:00:00. > :00:07.The Battle for Mosul started four months ago.
:00:08. > :00:10.The anti-ISIS forces have taken the east of the city.
:00:11. > :00:14.And now the struggle for the west is underway.
:00:15. > :00:17.But the fighting around Mosul is only the start of it.
:00:18. > :00:20.What is the plan to defeat so-called Islamic State altogether,
:00:21. > :00:27.Well that blueprint awaits the new leadership in the Pentagon
:00:28. > :00:34.and White House, something that came a step closer tonight
:00:35. > :00:36.with the appointment of a new National Security adviser.
:00:37. > :00:38.We'll talk through some of the options, and ask if there's
:00:39. > :00:42.any good new idea waiting for President Trump to pursue.
:00:43. > :00:44.A hundred years from the Russian February revolution.
:00:45. > :00:48.It was displaced by the Communist one a few months later.
:00:49. > :00:54.We'll ask what makes a revolution fail, or prevail.
:00:55. > :00:56.And we used to be the world's top nation at civil engineering.
:00:57. > :00:58.Are our politicians ready to rediscover their
:00:59. > :01:12.I worked as a special adviser in government about politicians excited
:01:13. > :01:18.about infrastructure. They wanted to get on and build it. They wanted to
:01:19. > :01:23.be photographed as well in this orange kit. Like the Village people,
:01:24. > :01:25.Westminster style. The fight against so-called
:01:26. > :01:27.Islamic State in Mosul which was launched in October,
:01:28. > :01:30.has made solid progress. The eastern part of the city has
:01:31. > :01:33.been taken, and the militants are now holed up in the west,
:01:34. > :01:35.effectively under siege, The offensive for that part
:01:36. > :01:40.of the city is underway. Which means, we need to think
:01:41. > :01:45.about the follow-through. IS have to be kept out,
:01:46. > :01:47.and the city and the Iraq Now - Donald Trump gave himself 30
:01:48. > :01:52.days to come up with a plan Well tonight he appointed
:01:53. > :02:01.a new National Security Advisor, Let's talk to Mark Urban
:02:02. > :02:19.our diplomatic editor. Tell us about General McMaster. It
:02:20. > :02:23.is this if the workings of the Washington machine and state are
:02:24. > :02:30.acting to wall in the Trump White House with sensible people. He is
:02:31. > :02:33.highly respected. He wrote a book critiquing the failures of civil and
:02:34. > :02:39.military leadership getting the country into the Vietnam War. So he
:02:40. > :02:44.knows about high-level command. In Iraq at a time when there was no
:02:45. > :02:49.good news, commanding a very complex battle very close to Mosul, that
:02:50. > :02:53.brought him to the attention of general Petraeus who pushed him
:02:54. > :03:01.through his promotion board to Brigadier general. He spent some
:03:02. > :03:03.time in London as well at the International Institute for
:03:04. > :03:07.strategic studies. A thoughtful and experienced man in the business of
:03:08. > :03:11.the complexities of modern operations. How difficult was it for
:03:12. > :03:16.President Trump to fill this post? Shockingly so, in a way. You
:03:17. > :03:20.would've thought there would be any manner of sharp elbowed Washington
:03:21. > :03:25.operatives wanting to get in there. But after the departure of general
:03:26. > :03:29.Flynn and the circumstances of that, it seems that a couple people were
:03:30. > :03:33.offered the job but did not take it, mainly it seems because they were
:03:34. > :03:38.not given the right to hire and fire their own staff. And then of course
:03:39. > :03:43.the choice settled on McMaster who as a serving officer could not
:03:44. > :03:47.refuse. Mike the first couple of people who had been tapped up. So
:03:48. > :03:51.Judy calls, he has been pushed forward and there are so many things
:03:52. > :03:55.on his plate. Starting with the business you were referring to, 30
:03:56. > :03:57.days to come up with the new plan and there still is not one. When
:03:58. > :04:03.will there be some kind of plan? Mosul has been a battle
:04:04. > :04:05.of two halves. Iraqi forces have now
:04:06. > :04:10.launched the second phase. As they push around
:04:11. > :04:12.the city, an anxious We are very worried that
:04:13. > :04:18.in the days and weeks ahead, as the military campaign
:04:19. > :04:21.intensifies, families Already there is a humanitarian
:04:22. > :04:34.crisis in the Western districts, the prices of food
:04:35. > :04:41.are skyrocketing, fuel is scarce, water is cut,
:04:42. > :04:47.electricity is intermittent. We understand that half of all
:04:48. > :04:49.the factories are already closed. The poorest families are forced
:04:50. > :04:52.to sell their furniture, burn their furniture in order
:04:53. > :04:54.to keep their houses. The Mosul offensive began four
:04:55. > :04:56.months ago, initially with a push to take the north and east
:04:57. > :04:58.of the city. By the beginning of this month,
:04:59. > :05:01.they had cleared almost This week's attack aims to envelop
:05:02. > :05:05.the west of Mosul prior to But while Mosul's fate remains
:05:06. > :05:08.sealed, Isis still has There is an American backed militia
:05:09. > :05:13.to the northern Syrian government But ramping up the US
:05:14. > :05:20.effort is fraught with The key question that
:05:21. > :05:24.this Administration is going to have to determine is how
:05:25. > :05:27.quickly do they want to get to If they want to move on Raqqa
:05:28. > :05:34.within the next four or five months, and they want to do that working
