Newsnight's Exam 2017 Newsnight

As we all head back to school after the Christmas holiday,

we've assembled a class of the very brightest students.

And we're giving them a first-day test.

The big questions for the year ahead.

And the shifting structure of super-power politics.

When do you see the United Nations solving problems? They don't. They

cause problems. On Britain, Brexit and politics here. We have set

ourselves on a new direction. And on the European

project: is it populism and retreat this year,

or business as usual? 40 minutes to answer as many

questions as you can. Hello, we haven't put

them in school uniforms, but we have borrowed the chairs

and desks to get into the right mood for the new term,

and to start the year each new term felt like a fresh

start - neatly ironed clothes, And then, very quickly you found

that the new term carried It's the year with the honour -

or dubious honour - So with our brainy panel

of the able, gifted and talented, we'll be trying to predict

what will be happening this year. It's only 17 days now,

until President Trump. So, let's start with some

questions about him, But frankly, we really don't know

much about what he thinks he'll He's already disowned some

of his own campaign lines, No, it's OK. Forget it. That plays

great before the election. No, we don't care, right?

His style is obviously erratic presidential

proclamation by Twitter, leading his fight against the elite

from his expensive New York apartment, with his oddball

It'll be interesting to see how they all get on.

So, question one, what kind of president will President

From President Putin, who hopes he's found

a new best friend, to China, which fears it may have

The truth is there are two populist foreign policies,

He could take the US back to its pre-World War II

America first, who cares about the rest of the world?

Or he could be more internationally assertive, aggressive, even.

Or could he surprise us by being consensual?

So the question, what will the new world order look like?

There is a specific issue facing us all as we wake up

to news of atrocities, month after month.

I have a substantial chance of winning. If I win, I don't want to

broadcast to the enemy exactly what my plan is.

But we do know that he puts less weight on fighting Assad

So a specific question for this year, will the West

Well, some of the questions are essays, some of them a bit shorter.

But there are no right answers at the moment -

But to answer some of these US-led questions, I'm with:

Let's start on Trump. There are two visions, stable, pragmatic Trump who

bases himself in Washington and another Trump, the Twitter Trump,

erratic, unpredictable and perhaps sometimes reckless. Jan

Harper-Hayes, you're from Republicans abroad. Overseas.

Republicans overseas. Which Trump is it going to be? It's not a which

Trump. He's a person of duality. If you think about it, he's very

pragmatic. He's very action oriented. He's very much like Ronald

Reagan. He said Mr Gorbachev tear down that wall. Trump is, I'm going

to build the wall. He is going to be a president like JFK, like LBJ and

even Bill Clinton. You wouldn't have asked Franklin Roosevelt to get off

the radio. You would not have asked JFK to get off the TV. We don't ask

Trump to get off Twitter. Tamsin, you're looking less optimistic.

You're a writer, environmentalist, political activist. It's not the

fact that Trump is on Twitter that we mind. It's what he says. Judging

by what he says and who he poise, there we have his -- he appoints,

there we have in the White House is a racist, sexist, climate change

defire. -- denier. Do you accept that you might be wrong - Hey, it

doesn't matter. You say 2017 might be the year when he is sort of

within normal parameters. I I think the language he has legitimised, the

hate crimes we're seeing across America, can't be just wash add way

in saying hey it doesn't matter. What you incite when you say things

as misogynyst as he has said, when you say we're going to build a wall,

when you exclude people from the vision of the United States of

America, when you exclude people from your country, the language

you're using, then what that provokes is really scary. To be

honest, the only thing that I see good about the Trump era is the

resistance that it will create. I'm excited to see that. Matthew Parris.

You're bigging him up too much. He's just an idiot. The conventional

wisdom has been oh, he's actually very wise. He'll deal, get sensible

people around him. He won't. He's an idiot. America has had a lot of

idiots as presidents. Bush was an idiot and look what he did. He wail

carry on -- will carry on being ridiculous. The State Department

will resist him and Congress. The earth will continue in its orbit.

