:00:12. > :00:14.Tony Blair urged the population to rise up against Brexit -
:00:15. > :00:18.One of his most trusted lieutenants says it was electrifying.
:00:19. > :00:22.But a leading political commentator tells him to butt out.
:00:23. > :00:24.This is the way the American mainstream media see
:00:25. > :00:27.the leader of the free world - howling in the wind, out of control.
:00:28. > :00:30.But today a different Donald Trump took the stage.
:00:31. > :00:31.Focused, even disciplined, chanting the mantra that
:00:32. > :00:35.America is going to start winning again.
:00:36. > :00:45.Away from all the sound and fury, a month into the job, is he actually
:00:46. > :00:53.Also - back from the wilderness, will a hybrid mammoth and elephant -
:00:54. > :01:03.a mammaphant - soon roam the permafrost again?
:01:04. > :01:12.Tony Blair today set himself up as the lightning rod
:01:13. > :01:14.for anti-Brexiteers, exhorting them to action,
:01:15. > :01:17.that we could end up with Brexit at any cost.
:01:18. > :01:19.In a speech today the former Prime Minister said,
:01:20. > :01:22."This is not the time for retreat, indifference or despair,
:01:23. > :01:26.but the time to rise up in defence of what we believe."
:01:27. > :01:30.He also said that a hard Brexit gave more legitimacy to the argument
:01:31. > :01:38.He did not specify the mechanism for resistance, nor whether he
:01:39. > :01:39.would lead any campaign, but scorn came swiftly.
:01:40. > :01:42.Nigel Farage called him yesterday's man, while the Foreign Secretary
:01:43. > :01:45.urged the British people to rise up and turn off the TV the next
:01:46. > :01:50.Well Tony Blair isn't here tonight, but his former political secretary
:01:51. > :01:54.and sometime speechwriter John McTernan is, along
:01:55. > :01:57.with the columnist Simon Jenkins - who says Blair should butt out.
:01:58. > :02:00.I'll be speaking to them in a minute, but first here's
:02:01. > :02:07.Yes, the British people voted to leave Europe and I agree the will
:02:08. > :02:17.I accept right now there is no widespread appetite to rethink.
:02:18. > :02:23.But the people voted without knowledge of the terms of Brexit.
:02:24. > :02:26.As these terms become clear, it is their right
:02:27. > :02:41.Our mission is to persuade them to do so.
:02:42. > :02:53.Is he just feeling left out, a man without a mission, trying to
:02:54. > :02:58.re-engage? No, Tony has stood back, and I think it was finally seeing
:02:59. > :03:03.the three line whip getting Labour MPs to vote to invoke Article 50 two
:03:04. > :03:07.lead him to say that Labour becoming a handmaidens of Brexit at any cost,
:03:08. > :03:10.and some needs to speak up for nearly half the country that voted
:03:11. > :03:15.to stay in the European Union, and many people that are worried, in
:03:16. > :03:19.many sectors, but the consequence of Brexit. At one point he says that
:03:20. > :03:22.Brexit was the will of the people, but the people have the right to
:03:23. > :03:28.change their mind. That doesn't make sense? Why not? If you believe in
:03:29. > :03:31.democracy, you believe that people, if they are mature enough and
:03:32. > :03:35.intelligent enough to be consulted about leaving the European Union,
:03:36. > :03:38.they are mature enough and intelligent enough to change their
:03:39. > :03:42.minds. If it becomes clear there is no such thing as a frictionless
:03:43. > :03:45.border, if you have gone to Turkey to look at the border, or a country
:03:46. > :03:50.in the customs union, there is no such thing as a frictionless border.
:03:51. > :03:53.Once the reality comes in, people are allowed to change their views.