:05:35. > :05:42.with local forces, they are likely going to have to provide more
:05:43. > :05:45.assistance, even in terms of equipment and training or in terms
:05:46. > :05:48.of direct US and coalition military combat support to the Kurds,
:05:49. > :05:52.who are best positioned to isolate and seize Raqqa with
:05:53. > :05:54.their partners on the During his campaign,
:05:55. > :05:58.Donald Trump promised to put a swift Immediately after taking office,
:05:59. > :06:06.I will ask my generals to present to meet a plan within 30 days
:06:07. > :06:11.to defeat and destroy Isis. But now, 30 days after
:06:12. > :06:15.the inauguration, there is little sign of a crushing
:06:16. > :06:20.new American effort. Rather, the existing
:06:21. > :06:24.Mosul plan put in place under Obama is coming to fruition
:06:25. > :06:28.and the US Defence Secretary, visiting Iraq, was giving little
:06:29. > :06:32.away when asked if additional American troops would
:06:33. > :06:36.soon be dispatched. We will accommodate any request
:06:37. > :06:38.from the field commanders Our allies are carrying,
:06:39. > :06:43.as you can tell from the casualties list, the overwhelming
:06:44. > :06:45.burden of this fight And we will work by,
:06:46. > :06:51.with and through allies from the coalition, and that
:06:52. > :06:55.coalition, as you know, has more than 60 nations
:06:56. > :07:00.of varying levels. So we owe some degree of
:07:01. > :07:07.confidentiality on how we're going to do that, and the
:07:08. > :07:10.sequence of that fight. I would like to say what a privilege
:07:11. > :07:14.it is to begin serving our While the Pentagon has prepared some
:07:15. > :07:17.options for President Trump, the White House national
:07:18. > :07:19.security machinery has stalled, awaiting the new leadership
:07:20. > :07:22.announced tonight. What does strategic
:07:23. > :07:24.planning look like in this The good news is that
:07:25. > :07:40.the chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff is still in place,
:07:41. > :07:43.Secretary Mateus is in and most of the monetary
:07:44. > :07:46.leadership is still there. Another president will have
:07:47. > :07:48.options, but how those options are vetted
:07:49. > :07:50.is the real mystery. At the moment, America's Ground
:07:51. > :07:52.Force in Syria consists of these lightly armed,
:07:53. > :07:54.mainly Kurdish militias and a couple Giving them heavy weapons
:07:55. > :08:00.or more direct US support The Trump administration
:08:01. > :08:09.faces the same Sustaining or increasing air strikes
:08:10. > :08:14.requires access through Turkey. Increasing pressure on the ground
:08:15. > :08:22.through Allied Kurdish militias would annoy Turkey,
:08:23. > :08:23.jeopardising that access. If you put more
:08:24. > :08:26.American troops on the ground in Syria, that, too,
:08:27. > :08:28.might antagonise Turkey, So for now, the US options appear
:08:29. > :08:44.to involve more of the same, but if there is to be a radical departure,
:08:45. > :08:47.it could be up to America's new national security adviser
:08:48. > :08:49.to come up with it. Jon Finer was Chief of Staff
:08:50. > :08:52.to Secretary of State John Kerry and Director of Policy Planning
:08:53. > :09:11.at the State Department, Good evening. Can you give us your
:09:12. > :09:16.impression of General McMaster is it a good appointment? By all accounts
:09:17. > :09:20.it is. And I would agree. Before I worked in government I was a
:09:21. > :09:25.reporter for the Washington Post and spent a couple of years in Iraq
:09:26. > :09:31.covering the war. I spent about one month living and working alongside
:09:32. > :09:35.General McMaster in one of the seminal battles of the Iraq War that
:09:36. > :09:42.he was commander. He proved to be an innovative commander, trying some
:09:43. > :09:46.new counterinsurgency targets that were then applied later in the
:09:47. > :09:52.conflict and began to turn the war war in the direction of US coalition
:09:53. > :09:57.forces. A lot of people have said it is rather chaotic and we have not
:09:58. > :10:04.had a clear policy in many areas. Do you think now that Mike Flynn is out
:10:05. > :10:09.of the way, do you think stability and a clear policy will now emanate
:10:10. > :10:15.from this White House? I think it will be a lot harder than replacing
:10:16. > :10:19.one person. As important a job as it is. This is an encouraging pic but
:10:20. > :10:24.the real challenge has been so far President Trump has not been
:10:25. > :10:30.inclined to empower the National Security adviser and Council and has
:10:31. > :10:34.allowed to be established Parolo policy-making process run by Stephen
:10:35. > :10:39.Bannon and Steve Miller and others. That is doing some of the serious
:10:40. > :10:42.strategic thinking about national security issues that historically
:10:43. > :10:47.has been done and should be done by the NSC. So the real challenge that
:10:48. > :10:53.general McMaster will have, he will have mastered the issues and
:10:54. > :10:57.perfectly well this most important battlefield in which US forces are
:10:58. > :11:01.engaged in Mosul, but the question is does he have the trust of the
:11:02. > :11:07.president such that he will be empowered to make policy. One
:11:08. > :11:13.interesting thing is, the president said within 30 days I want to have a
:11:14. > :11:22.plan, he used at one point the words, to wipe Isis off the face of
:11:23. > :11:25.the earth. Can that be achieved? Where the president should begin and
:11:26. > :11:29.I think where the Pentagon should start, with a plan already in place.