Ted Malloch you're flying over there tomorrow and hoping to perhaps get a

job in the Trump team. You're based here. Do you accept that there are

idiot-like features in Donald Trump? No, we had an election and we won

that election. The American public has spoken. Trump is not any of the

things that has been described. He's a fabulously successful business

person, who placed -- plays chess frankly two moves ahead of everybody

else on the board. I think we're likely to have a near American

nirvana in the next 100 days. It won't even take a year. His approval

rate figures a year's time, let's make a prediction, you think they'll

be... 60%. Running very high. Perhaps the real test is in his

foreign policy, between these two Trumps I describe, the erratic one

and the more stable one, what are you hoping for from a Trump foreign

policy? Are you hoping he will go out - I actually am not so worried

on the foreign policy side. I think it's looking at the domestic. If you

look at what makes us a strong power, it has been our military, our

economic and soft power, the diplomacy. We have 60 consulates,

embassies, missions. China only has a few. I think that he really wants

to concentrate on America because we have been spending so much money

since the Marshall Plan building other countries up, taking care of

other people. We have a lot of people to take care of at home.

You're answering one of the questions I hinted at in that video

- isolation versus assertiveness internationally. You think he'll,

it's going to be more - the world should expect more isolation? No,

again, it's like everyone took Trump literally instead of seriously. When

you take him literally you take phrases out of context and

misinterpret him. It is not isolationism. He wants to do

bilateral agreements. It makes so much sense in the changing world

today that when you're doing bilateral, if things aren't working

between the two of you, don't worry about 15 other countries.

Renegotiate and make things work. That's the direction he's taking,

not isolationism. One big issue, Paris agreement, climate change,

let's face it, it's taken quite a lot of painful negotiations. It's

taken years of people's lives. The commit to get that - sorry. What are

you expecting over the next year? I don't know what to expect. I fear

that he will take the United States out of Paris agreement. And if he

does that, it lays waste to the relentless work of an international

community who are set on protecting our future against climate change.

That's why they meet and that's what they've come up with, their best

effort to do that. It took decades to get there. Now we have a

president who is treating it like it's children's home work that he

can tear up and throw away. As a generation who is moving into the

climate change world, we are going to have to take positions of power

in a world that will look so different from the one we have today

and to have the most powerful person in the world appointing climate

change sceptics... Can you give any assurance? No, it's quite likely

that America will be first again. That America will be more

unilateral. It will be more bilateral and it will be much less

multilateral in a Trump administration. Which means things

like that treaty and other multilateral accords and certainly

your comments on the United Nations, I would agree are likely to take the

back seat. Dia Chakravarty, I know you're a Brexiteer here. You're on

the right of politics. Are you hopeful or fearful for the next year

in Trump terms? The way I describe myself would be a liberal really. I

believe in liberal economic policy. I've not seen much liberalism from

Trump at all. He does talk about cutting taxes, but in the same

breath, he talks about increasing spending. That's debt going up. When

it comes to opening the country for them to trade in, we've seen what

happens with Ford and General Motors just today. None of that is

particularly liberal. So I don't really know what I'm meant to be

excited about here at all. In many respects we've admitted we don't

know what to expect from Trump. He's all over the place. One last

question, the one I put at the end there. Could we begin to win the war

against IS? Jan, Ted, speaking for Trump, do you think this is going to

be a turning point, Matthew perhaps? We can't win the war against IS, but

we can't lose the war against IS either. There's no danger of that.