:03:54. > :03:58.You said he should butt out, but he is a former Prime Minister, he has
:03:59. > :04:02.some skin in the game and it seems to be he is the only one that is
:04:03. > :04:06.going to hold the government's fee to the fire? I found it
:04:07. > :04:10.extraordinary. This is a man who made fame and fortune from being
:04:11. > :04:12.elected on the wisdom of the population, he certainly doesn't
:04:13. > :04:15.believe in that any more when it doesn't agree with him. It is
:04:16. > :04:19.undignified, beyond anything else. It is clearly the case that there
:04:20. > :04:25.was a referendum, they voted, it was a good debate, a tedious debate will
:04:26. > :04:29.stop a 72% turnout, more than Tony Blair ever got. At the end of it,
:04:30. > :04:33.they decided they wanted to come out of the EU. To say they are ignorant
:04:34. > :04:39.or ill informed, with a ignorant or ill informed when they voted for
:04:40. > :04:43.Tony Blair to not go into Iraq? Well, there was a manifesto, but it
:04:44. > :04:48.didn't contain the war in Iraq. You could say that we didn't know the
:04:49. > :04:52.nature Brexit. We had a Conservative manifesto saying we would be in the
:04:53. > :04:55.single market? There is a totally different debate about what happens
:04:56. > :04:58.at the end of negotiation. It could be that it is sensible to have a
:04:59. > :05:02.referendum on the final deal. At the moment is, he is saying you have got
:05:03. > :05:06.it wrong, I want you to change your mind. He doesn't say how he will
:05:07. > :05:17.change your mind. Does he want to tear it up and start again? It is
:05:18. > :05:22.daft. What is he actually wanted people to do? Saying rise up, did he
:05:23. > :05:25.want people to take to the streets, what actually would be the
:05:26. > :05:29.mechanism? It is genuinely not very complicated. He said a lot of people
:05:30. > :05:33.like me, many people I know that voted to stay in the European Union,
:05:34. > :05:36.we are intelligent people and have questions. I really don't understand
:05:37. > :05:43.how you can, when every car company in Britain has a single factory
:05:44. > :05:48.floor, across many territories, how can you have frictionless importing?
:05:49. > :05:53.European parts are coming in. Those are the arguments, I'm asking you
:05:54. > :05:55.what the mechanism is to rise up. The question is really
:05:56. > :06:03.straightforward. We need to keep asking us questions. We got a white
:06:04. > :06:08.paper from the government, which is a D/E in terms of effort, not in
:06:09. > :06:11.terms of quality, it is a U in terms of quality. We have to ask them
:06:12. > :06:17.questions. The Government say it will all be OK. What if it's not?
:06:18. > :06:21.What if we see the costs... Well, let's take Simon Jenkins's point,
:06:22. > :06:26.that a second referendum might be legitimate in the future. It's
:06:27. > :06:31.interesting, Tony Blair didn't even specify what the mechanism would be.
:06:32. > :06:36.The next general election? 2020, some kind of cross-party campaign?
:06:37. > :06:39.It could be as simple as the polls start to show that the Beau Sandland
:06:40. > :06:43.do actually want to have a car industry in Sunderland. -- the
:06:44. > :06:48.people in Sunderland want to have a car industry. But Nissan have
:06:49. > :06:52.invested in Sunderland? On the basis of promises made by the Government
:06:53. > :06:55.which are as weak as the ones they made to the Northern Ireland
:06:56. > :07:03.Assembly. Do you recognise that maybe this is just an exhortation
:07:04. > :07:06.for people to question their MPs? To take more of an interest in it than
:07:07. > :07:12.they have been taking? Or do you think this has to be through a
:07:13. > :07:16.referendum or general election? I voted Remain. Blair was saying you
:07:17. > :07:21.got it wrong, I want you to do it again and change your mind. Go on
:07:22. > :07:25.doing it again. He is basically saying you are stupid. Ever since
:07:26. > :07:29.the vote, all of the Remainers, I and I am on their side, they have
:07:30. > :07:32.gone on about how the people are somehow ill informed, stupid. They
:07:33. > :07:37.weren't, they genuinely believed they wanted to take back control.