:11:30. > :11:34.There has been extraordinary progress already made in the fight
:11:35. > :11:38.against Isis. They had seized control of broad swathes of
:11:39. > :11:43.territory in Anbar province. The Iraqi army has gone in with our help
:11:44. > :11:48.and pushed Isis out of both major cities, Falluja and Ramadi. Now we
:11:49. > :11:52.turned attention to Mosul, and we always knew that would be the
:11:53. > :11:56.hardest fight in Iraq. At this stage half of the city has been liberated.
:11:57. > :12:02.That took four months and that is the lesson populist heart of the
:12:03. > :12:06.city. Isis by all accounts is well dug in in the western half of the
:12:07. > :12:12.city. So this is still going to be difficult. Moving this more quickly
:12:13. > :12:16.is going to require a greater investment of US forces. But will
:12:17. > :12:21.also potentially produce more casualties. So will the White House
:12:22. > :12:24.decided that it wants to get more invested or will it be comfortable
:12:25. > :12:30.with the pace as things proceed which right now has been relatively
:12:31. > :12:34.successful. When you take the battle into Syria there is a conundrum.
:12:35. > :12:37.Either you have the ground war which could mean offending Turkey or the
:12:38. > :12:43.air power through Turkey which leaves you helpless on the ground.
:12:44. > :12:46.Or you send in your own guys and potentially upset quite a lot of
:12:47. > :12:52.people. Is there a solution to that, do you think President Trump could
:12:53. > :12:58.say I have an idea, it is not what Obama was doing, I have my own idea
:12:59. > :13:03.and it will get quick results. Well you hit on one central problem of
:13:04. > :13:08.the fight against Isis, we have an advantage in Iraq that we do not
:13:09. > :13:11.have in Syria, namely a local partner, the Iraqi army. We have
:13:12. > :13:18.trained and equipped them and they know how to fight. Not always
:13:19. > :13:22.displayed as effectively as it should. But which has stood back up
:13:23. > :13:26.and is now taking the fight to Isis. In Syria we do not have that ready
:13:27. > :13:32.partner and so this difficult decision about whether to use
:13:33. > :13:35.Kurdish forces effectively to fight in what is predominantly Sunni Arab
:13:36. > :13:39.territory will be the hardest in many ways that the administration
:13:40. > :13:43.will face. That will come at a cost in terms of relations with the Sunni
:13:44. > :13:47.Muslims who are living in those areas. But at this stage there is no
:13:48. > :13:50.other obvious fighting force for which to take cities like Raqqa.
:13:51. > :13:51.Thank you very much. Major General Chip Chapman
:13:52. > :13:54.was Senior British Military Advisor He worked under General Mattis, now
:13:55. > :14:10.Donald Trump's Defense Secretary. Good evening. Do you know of a plan
:14:11. > :14:14.that is radically different to the plan we heard described there, the
:14:15. > :14:19.Obama plan, is there a plan sitting waiting to be had upon that is going
:14:20. > :14:26.to wipe Isis of the face of the earth? Well there are two parts.
:14:27. > :14:32.First the president? Missive to come up with a plan to defeat Isis in 30
:14:33. > :14:37.days is not credible, defeat is a military mission verb and will not
:14:38. > :14:41.lead to the religious ethnic, sectarian, ideological tensions
:14:42. > :14:47.being put to bed. So partly this is to do with government and partly to
:14:48. > :14:50.do with stabilisation. The higher headquarters running the Middle
:14:51. > :14:57.East, do they have plans, of course they do. And it is their job to give
:14:58. > :15:05.the president options from humanitarian support to putting in
:15:06. > :15:10.the Marines over a beach. But will the American people go for that, I
:15:11. > :15:14.do not think so. So the military part is simple, the stabilisation
:15:15. > :15:18.and government part is the challenge. Give us insight into
:15:19. > :15:23.general matters, the Defence Secretary. People speak highly of
:15:24. > :15:28.him. Mad dog matters and names like that. What approached you think that
:15:29. > :15:36.he will take? He's the thoughtful and wise person. The mad dog acronym
:15:37. > :15:41.is the kind of media thing, cultural information put out there from when
:15:42. > :15:45.he was a war fighter. In his latter career he was a warrior diplomat. If
:15:46. > :15:49.you look at his confirmation hearing in the Senate, he said he looked
:15:50. > :15:52.forward to working with all the other organisations of government
:15:53. > :15:57.including state. Of course you have to look more widely than just the
:15:58. > :16:00.military part. He is looking at grand strategy in terms of
:16:01. > :16:02.diplomatic information, military and economic power and not just in a
:16:03. > :16:12.short and narrow military context. How like Donald Trump is he? How
:16:13. > :16:20.close in thinking do you think he is to the President? Is he a Trumper?