In the end, I imagine that IS will disappear and be replaced by

something else. Remember there was Al-Qaeda before them. The Taliban

before them. There'll be something else that follow them. The thing

will just smoulder on. Jan, put in a last. From foreign policy stand

point what he really cares about is attempting to defeat Isis. Working

with all of our allies and working with the Middle East. He would

rather have the Middle Eastern countries set up camps for the

people to stay there, to help out financially, but not go over and

deal with it. And cyber security is going to be top on his list, both in

relation to Isis and hacking and everything else. Cyber security is

going to be on Donald Trump's list. I thought he was quite relaxed about

this. You know what, I guess, I don't know how to respond at this

point now that he's president-elect, when people make fun of him or when

people make him a dichotomy or an either-or. The fact of the matter is

cyber security is something that impacts all countries. So he wants

to work with our allies to share information, to share intelligence,

to get around the data protection aspects in Europe. The more we share

information, the more we can keep all the countries safe. Interesting

take. Let's move on. Right, well let's move

on to the next section of the test. And I suppose it combines politics

and a bit of geography, given that the big issue is how

close to the European Only nerds had heard

of Article 50 a year ago. Now it's all the talk

of the playground. And if all goes to plan,

it'll get used for the first time But because we are pioneering our

course out of the EU, who knows what life in this land

called Article 50 will be like. The living may be easy,

but more likely, yes, more likely, In my opinion, the only alternative

to a hard Brexit is no Brexit. Yes more likely Brexit will be

challenging. The tendency is to think the PM

will call the shots, but the interesting debate will be

among the remaining EU members So the question for Britain

in 2017 is this one. What kind of Brexit

will begin to emerge? By the year-end, we shall

certainly have a clue. Brexit of course is the great schism

these days, which has kind of disrupted the usual

course of politics. Stuck in a dilemma,

Labour has to respect the referendum vote for Leave,

but can't afford to leave the votes Ukip and Tory, even the Lib Dems,

have been taking Labour votes in We're going to be campaigning on

economic justice issues from now on. We're going to be calling out this

Government for increasing inequality and injustice. I think that message

will get across. But is Corbyn enough

of a vote winner? So as we look at 2017,

the big political question We of course had a general

election two years ago, Is it time for another,

for May to get a mandate. So a specific question

for the year ahead, will we be Let's pick up on the Brexit side of

that. Just to get some Brexit views and I believe these three on the

right for the minute. We had you in this studio during the referendum

campaign, do you have any fears about the kind of deal we are going

to get. You were on the Brexit side, any concerns or nervousness about

it? I think we ever did the fear a little bit even before the

referendum. The way we need to look at it, we have got to make this

work. And the constant letting down of the country, from certain

quarters, it is getting tiresome. Sir Ivan Rogers, our most senior

ambassador in Brussels who resigned today, the BBC obtained his

resignation note to his colleagues and he said ministers need to hear

uncomfortable truth, serious negotiating experience is in short

supply in Whitehall, the commission of the council are well prepared and

he said to colleagues, I hope you will continue to challenge ill

founded arguments and muddled thinking and never be afraid to

speak the truth to those in power. Is he just some kind of complainer?

It sounds familiar, we heard all this gloom and doom story before the

referendum then we have the referendum and nothing happened to

completely destroyed the world as we know it. But we kept hearing it was

going to get worse. Then another economic quarter came and things

were still not as bad as predicted. So at this stage I have no reason to

believe him over any of the others constantly trying to warn us before

we actually went through the vote. You were amongst those warning

before we went to the vote, but it would be a bad thing to me. Are you

any more optimistic now? Yes, I did think it would be pretty quickly a

disaster. I now think we may just bump along, not growing quite as

much as we might have. Not exporting, not being the tiger

economy bounding out into the world that was promised. We may just bump

along. But there is one thing that is going to happen in the coming

year and that is the issue everyone is trying to avoid. The question

once we have triggered Article 50, can we change our minds and that is

going to be the big question during 2017. Because I think probably we

can. I do not think we have to leave. You're not thinking that we

might change our minds? A service we realised the UK does not have to do

leave the EU if we do not like the deal we get then Parliament will

become interested again. Matthew Goodwin, you are an expert on the

politics of populism, the parties of the right, outside parties. Do you

think there is any going back now? That we begin to have second

thoughts and maybe patch something together that is more in than out.

There is no evidence of any significant changing of minds

amongst the electorate, it is simply not there. Let me suggest one

possible scenario. There is an assumption at the moment that the

British electorate when they experience some kind of economic

turbulence that they will rush back to the centre and said we have made

a terrible mistake, cancel the whole thing and go back to the EU. There

was a possibility that they would go the other way and say actually, the

EU is not playing ball with us, and they become harder in their views.