:07:38. > :07:41.They might be naive, but they made a decision. It was clear what the
:07:42. > :07:46.decision was, he should just get a life and realise it. Do you think it
:07:47. > :07:51.is legitimate to raise the possibility that a hard Brexit will
:07:52. > :07:54.give added legitimacy to Scottish independence? Yes. That is a
:07:55. > :07:59.different discussion. He is raising a point about hard Brexit, which is
:08:00. > :08:03.fair enough. But he's not saying that, he is saying you got it wrong.
:08:04. > :08:09.I don't say how you can save you got it wrong after an election. His
:08:10. > :08:18.point is that it gives legitimacy to Scottish independence, and the
:08:19. > :08:25.likelihood has increased. Would you rather see Scotland independent in
:08:26. > :08:29.Europe than out? There are no circumstances under which I would
:08:30. > :08:36.like to see Scotland independent. For Scotland to leave, to leave a
:08:37. > :08:40.fiscal union that transfers 10% of GDP every year, to join a customs
:08:41. > :08:44.union were it would have to pay 2 billion a year, that is ridiculous.
:08:45. > :08:49.They are playing with fire with the constitution. The Northern Ireland
:08:50. > :08:52.question is not marginal, it is at the centre of this. Once Northern
:08:53. > :08:57.Ireland goes, the whole of Great Britain falls apart. You have other
:08:58. > :09:00.Remainers, leading Remainers, thinking it is the wrong person to
:09:01. > :09:13.do this, he is asking the wrong questions and it is anti-democratic.
:09:14. > :09:15.Well... Chuka Umunna, for one. When our voices being heard? If Gordon
:09:16. > :09:20.Brown had spoken about this, we would not be an Newsnight talking
:09:21. > :09:24.about it. Tony Blair still has a way of capturing the imagination of the
:09:25. > :09:27.country. He made this speech and got us talking about it, that is a good
:09:28. > :09:33.thing. The next step is to build the movement. Does he want a referendum?
:09:34. > :09:39.He wants a chance for the public to have a second thought about this. A
:09:40. > :09:42.referendum? It could be through a general election, it could be
:09:43. > :09:46.through a referendum, it will not be through Jeremy Corbyn's Labour
:09:47. > :09:50.Party. I am with Simon that there is a strong case for a vote on the
:09:51. > :09:55.deal. That is not what he said! After the extraordinary verbal
:09:56. > :09:57.fireworks of Donald Trump's White House press conference yesterday,
:09:58. > :09:59.followed by the news that his pick to replace Michael Flynn as national
:10:00. > :10:02.security adviser had declined the job, the US President
:10:03. > :10:04.attended to business. He signed a measure to roll
:10:05. > :10:06.back a coal mining rule of the previous administration -
:10:07. > :10:09.a promise made in the campaign. Today he travelled to Charleston,
:10:10. > :10:11.where he unveiled the latest Boeing Dreamliner,
:10:12. > :10:13.the biggest to date. Donald Trump, accused of chaos,
:10:14. > :10:15.insists that his administration is a well-oiled machine,
:10:16. > :10:18.putting election So, four weeks in, away
:10:19. > :10:26.from all the noise, is he actually getting anywhere with delivering
:10:27. > :10:27.on his promises? For a man with a fresh election
:10:28. > :10:34.victory, Donald Trump seems to have an urgent need to compare
:10:35. > :10:36.himself with his predecessors, I don't think there's ever been
:10:37. > :10:45.a President elected who, in this short period of time,
:10:46. > :10:49.has done what we've done. Some of the President's posts
:10:50. > :10:52.are easily disproved. I guess it was the biggest electoral
:10:53. > :11:00.college win since Ronald Reagan. A quick glance at the facts
:11:01. > :11:03.shows this is nonsense. This kind of howler,
:11:04. > :11:09.Mr Trump's battles with the courts, and intelligence services and,
:11:10. > :11:12.of course, the media, have rather But are we missing
:11:13. > :11:15.significant progress I have to tell you,
:11:16. > :11:22.I spent a lot of time Once you get out of the Washington,
:11:23. > :11:27.DC bubble, there are a lot of people in the United States who are very
:11:28. > :11:30.happy with Trump, happy with his style, happy
:11:31. > :11:32.that he is really disrupting and doing what he said
:11:33. > :11:34.he's going to do. So, it's something I would say don't