:16:21. > :16:28.He never made any political pronouncements during the campaign,
:16:29. > :16:31.and nor would he. One of the things that companies associated with this
:16:32. > :16:38.having a much closer relationship with Russia and is Syria. You could
:16:39. > :16:45.imagine that there are old school Americans that are saying, hang on a
:16:46. > :16:50.minute, Russia are not allies. What side would Mattis beyond? He has
:16:51. > :16:53.said on many occasions that the only thing worse than fighting with
:16:54. > :16:57.allies is not fighting with allies. He is an internationalist and not
:16:58. > :17:01.parole Russia at all. You will look at this through a grand strategic
:17:02. > :17:06.lens of where Russia are a threat, because his job is no wider than the
:17:07. > :17:10.Middle East. It is Russia, China, and a global forum. He is one of the
:17:11. > :17:15.most well read menu could come across. He is a great strategic
:17:16. > :17:21.thinker. But it takes more than a great strategic thinker to solve the
:17:22. > :17:26.conundrum that every time you try to do something, you could troops there
:17:27. > :17:30.or use air power or ground power, you are offending another player in
:17:31. > :17:36.the region, who depend upon for flying troops in or whatever. It is
:17:37. > :17:40.there a solution to this? I will give you two quotes from Mattis. He
:17:41. > :17:44.always said that this is a wicked problem and sometimes, quoting
:17:45. > :17:50.Winston Churchill, you can have too much water. A direct quote from him
:17:51. > :17:57.on Syria was this. I am morally appalled outraged, but do you want
:17:58. > :18:01.soldiers in Oslo and country shooting people? No, you need an
:18:02. > :18:06.international mandate. We have that in Iraq but we do not have it in
:18:07. > :18:08.Syria. To unlock Islamic State, you have to be successful in Iraq and
:18:09. > :18:14.Syria. He putted very well. There are two relevant stories
:18:15. > :18:19.in the news at the moment. One is discontent with
:18:20. > :18:22.a revaluation of business rates It will have winners and losers,
:18:23. > :18:25.and predictably the losers The other story is that
:18:26. > :18:33.council tax across England is expected to rise in April -
:18:34. > :18:35.most authorities will raise by as much as they can
:18:36. > :18:38.without exceeding the limit at which they now trigger an
:18:39. > :18:40.obligatory council tax referendum. It will go a small way to helping
:18:41. > :18:44.fill the gap in social care funding. In fact, no taxes are very popular,
:18:45. > :18:49.except the ones other people pay. But looking at the debate over
:18:50. > :18:51.social care, and business rates one has to say that Britain's approach
:18:52. > :18:54.to tax is very ad hoc. It seems to lurch from one
:18:55. > :18:56.argument to another, reacting to the latest desperate
:18:57. > :18:59.need rather than any Tax is like the tangle
:19:00. > :19:07.of cables behind the TV. It just kind of builds up over time
:19:08. > :19:10.and it's rarely convenient to most of us who have a life,
:19:11. > :19:13.to sit down and comprehensively And in Britain, the tax tangle
:19:14. > :19:28.results from too much tactical Do you remember this one? The
:19:29. > :19:33.omnishambles budget? We will also address some of the loopholes and
:19:34. > :19:39.anomalies in our VAT system. Takeaway food on the High Street has
:19:40. > :19:46.been charged VAT for years but some hot supermarket food is not. That
:19:47. > :19:50.became the pasty tax. VAT applied to all hot food, including pasties. It
:19:51. > :19:57.caused a political fuss. When was the last time you bought a pasty in
:19:58. > :20:02.Greggs? Ironically, Mr Osborne's hit on pasties was an attempt to think
:20:03. > :20:06.strategically. It was an attempt to iron out a complicated anomaly but
:20:07. > :20:11.it turned out to be politically inexpedient. It appeared to show
:20:12. > :20:15.that he was out of touch with the pasty eating classes. A cardinal
:20:16. > :20:20.sin. It was soon amended, a victory for tactical thinking over the
:20:21. > :20:22.strategic. So what are the pressures for the tax tangle?
:20:23. > :20:23.Its the asymmetry of winners and losers.