That is not being seriously considered at the moment. Because it

will be an unfriendly Brexit that would cause the difficult economic

times and that is the one that makes you not want to go back in. That is

no 1's interests, we want what is good for us but also do not want to

be unfriendly to our neighbours. You heard Donald Tusk saying that the

choice is a hard Brexit board no Brexit. Maybe that is for liberals

like you, that is the difficult truth. It is absolutely true. Soft

Brexit is presumably Norway, where we keep a lot of what we have but we

are not actually in the EU. Who made the best argument against that, it

was the remainders. We said it would be ridiculous and worse than just

being in the EU. If we're going to leave it is probably going to be a

hard wrecks it. -- Brexit. Well we have heard claims about public

opinion, do you agree with that assessment? I must put my hand up, I

have asked a lot, surely now the focus groups are showing that people

now that they know what is happening, they regret it and if we

ran the referendum again they would vote differently. The answer is no

and if anything, I think the other way around. There is some evidence

suggesting people who voted remain now just want to see the thing

through. And it relates back to the Trump argument as well, there is

this sense of the ordinary people against the elite. One guy said to

me in a focus group, when I woke up the next morning and found we had

gone Brexit, I felt England had won the World Cup. He felt it was his

team against the others and he had won. It is a powerful and emotive

thing. Moving on to British politics. Brexit will play into that

I want to bring you in. Someone who knows about the odds. Can the Labour

Party recover? We have an early test in the Copeland by-election. It is

difficult to see how the Labour Party can move on from its current

situation. Their leader is the only leader in the history of labour who

has never had positive ratings on any poll ever. That is a very

serious situation. And the polling just gets worse and worse. You

remember you only get one chance to make a first impression and he made

a bad one. People will be saying that the polls have been wrong, the

experts have been defied. There is an argument that says if Brexit Gus

Bradley the public will vote for someone other than the incumbent

government and Jeremy Corbyn would be an antiestablishment candidate on

the other side and a place they feel they may go. He does not come over

as a credible figure, that is the big problem that Labour face. They

have a leader who is seen as being all over the place, a leader who is

tainted with IRA and other terrorist links. Just remember what the Tories

did to Ed Miliband because he ate a sound which one it awkwardly. -- 8+

which. It is interesting what you say about the sandwich, the media

went for him and so public opinion followed and we are seeing something

similar with Jeremy Corbyn. The polls are following, there is

blanket bad news coverage and now no news coverage really of him. I

really hope that people will get behind him. I'm not thinking you

have much confidence. The Green Party have gone to him and said we

need to form Progressive alliances. That worked in Richmond, we got a

left wing person in, someone who was not a Tory. He needs to explore more

interesting ways and more modern ways of doing government. That is

through alliances. Thinking about Ed Miliband for a moment, in the last

Parliament he was scoring 12, 15% higher than Jeremy Corbyn is now and

we know what happened after that. On the subject of the polls, as you

know, when they get it wrong they tend to understate labour and not

overstated. If they are wrong they are likely to be wrong the other way

round. I think it is worse than you are saying for Jeremy Corbyn because

in focus groups it is not that people do not like him, but he is

literally irrelevant and has nothing to say to them. I did some focus

groups a few weeks ago and I showed a photograph at half the people they

did not know who he was. Jeremy Corbyn is no good but he may go and

you imagine if Ed Balls came back in to leave the Labour Party, imagine

Theresa May stumbles badly. That is a big leap of the imagination.