:11:35. > :11:37.pay attention to all the media and all the polls, wait a little bit
:11:38. > :11:41.longer to see what the American people have to say about his
:11:42. > :11:46.presidency at this juncture. One month into his 48 month term,
:11:47. > :11:49.Mr Trump already claims numerous In terms of changing Washington,
:11:50. > :11:53.he has nominated a new Justice He's imposed a hiring freeze
:11:54. > :11:57.on nonessential federal workers and a temporary halt
:11:58. > :12:02.on new federal regulations. And he says he's negotiated
:12:03. > :12:04.and saved money on US In trade policy, his withdrawn
:12:05. > :12:10.from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and, he says, eliminated regulations
:12:11. > :12:13.for some US manufacturers. On immigration, his travel ban
:12:14. > :12:17.on seven majority Muslim countries has come of course,
:12:18. > :12:19.been spectacularly overturned, though he has introduced a four
:12:20. > :12:27.month ban on new refugees. He is reaffirmed his commitment
:12:28. > :12:29.on a wall on the Mexican border and brought in a crackdown
:12:30. > :12:32.on so-called sanctuary cities who refuse to comply
:12:33. > :12:37.with US federal law. There have, of course,
:12:38. > :12:39.been spectacular upsets, too. Losing his national security
:12:40. > :12:41.adviser, Michael Flynn, and a failure to answer straight
:12:42. > :12:43.questions on his administration's - and before that his campaign's -
:12:44. > :12:46.contact with Russia. There are elements of this
:12:47. > :12:50.transition that have I don't think that's unusual for any
:12:51. > :12:56.presidential transition. If you look back to 2008,
:12:57. > :12:59.when President Obama was first elected, there were some bumps
:13:00. > :13:01.in the road there. So, clearly, there have
:13:02. > :13:05.been some challenges. On the other hand, I do think that
:13:06. > :13:08.some of this is probably overblown, in the sense that the President
:13:09. > :13:11.is still engaging in executive action, he does still
:13:12. > :13:13.have a functional relationship, functional at the very least,
:13:14. > :13:16.certainly, with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell,
:13:17. > :13:17.the Republican leaders So, I would say that the overall
:13:18. > :13:23.assessment is that, you know, things could be going better,
:13:24. > :13:25.but they probably could The President was in
:13:26. > :13:29.South Carolina today at Boeing, A technological marvel,
:13:30. > :13:35.no doubt, but nothing to do Nevertheless, a neat
:13:36. > :13:39.backdrop for him to restate I campaigned on the promise that
:13:40. > :13:45.I will do everything in my power to bring those jobs
:13:46. > :13:51.back into America. We wanted to make it much easier,
:13:52. > :13:55.it has to be much easier to manufacture in our country,
:13:56. > :14:00.and much harder to leave. I don't want companies
:14:01. > :14:04.leaving our country. The details of exactly how
:14:05. > :14:07.he's going to do that, just one of many key areas
:14:08. > :14:12.where details are still sketchy. For example, repealing
:14:13. > :14:15.and replacing Obamacare, the new infrastructure plan
:14:16. > :14:18.and the new tax-cutting plan, are, as yet, still just
:14:19. > :14:22.campaign promises. The infrastructure, I still think
:14:23. > :14:25.that there's a lot of disharmony amongst House Republicans
:14:26. > :14:27.regarding the size If you're going to look at what's
:14:28. > :14:33.really going to come down the pipe next, I think it's immigration,
:14:34. > :14:35.tax cuts and Obamacare. Mr President, you've been in office
:14:36. > :14:37.for just four weeks... The people who've always laughed
:14:38. > :14:42.at Donald Trump have certainly had But they are not who the President
:14:43. > :14:48.needs to worry about, And for them, perhaps,
:14:49. > :15:06.it's still early days. Does the American media give Donald
:15:07. > :15:10.Trump due credit for what he means? We were hoping to be joined by a
:15:11. > :15:14.member of Trump's administrative team but with me, we are delighted
:15:15. > :15:19.to have the former executive editor of the New York Times, Jill
:15:20. > :15:23.Abramson. Good evening. You have seen three administrations come in
:15:24. > :15:31.with the complexity of that. How does this rate in terms of chaos?