:20:24. > :20:26.That creates a short-term political pressure which is irresistible
:20:27. > :20:28.because politicians have to be short-term, which leads to a quick
:20:29. > :20:38.Rupert Harrison was George Osborne's right-hand man at the Treasury at
:20:39. > :20:43.the time of the omnishambles. There are some good reasons why you have
:20:44. > :20:48.to have complexity. There are bad reasons. In the UK, sometimes the
:20:49. > :20:51.pressure for announcements, an annual budget cycle, often the
:20:52. > :20:54.Autumn Statement is a vehicle for announcements as well and sometimes
:20:55. > :21:00.that can lead to unnecessary complexity. The people who think
:21:01. > :21:04.about this, the people who work in institutes like the Institute for
:21:05. > :21:09.government or the Institute for Fiscal Studies, they say that what
:21:10. > :21:13.we need is for each Parliament, the government to set out its big
:21:14. > :21:16.thoughts over the direction of the tax system. That way there will be
:21:17. > :21:20.principles and we will see the government stick to them or break
:21:21. > :21:26.them. If we were to have a big strategic discussion like that now,
:21:27. > :21:30.one question would be, is social care adequately funded? And if not,
:21:31. > :21:36.where is the extra money for it going to come from? Wheat can box to
:21:37. > :21:39.keep up with demand, dump on council tax, as it is not the responsibility
:21:40. > :21:45.of central government, or we could stand back and work out an approach,
:21:46. > :21:50.but that would have the disadvantage of making it obvious to the losers
:21:51. > :21:53.are. At least Britain is not uniquely dysfunctional. When you
:21:54. > :21:57.look internationally, the UK does not look too bad, in my view. When
:21:58. > :22:03.you look at the biggest economy in the world, the US economy, the tax
:22:04. > :22:07.policy making system there is impossibly Byzantine compared to the
:22:08. > :22:13.system we have in the UK. At the moment, US tax reform, and which tax
:22:14. > :22:18.reform the US Congress is going to pass is probably more important for
:22:19. > :22:21.the UK economy than anything happening in the UK. Tax is
:22:22. > :22:23.something of a tangle everywhere, because the same forces apply.
:22:24. > :22:28.But we do get the tax system we deserve.
:22:29. > :22:31.And we are entering the budget season, as it is only 16 days away.
:22:32. > :22:35.I dare say we will have a lot more to say about it before
:22:36. > :22:41.The Telegraph reporting tomorrow that Philip Hammond will be making,
:22:42. > :22:45.or will be taking measures to ease some of the pain of the business
:22:46. > :22:47.rates revaluation. February 1917 - a hundred years
:22:48. > :22:49.ago in other words - It didn't really work,
:22:50. > :22:57.and so a few months later they had a second one that brought
:22:58. > :22:59.the Communists to power. Some revolutions
:23:00. > :23:01.prevail, others don't. Some prevail, but then
:23:02. > :23:03.go on to fail. Before we mark the centenary
:23:04. > :23:04.of Russia's revolutions, historian Orlando Figes -
:23:05. > :23:07.a specialist on the Russian revolution - sets out
:23:08. > :23:21.some of the lessons. It's difficult to generalise
:23:22. > :23:23.about revolutions and come up They're too diverse in form
:23:24. > :23:29.to follow general rules. But there are some
:23:30. > :23:31.things we can say. First, revolutions
:23:32. > :23:33.are unpredictable. Even when they're expected,
:23:34. > :23:45.as the Russian Revolution On the evening of the 25th
:23:46. > :23:49.February, after three days of mass demonstrations
:23:50. > :23:52.in the Russian capital, Alexander Shliapnikov,
:23:53. > :23:57.the leading Bolshevik in Petrograd, scoffed at the idea that this
:23:58. > :24:00.could lead to revolution. "Give the workers a pound
:24:01. > :24:03.of bread, and the movement The next day, the soldiers
:24:04. > :24:10.of the czar shot in panic at the crowds and then
:24:11. > :24:16.joined the people's side. Their mutiny immediately
:24:17. > :24:17.turning the demonstrations into a full-fledged revolution that
:24:18. > :24:19.would bring the czarist People's revolutions,
:24:20. > :24:22.like the one in February 1917, The actions of the crowd,
:24:23. > :24:29.uncontrolled by anyone, but influenced by rumours
:24:30. > :24:36.and slogans or ideas such as freedom or justice,
:24:37. > :24:38.that give them the illusion But in reality, they usually contain
:24:39. > :24:49.the seeds of their own destruction. Their degeneration into civil war,
:24:50. > :24:51.dictatorship, and terror, at the hands of demagogues
:24:52. > :24:53.like the Bolsheviks, who came to power in October
:24:54. > :24:57.by mobilising violence based October 1917 became the prototype
:24:58. > :25:05.for all the revolutions of the 20th century,
:25:06. > :25:07.from China to Iran. And in many ways the Bolsheviks
:25:08. > :25:10.remain a model for the And that's the second
:25:11. > :25:14.point I'd make. All revolutionaries look