Forget the leaders, the Labour Party, this is a crisis facing

social democracy, they have run out of ideas. The rules of politics have

changed and the Labour Party and socialists have nothing to say to

that. It is not about Jeremy Corbyn or Labour, it is social democracy

running out of ideas. Just a show of hands, how many feel they will

probably be a general election this year in the UK. And how many do not

think there will be. That was interesting. The rule for exams, if

you do not finish a question it does not matter as long as you said

something clever. And on that note,

we have to move on. We've talked about Brexit,

but Europe has other issues If Trump made the US the country

of global attention in 2016, it is the continent of Europe

which may dominate 2017. She and her National Front

are the ones to watch. She is running at about 25%

in the polls, for the French When the vote comes, given the size

and importance of France, whether she wins or loses

answers the big European Which is, will populism advance or

retreat on the European continent? It's been a rough few

years for the EU. The migrant crisis has

exposed the fragility Schengen for example removed

borders, but some of them went up again very quickly when large

numbers of people came in. Europe's been trapped

between retreating and reinstating national boundaries and advancing

by having a proper common So now we wait for

the answer to this. Will the European project move

further into reverse? Oh, and then of course the biggest

problem of all is the euro. The combination in some countries

of uncompetitiveness, low growth, banks in trouble

and big government debts. Yes, that's Italy, a country

too big to be ignored. So a final quickie,

will the euro survive the year? Let's go straight in on some of

those questions. You are a betting man, what does the current odds on

Marine Le Pen winning the French presidency? About 22% chance. That

is what Trump was given. Yes, indeed. That is what is happening at

the moment. People do not bet to provide an alternative prediction

but to try to make money. I suppose the 20% chance, people have now seen

Trump and perhaps they are more cautious. And again I love the

French system, they have all the candidates standing and then the

final to stand a fortnight later. I think Marine Le Pen has got a

problem getting into the second round. But in the polls she is

getting into the second round. At the moment but they might be a level

of coalescing around the first round, and on someone who could

actually squeeze her out. Matthew Goodwin, the big question and you

hinted at this at the end of the last section, populism on the

rampage around the world. To use that as a shorthand. The continent

of Europe, this could be the year that it stops comment Marine Le Pen

does not win France, Angela Merkel hangs on in Germany and then it is

game over for populism. We had a strange moment during the rerun of

the Austrian presidential elections when liberals or all of social media

saying it is great, celebrate the radical right only got 46% of the

national vote as if this was somehow acceptable outcome for the European

Union whereas in 2002 there was a global meltdown when Jean-Marie Le

Pen achieved some victory. That is how quickly the tide has come up the

beach of your leap -- of European politics. Populists have recognised

that cultural protectionism matters as much as economic protectionism to

the voters and that has enabled them to move into both working-class

stronghold and that is why social democracy has collapsed at just

about the same time as the populist right has entered into a new phase

of strength. It does not matter if Marine Le Pen does not win or the

AFP do not overturn Angela Merkel. Because these parties are here to

stay. The EU is like a lorry going down a

superhighway at high speed with all four tyres coming off. This year

you'll find at least three of those falling off. If there's one thing

that I want to predict it's your last question, what would you do

around the euro? I'd be shorting the euro. Do you really think the, if

Merkel wins and Marine Le Pen doesn't win in the two biggest

countries, you basically have business as usual. You will have a

right-wing president in France, even if Le Pen loses. That's an anomaly.

Things change completely in France. Italy is the first one to turn, the

Netherlands has its election. It looks like a vast number of parties

competing, but it looks like the right-wing party will win. There's

enormous change on the European front. It's basically the end of the

European project. How many of you, I want to do a show of hands, I liked

the last one - how many think the euro will go out of business

basically implode or disintegrate this year or shortly after it? How

many of you would bet on that actually out of interest? Just you,

Ted. Matthew, I saw you trying to come in. The problem with populism,

the problem that Matthew Goodwin identifies with social democracy, it

doesn't really have a viable manifesto. So it can make a lot of

noise when it's in opposition, when it gets into government, it fails. I

think Matthew's right, it's a tide. Populism has reached high tide. I

don't think Marine Le Pen is going to win. In Austria things seem to

have been held back. I have a feeling that this is the year in

which populism peaks in Europe. Matthew, go on. I'm not as

convinced, given that, you know, the old left and right division in

politics now is making way for what academics call a new cultural divide

between those who essentially are at ease with the pace of ethnic change

and those that feel profoundly anxious about it. That's going to be

with us for another generation, two generations, three generations.

That's not going anywhere. At the same time, that's coinciding with

rising economic inequality. Making the same groups of voters feel even

more neglected and disaffected. Until we deal with the underlying

occurents -- currents it will continue. I have a board member that

works for Facebook in government affairs, she said of the 1. 6

billion users, over 60% around the globe are posting insurgent

political issues. It is not unique to the US, the UK, Austria, France.