:15:32. > :15:41.It's disorderly. That's for sure. I'd put it on the upper end of the
:15:42. > :15:46.scale, but there have been bumpy beginnings. I remember covering the
:15:47. > :15:53.new Clinton administration, in the early 1990s, and he had to go
:15:54. > :16:00.through two failed Attorney General nominee is. And finally he got his
:16:01. > :16:15.appointee confirmed on the third try. So that isn't that unusual, but
:16:16. > :16:20.yet, this amount of confusion and leaking and plotting against one
:16:21. > :16:29.another already visible inside the White House this time, I would say,
:16:30. > :16:37.is unusual and the tholin that matter, I think, is quite a serious
:16:38. > :16:42.one. -- and the Flynn matter. As a former editor of the New York Times,
:16:43. > :16:45.is it hard, does it stick in the crore, of the liberal media, to give
:16:46. > :16:54.him any credit for what he has done? Is it easier to jeer from where they
:16:55. > :16:59.sit? I think that that is really nonsense. I think that the New York
:17:00. > :17:05.Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal have given extensive
:17:06. > :17:11.coverage to everything from the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the
:17:12. > :17:20.President's meeting with Wall Street bankers last Friday. To what has
:17:21. > :17:23.happened at the State Department, to the trade treaties. I mean the
:17:24. > :17:33.substance of what is happening is being covered by the media. And I
:17:34. > :17:39.would argue that Trump himself is causing tremendous distraction with
:17:40. > :17:43.these ceaseless attacks on the media, and I think those are
:17:44. > :17:49.overblown. Isn't it the case that it has -- that it is because the media
:17:50. > :17:52.finds what he's doing objectionable and makes that clear, and that is
:17:53. > :17:56.out of touch with the many millions that voted for him, that there is
:17:57. > :17:59.now a disconnect between the liberal media in the cities and what is
:18:00. > :18:07.going on in the rest of the United States? Well, it is clear that many
:18:08. > :18:13.people in the United States have a lack of trust in the news media,
:18:14. > :18:18.that has been true for a long time. That is not something new with the
:18:19. > :18:23.election of Donald Trump. But I certainly don't agree with you that
:18:24. > :18:32.the coverage of the substance of what is happening in the White House
:18:33. > :18:39.is being covered by the liberal media in an unfair way. I think the
:18:40. > :18:45.facts are being told, as they should, and the news media, the best
:18:46. > :18:49.part of it, including the New York Times, are doing what the first
:18:50. > :18:56.Amendment asks the press to do, which is to hold power accountable.