:25:15. > :25:19.to the revolutionaries of the past. The Bolsheviks modelled themselves
:25:20. > :25:22.on the Jacobins and tried to learn the lessons of failed revolutions
:25:23. > :25:30.in the 19th century. But the Leninist revolutionary
:25:31. > :25:32.model, to organise a putsch, through a small vanguard
:25:33. > :25:36.of militants, and then use dictatorship and civil war to build
:25:37. > :25:41.a social base for the transformation of society, became a model
:25:42. > :25:48.for revolutionaries in third world countries, where the democratic base
:25:49. > :25:51.for a social revolution was too weak Revolutions are by
:25:52. > :25:55.nature illegitimate. The violent overthrow
:25:56. > :25:57.of divine kings and - at least in Russia -
:25:58. > :25:59.elected parliaments. They need a foundation myth
:26:00. > :26:01.to legitimise and sustain They need propaganda
:26:02. > :26:06.images and symbols. The great October Revolution
:26:07. > :26:11.as a mass uprising, the victory of the people in the Civil War,
:26:12. > :26:14.the achievements of the five-year Three generations after the founding
:26:15. > :26:20.of the Bolshevik regime, the founding myths of
:26:21. > :26:22.the October Revolution meant very There was barely anybody left alive
:26:23. > :26:33.who could remember October. And their grandchildren
:26:34. > :26:35.increasingly took their values Orlando Figes - who you saw there
:26:36. > :26:42.at the Royal Academy's Revolution exhibition on the art of the period
:26:43. > :26:46.- joins me now with two other people who know a bit
:26:47. > :26:48.about popular uprisings. Mustafa Nayyem, who was at
:26:49. > :26:51.the forefront of the Ukrainian protests that overthrew
:26:52. > :26:55.Victor Yanukovych in 2014. And Reem Assil, who was active
:26:56. > :27:03.in movement against She fled the country
:27:04. > :27:13.after being tortured. I want to start with you two, Reem
:27:14. > :27:18.Assil, do you see the Russian Revolution is having any parallels
:27:19. > :27:20.relevance, the history of it, of importance as Syria thinks about
:27:21. > :27:27.revolution? I don't think so, to be honest. To start, I am not
:27:28. > :27:35.knowledgeable when it comes to the Russian Revolution. But I think that
:27:36. > :27:42.for the Syrian people, the idol of revolutions, if you like, is the
:27:43. > :27:49.French Revolution. Back that far? Not the Iranians? No, no. People
:27:50. > :27:55.aspire to the French Revolution. They wanted to have something like
:27:56. > :28:01.it. Back in 2011, I totally agree with Orlando, the revolutions are
:28:02. > :28:04.unpredictable. No-one would have believed that something like this
:28:05. > :28:10.would take place in Syria until it actually happened. Orlando in his
:28:11. > :28:15.piece said that all revolutions look to the past. Do you have one in the
:28:16. > :28:19.Ukraine that you look to or still look to? Somehow, Revolution in
:28:20. > :28:26.Ukraine, it recalls the revolution in Russia because actually the
:28:27. > :28:33.Communists took power, and the revolution we had three years ago,
:28:34. > :28:39.it was kind of in the spirit of freedom from that regime. For
:28:40. > :28:46.Ukraine, this revolution was a fight for independence from that cage of
:28:47. > :28:50.Soviet governance. Really, we look back but it was not an example,
:28:51. > :28:56.definitely, because the revolution in the Ukraine was the revolution of
:28:57. > :29:00.the middle class, first of all, sophisticated people, it is not a
:29:01. > :29:07.people's revolution in the sense of a revolution in 1917. Let's talk
:29:08. > :29:12.about what makes a revolution work. Orlando, how do you distinguish the
:29:13. > :29:15.successful ones from the unsuccessful ones? There are two
:29:16. > :29:20.notions, the ones that grab power and the ones that use power to serve
:29:21. > :29:26.their own objectives. What defines the good ones and the bad ones? I
:29:27. > :29:32.think Reem and Mustafa are looking back to a People's Revolution, a
:29:33. > :29:37.democratic uprising that is much more sustainable now in the age of
:29:38. > :29:43.social media. That was a big advantage to the Arab Spring, and no
:29:44. > :29:46.doubt to my den two, to organise people in a way that was not
:29:47. > :29:49.possible for most of the 20th century and certainly was not
:29:50. > :29:55.possible on the 19th century when we had this all-powerful police state,
:29:56. > :29:59.in the countries where revolution was planned by revolutionaries. So
:30:00. > :30:05.that is a major breakthrough that I am glad to hear has meant that we
:30:06. > :30:09.are looking back more to the tradition of 1589 and February of
:30:10. > :30:13.1917. Perhaps that is what we should be celebrating this year, not
:30:14. > :30:17.October, which I think even the Russians are ambiguous about, but
:30:18. > :30:18.February, as a moment where people power could exercise itself on the
:30:19. > :30:30.street. But you get chaos and that is wipe
:30:31. > :30:35.the Bolsheviks could walk in into the vacuum of power left by perjury.