It's a fashion. We've looked at the US, we've looked at the UK and we've

had a brief look at Europe. One last question, which is has the world

become harder to predict? Last year was the one nearly every expert got

wrong. Last year was the one nearly

every expert got wrong, but there were a handful of diviners

and soothsayers who called So we've invited them

to share their prognostications for the coming 12 months,

with our own Gypsy And a happy New Year

from everyone at Newsnight. Shall we see what lies

ahead for us all? I don't know about you,

but nothing beats those back to work For my part, I'm falling

back on tried and tested And trying to contact the few

clairvoyants who were spot on about 2016 to get their tips

for the New Year. I should add that I'm

not a real medium. It's a Scottish professor based

at an American university. Well, I'm three for three just now,

so I've got Brexit, then I've got Trump,

then I've got the For all of the sturm

und drang about Brexit, and whether Britain should have

left, it might actually be the case You have an election

coming up in France. It's entirely plausible

the National Front will At that point, everyone in France

is meant to organise a giant blocking coalition to stop

them being elected. That would mean everyone

on the French left has to vote for someone who basically wants

to bring Thatcher's economic policy menu to France,

and that's after eight Now I'm getting an economic

policy adviser, I wonder I think inflation is

going to be the story. I've written a lot

about shrinkflation which is a precursor,

which I think everybody When you open a box of cereal

and it's the same size and it costs the same, but there

is only half as much inside. That was the signal that price

pressures were in the economy and I think now they'll bubble up

and we'll actually see Champions Leicester City began

their title defence against a Hull OMG, now I'm picking up

Grindr on this thing! Losing his shirt, and his trousers,

after Leicester City won Others called it right, and backed

their hunch at the bookies. They did it, and they won

the league and I won just over I think they're going to end up

mid-table this year. I can't see them winning it

because there's another team which is doing really well,

and they're getting the results. So things might look

black for the Foxes, and also for another big winner

of last year, according to a man who's been

predicting US elections correctly for 30 odd years,

including the last one. My crystal ball sees some very dark

things ahead for Mr Trump. Even before the election I predicted

that Mr Trump was likely to be impeached or maybe resign

in the course of an impeachment. This isn't a scientific

prediction, it's from the gut. We all know about the machinations

of Trump University and we all know 12 women have accused him of sexual

assault, a crime. And he actually gave us

all a blueprint of how he did it. If you're president,

as Harry Truman once said, You're riding the tiger

on your own, and I'm not sure Our final seer isn't celebrated

for predicting anything, so much as for being the unpredicted

winner of the Booker Paul Beatty, the first American

to win after his book He thinks Trump could be good

for creative business. I think people are charged,

you know, as opposed to feeling enervated,

which I think is often the case. So yeah, sometimes it's nice

to have something to write against or to scream

against or rant. I don't know if that

necessarily produces, But I think the more

stuff that's out there, the more stuff that's going to be

good, you know. So people are charged

to create, you know, Just a couple of other

things I noticed in there. It's going to be a great year

for Librans, redheads, And that carries the full imprimatur

and majesty of Newsnight behind it. Steve Smith with people who got

something right in 2016. I had a serious question which was is the

world getting harder to forecast. Mike? I think it is. Are betting

odds getting longer on average? We've had two extraordinary

situations. We had the Brexit vote, at 11pm on June 23, it was rated

Remain was rated at 94% chance. What happened within a two, three hours,

a completely complapsed. It wasn't that hard to predict Brexit. The

whole premise is it was amazing, like Leicester City winning the

Premier League. It wasn't that hard. If you looked at the polls you would

have said it was 60-40. Almost 50/50. There were more polls in the

final month that predicted a Leave victory than predicted Remain. It

was the media's coverage of the polls and the ones which had the big

Remain leads which created the atmosphere. That brings us to polls.

You do this stuff. It feels like those have been getting more wrong

over the years. I don't think that's right. In fact, in the US, the

national polls were actually right. Where they got it wrong was in the

detailed state polls. The Brexit polls actually as you've just said,

they were mainly right. Huffington Post are putting a 99% chance on

Trump losing. It's not that the polls were wrong, I don't think it's

just the media. I think the experts were wrong. I think the evidence was

there and they weren't hearing it. They weren't listening to it. So

inside the beltway in the US, in the Westminster bubble, people were, it

was confirmation bias, they were talking to their mates. Everybody

agreed with everybody. Actually, they weren't hearing what the

people, the sorts of people that Matthew's been talking about, were

actually saying. So there was a world where lots of people were

unhappy about the effects of globalisation and nobody was

listening to them. Thanks all. The papers leading tomorrow on Ivan

Rogers resignation. That's about it for us tonight.

Well, predictions - as you have seen -

are not for telling you what is going to happen,

but just to make you think about the year ahead and some

Top marks to our class of 2017 - thank you to them for playing along.

And it is a happy journalistic tradition to never ever hold people

to their predictions, we just get you along to give them.

Newsnight will, of course, be with you for the whole of 2017 -

Hello there. Certainly looks as though we're going to see more in

the way of cloud and outbreaks of showery rain sinking their way south

over the next few hours. Gales or severe gales for a time across the

far north-east, the Northern Isles. That brings a scattering of