:18:57. > :19:01.And that is what they are doing. I wonder, in the end, if you look at
:19:02. > :19:06.these White House briefings and press conferences, whether actually
:19:07. > :19:09.plays to Trump's on agenda, actually, as you were saying,
:19:10. > :19:13.because the media is unpopular anyway, to go on the attack, and
:19:14. > :19:20.then what happens is the media plays into that? I totally agree with
:19:21. > :19:27.that. I think what the media has to stop doing is covering itself, and
:19:28. > :19:31.the battle between the new president and itself, and it needs to just do
:19:32. > :19:38.its work, follow the news, get behind the news and inform the
:19:39. > :19:41.public. Stop being self-referential and self obsessed. Thank you very
:19:42. > :19:46.much indeed. Since the EU referendum,
:19:47. > :19:48.news about the economy has been seen through the prism of Brexit -
:19:49. > :19:52.and on the whole, so far, it has Unemployment is down
:19:53. > :19:56.and the FTSE is still strong. But inflation is up and the retail
:19:57. > :19:59.sales figures are pretty sluggish. But the biggest change
:20:00. > :20:01.to the British economy since Brexit The lower value of the pound
:20:02. > :20:07.has winners and losers, Many believed that Brexit
:20:08. > :20:17.would wreck the UK economy. But, so far, it's held up better
:20:18. > :20:19.than the Remain camp warned. Not so for one of the more
:20:20. > :20:22.tangible measures. Sterling has tumbled, at one point
:20:23. > :20:25.by a fifth of its value. It sounds like a negative,
:20:26. > :20:27.but it isn't for everyone. At the luxury end, like this boat
:20:28. > :20:30.manufacturer, a lower pound is attracting foreign consumers
:20:31. > :20:32.whose dollars and euros are now People have taken advantage
:20:33. > :20:40.of the exchange rate, our boats have been cheaper,
:20:41. > :20:42.relatively, than our Italian About 30% of our material costs,
:20:43. > :20:51.we buy in foreign currency. So our costs, in that respect,
:20:52. > :20:55.have gone up, and we have had to price as a result of that,
:20:56. > :20:57.to offset it. But it's been nowhere near as much
:20:58. > :21:00.as the devaluation of the pound, so we still remain very competitive
:21:01. > :21:03.against our foreign competitors. The value of the pound
:21:04. > :21:05.against the US dollar has dropped by around 17%
:21:06. > :21:07.since the EU referendum. Currency markets don't
:21:08. > :21:11.like uncertainty. And politics has played the most
:21:12. > :21:19.part in sterling's movement. In early October, the Prime Minister
:21:20. > :21:22.announced at a party conference that Article 50 would be triggered
:21:23. > :21:25.by the end of March. There was some brief respite
:21:26. > :21:29.when the High Court ruled in early November that a parliamentary vote
:21:30. > :21:31.was needed to trigger Article 50, bolstering hopes in a nervous market
:21:32. > :21:34.that a soft Brexit could be pursued. Miss May's speech at Lancaster house
:21:35. > :21:40.in January made clear that she intends to undertake a hard
:21:41. > :21:41.Brexit. Some speculate that the
:21:42. > :21:46.triggering of Article 50 Top end businesses
:21:47. > :21:56.are powering ahead. But they're also very mindful
:21:57. > :21:59.of a lower pound feeding into higher raw material costs and,
:22:00. > :22:01.of course, the great uncertainty surrounding a Brexit deal
:22:02. > :22:04.that is yet to be struck. So they are still very much
:22:05. > :22:07.dependent on high-end, luxury and discretionary spending
:22:08. > :22:12.continuing. A day I will never forget,
:22:13. > :22:16.the 24th of June. Straightaway, from that day, we have
:22:17. > :22:26.noticed an increase in traffic. There was no doubt that some people
:22:27. > :22:29.were ahead of the understanding And because of the currency that has
:22:30. > :22:36.changed, we have seen a massive It has been a very great
:22:37. > :22:39.and interesting story, I think you can use the analogy
:22:40. > :22:47.of perhaps the swan. Clearly, with London luxury you have
:22:48. > :22:50.lots of very positive noises above the surface in terms of public
:22:51. > :22:53.realm investment, in terms of tourism, tourism continuing,
:22:54. > :23:02.spend continuing, footfall rising. But underneath the surface they are
:23:03. > :23:05.going to have to paddle harder. From a consumer credit perspective,