:30:36. > :30:38.All popular revolutions contain the seeds of their own destruction
:30:39. > :30:44.because the unleashed anger and hatred and no one can control that
:30:45. > :30:51.exact perhaps a demagogue. And with the Syrian revolution, the nice guys
:30:52. > :30:59.tend to be more gentle and then it is a bit chaotic? I agree. But in
:31:00. > :31:10.Syria I think there is another added complication. It is not in the hands
:31:11. > :31:15.of Syrians any more. They're not the ones to determine their fate, it has
:31:16. > :31:25.become further complicated. And it is worrying in that sense. Do you
:31:26. > :31:30.regret it, the revolution? Most of us would look at it and said it had
:31:31. > :31:34.got to be better before this. So is the price that you are paying for
:31:35. > :31:41.some unspecified hope of a better future worth the pain # absolutely.
:31:42. > :31:47.Personally I do not regret it. I would do the same again. But the
:31:48. > :31:53.thing is, in Syria it was a popular uprising. It was not well planned or
:31:54. > :31:58.anything, the people took to the streets. It was like a pressure
:31:59. > :32:10.cooker or stop it reached a point when the explosion was unavoidable.
:32:11. > :32:17.But for six months, although as Orlando said there is a lot of
:32:18. > :32:22.hatred with revolutions and negative energy but for six months in Syria
:32:23. > :32:28.we had a peaceful revolution. People took to the streets and really
:32:29. > :32:31.expressed their demand for freedom and justice, democracy. Then came
:32:32. > :32:41.the brutality, the huge brutality applied. Is your revolution over,
:32:42. > :32:46.Mustafa, or a work in progress question mark when we began our
:32:47. > :32:53.revolution we had a specific goal, to sign an agreement with the
:32:54. > :32:57.European Union. This really is the thing. The second thing is that
:32:58. > :33:05.Ukraine started with a peaceful protest. No one attacked the
:33:06. > :33:09.government. It is history now, two years ago. The violation of rules
:33:10. > :33:15.and brutality began after the revolution. Then we had war with
:33:16. > :33:20.Russia. So it was not only revolution but a fight for
:33:21. > :33:25.independence. If you are asking about regret, that is the price.
:33:26. > :33:33.Because look what happened in Belarussian. That is the virus of
:33:34. > :33:39.Soviet style governance. How long does the revolution take, how long
:33:40. > :33:45.did we give Syria before applying a judgment as to whether that settled
:33:46. > :33:50.something? The Syrian revolution has become a civil war and you could say
:33:51. > :33:54.that is the end of the revolution as such. You could also say that
:33:55. > :33:58.revolutions go on until either as with the French Revolution they
:33:59. > :34:03.become mainstream and get assimilated into political culture
:34:04. > :34:08.as in the Republican friends of the 19th century. But I think because
:34:09. > :34:16.revolutions have this problem with legitimacy, with internal, external
:34:17. > :34:21.enemies, there is this unresolved tension and violence which tends to
:34:22. > :34:26.perpetuate violence. It means that until some new resolution can be
:34:27. > :34:32.found which often cannot be found, the revolution is constantly looking
:34:33. > :34:39.for new bases of support, new vindication of its policies. A
:34:40. > :34:44.revocation of opposition. So I would say in the Soviet case it did not
:34:45. > :34:54.end really until 1991. You're still bend in the early days, Reem. I
:34:55. > :34:58.think so. I have two disagree with the description of what has happened
:34:59. > :35:06.with the Civil War. There is a conflict. It is undeniable. But
:35:07. > :35:15.whenever we see even small ceasefires, people take to the
:35:16. > :35:18.streets again demanding, peacefully, demanding freedom and justice,
:35:19. > :35:22.democracy. So there is hope I think. But again there is this
:35:23. > :35:28.responsibility of the international community that failed the Syrian
:35:29. > :35:31.people. And that caused the revolution not to fail because it is
:35:32. > :35:41.too soon in my opinion to judge it, but to go in a direction that was
:35:42. > :35:42.not our dream. Taking us back to the point about unpredictability. Thank
:35:43. > :35:43.you all. We don't feature enough
:35:44. > :35:45.engineering on this programme, particularly the big civil
:35:46. > :35:47.engineering projects. There is a sense that as nation
:35:48. > :35:50.we were once brilliant at building bridges and railways,
:35:51. > :35:52.but lost our nerve along the way and with it,
:35:53. > :35:54.and lost our will to build. But infrasructure investment is very
:35:55. > :35:57.fashionable now; so are we ready to rediscover our skills
:35:58. > :35:59.at large scale construction? Well, there is a new book out
:36:00. > :36:03.about Thomas Telford, called Man of Iron; it's
:36:04. > :36:06.by Julian Glover, who was a former special advisor
:36:07. > :36:08.at the Department for Transport. We asked him to look
