracy. It

was essentialally a revolutionary dictatorship. I would say these

dictatorships are social. They do a great deal for their people on

health, on education - Hang on, you've just admitted all this stuff.

Hang on, first of all Castro did talk about representative democracy.

He did. Then he simply, I think said he was an located president. He did

say that. He did make promises of that kind. Most people believed he

would be actually running a freer government than the Batista

government. It was worse than that. You're going over the top. It was

not worse than that. If it had been worse than that, he would have been

toppled and when the Americans invaded him at the Bay of Pigs, why

wasn't there a mass uprising, which the Cuban emigres had promises the

Americans. There's a huge difference between discontented in a regime and

having a mass uprising. You're a generous, thoughtful person with a

sense of humour and proportion, but you won't take the step of saying

whatever good this regime may or may not have done, and it's questionable

whether it did - Any good at all? I haven't finished the question I was

going to answer. Quick, quick. The actions of Castro towards his

opposition were indefensible. Torture, forcing people to eat their

own excrement, locking people up 20 years for disagreeing with him. I

want him time to answer. Pinochet did a lot of those things. You don't

say for all his faults... Hang on, he wiped out 30,000 people for God

sake. How can you compare Pinochet to Castro. Because... Why mention

him? It's about... Which government supported Pinochet. It's because the

side you're on, you're willing to forgive all the things. People say

the same about Pinochet. No, even Pinochet's admirers don't say the

same things about him, by the way. They now accept what he did. Chile

is doing what it's doing to obliterate that legacy, which was

backed by the West. Can't you just recognise - This enormous rage you

get into about Pinochet's killing, but what about Castro's judicial

murders, the show trials, the shootings, the repeated firing

squads during the first months of his time in power? Utterly lawless.

Hang on. You must have the last word. I want Tariq to have the last

word. The Cubans made a revolution. The Americans tried to stop it. The

Americans punished them for nationalising all the big American

companies and liberating their country socially and economically

that they made mistakes, we know. But you know, the mistakes made by

people, dictators in South America, backed by the United States... You

use the word mistakes were made in a passive way. These things were worse

than anything the United States did. The worst of anything recently has

been the torture at out by who? What use is that as an argument? You

object to it quite rightly because you object to all torture. Yes. You

don't seem to object to it has so much when Castro is involved. No.

This is not true. I object to it, but I say when discussing the Cuban

revolution, one has to discuss a great deal. And not be completely

captured by ideology. Is there anything that excuses torture. No.

Why do you excuse it when Castro does it? We need to leave it there.

Thanks both very much. Fascinating. Straight after Newsnight

you can watch Fidel Castro, America's Nemesis, a special

on Castro's life, here on BBC Two. That's all we've got

time for this evening. I'm back tomorrow. Have a very good

night. Hi there. It's going to be a cold

start to the day across England and Wales. A few places will be minus

six, maybe even