:23:06. > :23:08.interest rates is the key thing that I think we are predicting 2.7%
:23:09. > :23:12.inflation for this year. I think it could go
:23:13. > :23:14.higher than that. That is going to impact
:23:15. > :23:17.the domestic shopper in the UK. Most likely to affect our spending
:23:18. > :23:20.habits - food prices. Suppliers and retailers are trying
:23:21. > :23:23.to figure out how to pass on rising We're seeing already a number
:23:24. > :23:31.of suppliers in trouble as a result of this,
:23:32. > :23:36.unable to pass on the extra costs. So, eventually, I think
:23:37. > :23:39.we are going to see a number but also I think we're going to see
:23:40. > :23:43.prices in shops going up even more. It's something that businesses
:23:44. > :23:53.all sizes are grappling with. Since June, this company has seen
:23:54. > :23:57.the price of cocoa rise 3%, peanuts move 8% higher
:23:58. > :24:01.and sugar is up 21%. Price rises for the key
:24:02. > :24:03.ingredient of this business Corn prices, so far,
:24:04. > :24:11.have been hedged. Our prices certainly
:24:12. > :24:13.won't be going down. For us, a lot of our contracts
:24:14. > :24:16.for raw materials come In our situation, and many
:24:17. > :24:21.other companies like us, we're very nervous about passing
:24:22. > :24:24.on any form of price increase. The fall in the value
:24:25. > :24:27.of the pound has affected both And, yes, Brexit has played
:24:28. > :24:31.a significant part in this. Pretty much the week
:24:32. > :24:33.after the referendum we started getting the famous letters
:24:34. > :24:35.from suppliers and Some suppliers did sort of a big
:24:36. > :24:44.hit at the beginning. Some have kind of continued
:24:45. > :24:47.to review every few months and send us another letter saying,
:24:48. > :24:49.your prices are going up This week's rising inflation numbers
:24:50. > :24:52.are unlikely to be matched So the fear is that the once buoyant
:24:53. > :24:57.consumer is going to shy Today's retail sales show
:24:58. > :25:04.that the pinch is being felt. So the economy can no longer rely
:25:05. > :25:10.on the shopper to keep it growing. Finally tonight, scientists
:25:11. > :25:12.from Harvard believe they're just two years away from bringing
:25:13. > :25:14.the woolly mammoth The great beasts died out 4,000
:25:15. > :25:23.years ago but they're only bodily extinct -
:25:24. > :25:25.they're not genetically extinct. The Harvard team hopes to use
:25:26. > :25:27.a powerful gene editing tool to splice together elephant DNA
:25:28. > :25:30.with mammoth genes they've found The Harvard team itself are keeping
:25:31. > :25:41.pretty schtum until they've actually But joining me now from Salford
:25:42. > :25:45.is Matthew Cobb, Professor of Zoology from Manchester
:25:46. > :25:53.University. Good evening. What is it that these
:25:54. > :25:56.scientists are actually trying to achieve? They are trying to do a
:25:57. > :26:02.number of things. They are using this incredibly powerful technique
:26:03. > :26:08.which George church, one of the key research is involved, has been
:26:09. > :26:11.involved in developing. This enables you to change single letters in the
:26:12. > :26:16.DNA code to alter it in any organism at will. This is going to change
:26:17. > :26:20.biological discovery and medicine. It is already having massive
:26:21. > :26:23.effects. They want to introduce into the elephant genome, the Asian
:26:24. > :26:30.elephant, some of the genes which they think help the man is to
:26:31. > :26:35.survive in colder climate. Make them hairy, for example, or have greater
:26:36. > :26:38.subcutaneous fat. But they only claim that they will be able to
:26:39. > :26:44.create an embryo with these genes. At the moment, they have no timeline
:26:45. > :26:50.on when they would actually have an elephant with proper manner genes in
:26:51. > :26:58.it wandering around the steps. We're not going to see herds of mammoths
:26:59. > :27:04.wandering along the Siberian Alps any time soon. But the claim that
:27:05. > :27:07.has been made, having what they are calling a mammaphant, because it
:27:08. > :27:11.will not actually be in an effort if it ever gets out there onto the
:27:12. > :27:14.permafrost. What it would actually do would help counter global
:27:15. > :27:18.warming. What did you make of that case? There are far better ways of
:27:19. > :27:24.countering global warming. Who knows what they are going to do, Professor