:36:09. > :36:10.at what history - and Thomas Telford -
:36:11. > :36:12.tell us, about the Deep in the North Wales countryside,
:36:13. > :36:30.lies an engineering More than 200 years ago engineers
:36:31. > :36:37.in Britain were building extraordinary things,
:36:38. > :36:38.including this by my An iron aqueduct high
:36:39. > :36:44.above the River Dee. Sir Walter Scott, the great writer,
:36:45. > :36:49.came and he called it Thomas Telford was arguably
:36:50. > :37:01.Britain's first great civil His brilliant highways,
:37:02. > :37:06.bridges and canals were Writing the story of his life,
:37:07. > :37:13.I've been searching, where did the vision and daring
:37:14. > :37:15.of those amazing 19th The noise of Farringdon in central
:37:16. > :37:24.London, a world away When I wasn't writing history,
:37:25. > :37:29.I worked in government, I found the politics
:37:30. > :37:33.and bureaucracy maddening. He had real energy and ambition
:37:34. > :37:38.and he was a searcher, he was constantly doing
:37:39. > :37:42.really wonderful things. Like later people like Brunel,
:37:43. > :37:54.Telford produced incredible detailed notes and sketches,
:37:55. > :37:55.Brunel did, Stevenson did. And we have people like that out
:37:56. > :38:00.there today, is it the whole time. But the system is so blanketing down
:38:01. > :38:03.on people that there are so many We've just got to cut
:38:04. > :38:10.through all that and get So if you list the enemies
:38:11. > :38:13.of modern infrastructure, it would be accountants,
:38:14. > :38:15.lawyers, civil servants? People who just prefer
:38:16. > :38:18.to say no to things. But deep underneath Alan's
:38:19. > :38:22.office, Europe's biggest engineering project,
:38:23. > :38:26.Crossrail, is getting built at last. And Chloe Etheridge,
:38:27. > :38:28.who joined four years ago as an apprentice,
:38:29. > :38:30.thinks we could learn from it. There's a lot of big projects coming
:38:31. > :38:34.up and I think that Crossrail has been a good kick-start to bringing
:38:35. > :38:36.the skills through, particularly for apprenticeships
:38:37. > :38:45.and investing in young people. That the skills and experience can
:38:46. > :38:48.be carried on into the next big And when you started engineering,
:38:49. > :38:52.did your friends sort of wonder why on earth you were doing it,
:38:53. > :38:55.or were they, are they envious now? They must think this
:38:56. > :38:57.is the most amazing, I think sometimes people don't
:38:58. > :39:03.understand what we do. So I take pride in explaining
:39:04. > :39:07.what I do as my career and try I worked as a special
:39:08. > :39:12.adviser in government with politicians who were excited
:39:13. > :39:14.about infrastructure, They wanted to be photographed, too,
:39:15. > :39:19.in this orange kit with the big It's like the Village People,
:39:20. > :39:29.Westminster style. Forget the wimpy suit and tie,
:39:30. > :39:32.look at the butch diggers and mud. But sometimes projects
:39:33. > :39:41.turn into a nightmare. As the chair of Network Rail,
:39:42. > :39:47.Peter Hendy's got to totally Even while 54 million people
:39:48. > :39:54.a year continue to use it. So Telford and his successors didn't
:39:55. > :39:57.get it right all the time either. Brunel's great Western Railway cost
:39:58. > :40:00.2.5 times what he said it would. History will judge
:40:01. > :40:04.it in the long term. Of course we should be better
:40:05. > :40:08.at doing it, but you still need Now I think Britain might be getting
:40:09. > :40:20.a bit of that energy back. The stuff that joins things up,
:40:21. > :40:24.keeps us moving, it always matters. Good roads, space on the train,
:40:25. > :40:29.they don't happen by accident. Get it right, like Thomas Telford
:40:30. > :40:32.did, and you create something But we can't leave you without
:40:33. > :40:46.remembering Steve Hewlett, our sometime media correspondent,
:40:47. > :40:49.whose accomplishment as a journalist extended far further
:40:50. > :40:52.than this programme, and who sadly died this morning
:40:53. > :40:55.of cancer, at the age of 58. It wasn't just his knowledge
:40:56. > :40:58.of the media industry that was so valued,
:40:59. > :40:59.but his judgement. At a time when news media
:41:00. > :41:02.is in the public eye, We leave you with Steve
:41:03. > :41:08.in full cry back in 2014, on the day that Rebekah Wade
:41:09. > :41:10.and Andy Coulson were, respectively, acquitted and convicted of phone
:41:11. > :41:13.hacking at the News of the World. This trial, whatever the outcome,
:41:14. > :41:22.must surely mark the end of the As for the rest of the press,
:41:23. > :41:27.well, they're not Not so much because
:41:28. > :41:30.of hacking, and the regulation that will follow, but
:41:31. > :41:32.because of declining circulations And as for the police,
:41:33. > :41:37.well hacking has played into what have become much broader
:41:38. > :41:41.questions of public confidence. But now the politicians,
:41:42. > :42:05.they surely must have Hello. Back to feeling like February
:42:06. > :42:06.later in