:27:25. > :27:28.Church thinks they will dig into the soil and that will help bring called
:27:29. > :27:31.a to slow down the melting of the permafrost. I think we would be
:27:32. > :27:34.better off dealing with the release of carbon dioxide which is
:27:35. > :27:37.increasing temperature. That is the key issue. This is incredibly
:27:38. > :27:41.exciting work at some level because it shows the power of this
:27:42. > :27:48.technique, but really the ultimate thing, an elephant or a mammoth, it
:27:49. > :27:51.is not just a bag of. It is an animal with a history under social
:27:52. > :27:55.life than this thing would be completely separate from anything
:27:56. > :28:00.else like it. -- bag of genes. Nothing else like it would have ever
:28:01. > :28:07.existed. But scientists like that challenge. Yes, but ethicists and
:28:08. > :28:10.bottle community, this is just one example of the questions that this
:28:11. > :28:14.gene editing technique will pose us, major ethical issues we will have to
:28:15. > :28:20.come to terms with. What are those ethical issues? For a start, an
:28:21. > :28:24.elephant and a mammoth, it is a social organism. At the moment they
:28:25. > :28:28.are suggesting that they will not be doing IVF on an Asian elephant. That
:28:29. > :28:31.is possible but they are clearly concerned that if they manipulate
:28:32. > :28:34.the embryo and implanted into the elephant, something might go
:28:35. > :28:39.horribly wrong, it might grow too large. So they are planning, and
:28:40. > :28:42.this is where I think it gets into the realms of science fiction, they
:28:43. > :28:48.are planning to have an artificial womb in which they will grow this
:28:49. > :28:53.elephant for 22 months, up to a weight of 100 kilos. I think we are
:28:54. > :28:58.a long way off that. The problem will be that even if you are able to
:28:59. > :29:02.do that, and Church is a pretty clever guy. Anyone who has been a
:29:03. > :29:06.mother, or who has been close to someone who is a mother, knows that
:29:07. > :29:10.a baby is not just a thing that is being fed. It is alive and
:29:11. > :29:15.interacting with the mother, learning things in the win. The same
:29:16. > :29:18.is true of an elephant or a mammoth baby. So you would end up producing
:29:19. > :29:24.this isolated and strange organism which would have no social
:29:25. > :29:28.connection with its kind. It would have no other kind. If you tried to
:29:29. > :29:31.introduce it into a herd of Asian elephants, they might reject it
:29:32. > :29:36.because it's not funny, because it behaved funny. I think given that
:29:37. > :29:38.these are elephants and not mice or rats, there is a major ethical issue
:29:39. > :29:43.as to whether this is the right thing to do. Thank you, Professor.
:29:44. > :29:47.Tomorrow morning's front pages, Tony Blair gets the front page of the
:29:48. > :29:56.Guardian. Blair's Brexit speech sparks Labour fury. And the suspect
:29:57. > :30:00.in the Korean killing, thought it was a prank, on the right-hand side.
:30:01. > :30:05.In the Telegraph, Blair's EU campaign is insulting, says Boris.
:30:06. > :30:09.The former PM calls for a new movement to make the case against
:30:10. > :30:12.Brexit. Angela Merkel defies Trump over defence budget, is also at the
:30:13. > :30:20.bottom of the Telegraph. And then on to the Daily Express. Get us out of
:30:21. > :30:25.the EU. As arrogant Tony Blair tries to lock Brexit, a new poll reveals
:30:26. > :30:31.an increasing number of voters demanding to get out. And arrogant
:30:32. > :30:35.speech sparked outrage and even some Remain supporters were aghast at his
:30:36. > :30:36.bid to reverse the historic decision to leave the European Union. Well,
:30:37. > :30:43.before we go ?750,000 for a stag? That's how much the national
:30:44. > :30:46.galleries of Scotland need to raise to buy Landseer's Monarch
:30:47. > :30:49.of the Glen and put it on display. To raise awareness for their appeal,
:30:50. > :30:51.they brought the Monarch to life and projected him onto the outside
:30:52. > :30:56.of their gallery. They've got until the 17th of March
:30:57. > :31:46.to meet their target. Hello. In a moment we will look at
:31:47. > :31:53.some other European city forecasts for this weekend. Here is a look at
:31:54. > :31:54.how Saturday develops across the UK. A wet started Northern Ireland, the
:31:55. > :31:56.rain clearing and into