27/02/2017 Newsnight

John Major hits out at the Brexiteers, accusing them

of attempting to silence the 48% who voted Remain.

Freedom of speech is absolute in our country. It's not arrogant or brazen

or elitist or remotely delusional to express concern about our future

after Brexit. First amongst cheerleaders,

Ian Duncan Smith tells me the former Prime Minister sounds angry

and strangely bitter. Also tonight: The experts are

terrible. I think the people in this country have had enough of experts.

We kept hearing winning politicians say they've had

What does Michael Gove think of experts now?

Many of those making assertions on the Remain side were relying on

people meekly submitting to authority as though we were still in

the prereformation Catholic Church rather than making proper arguments.

We'll speak to those who think Mr Gove was putting his

finger on something. And, of course, the Oscars.

I'm sorry. There's a mistake. Moonlight you won Best Picture. No,

not that, this... The Oscar winner Best Documentary

is about the civilian We'll speak to one

of the White Helmets. For the first time since the UK

voted to leave the European Union, former Prime Minister,

John Major, has spoken out of his He warned of a real risk that

Government would not achieve all that it had

promised from Brexit. He said a comprehensive deal

was unlikely by 2019 and that a failure to deliver would result

in further distrust He launched an excoriating attack

on the cheerleaders for Brexit. He accused of shouting down

the legitimate comment We'll hear response to this

carefully-timed interjection from Iain Duncan Smith in a moment,

first let's go to our Nick, as I was saying, you don't

hear from John Major that often, what did you make of it? This is a

significant speech. John Major is normally very careful to ration his

interventions. He's sensitive to the charge he would be criticising his

successors in Number Ten. Don't forget, he's deeply scarred by his

experience, after becoming Prime Minister. Margaret Thatcher famously

said she would make a great back seat driver. When David Cameron

became Prime Minister, he had an informal understanding with David

Cameron, who had worked for him in Number Ten in the early 1990s. The

agreement was that John Major would only make intervention that's were

helpful to him. Clearly he feels different about Theresa May, elected

to Parliament in 1997, the year that he lost that election and ceased to

be Prime Minister. He obviously feels there is a danger that she is

presiding over potentially a damaging Brexit. So he's decided to

speak out. This was his central message.

I have two objectives this evening, to offer a reality check on our

national prospects and to warn against an over optimism, that, if

it is unachieved, will so further dis-- sow further distrust between

politics and. Unlick at a time when trust needs to be rebuilt. It would

be better to underplay rather than overplay expectations. The

post-referendum debate has been deeply disspiriting. After decades

of campaigning the anti-Europeans won their battle to take Britain out

of Europe. But in the afterglow of victory, their cheerleaders have

shown a disregard that amounts to contempt for the 48% who believed

our future was more secure within the European Union.

It's clearly heart felt, but what do you think more than that is driving

it in terms of the timing? John Major profoundly believe that's the

UK should have voted to stay in the EU. One of the first trips he made

as Prime Minister was to the then capital of Germany Bonn and said

Britain should remain at the heart of Europe. Some, though by no means

all of the message in this speech, echos some of the concerns raised by

Tony Blair, who unseated him in 1997. There's a faint echo of Tony

Blair when he was saying that Theresa May is not driving the

Brexit bus. It is being driven by those hard line Euro-sceptics who

want a clean break from Europe and John Major obviously is haunted by

those Euro-sceptics who gave him such grief on the Maastricht Treaty

25 years ago. He warned Theresa May to face down those who favour total

disengagement from the European Union. You've been gauging a bit of

reaction to this as it came out Yes, a terse statement from Number Ten,

challenging John Major who praised the Remainers and criticise the

Leavers. Number Ten says, we're moving beyond the language of Leave

and Remain because we want to unite the country. I spoke to some Remain

ministers who privately welcome this. Interestingly, quite senior

figures in the Government, who are fans of John Major are saying, this

doesn't sound quite right. This is not in the spirit of what I was

talking about earlier, where he tries to make constructive

interventions. What these fans are saying are by all means raise your

concerns about Brexit, but if you are seen to undermine the Prime

Minister, then I'm afraid to say, you are only going to undermine your

own position within the Conservative Party. Thanks very much. John Major

talked about the Brexit cheerleaders.

Earlier, I spoke to the former Cabinet Minister and stalwart

of the Leave Campaign, Iain Duncan Smith.

I asked him if John Major's speech made him think twice

about what Brexit promised and what it is actually delivering.

What I thought when I looked at this speech was that this was a peculiar

speech in the sense that it looked backwards the whole time. It was

almost like a refight of the referendum all the same threats and

issues that came up during project fear were all in here. Strangely

bitter, really. And almost really the speech of someone who simply

refuses to accept that the British people should have made a decision

such as they did and wants them almost to rerun it again until they

get it right, which is rather sad. He doesn't seem to question the

result. He says there's a growing concern the British public have been

led to expect a future that's unreal and over optimistic, that obstacles

have been brushed aside. He's asking Brexiteers to be more honest with

the British public instead of pretending it's a walk in the park.

I don't think anyone's pretending it's a walk in the park. Theresa May

least of all. She's going to do the negotiations. I think she's taken

this on in a very realistic way. What she's saying is the British

people voted to leave. We must now deliver that. At the end of it all,

we want a decent relationship with Europe. We're leaving the European

Union, we're not leaving Europe. The speech was full of unrealistic

rather angry threats. I can't see the point of that now. 69% of the

public voted in a poll to get on it. They're not looking back. What do

you thist threats? They're a rerun of - you know, oh, it's going to be

a disaster, you're being too optimistic. What's the alternative?

You go into the European Union saying this is all going to be

terrible, help us out, it's a disaster, it's miserable. That's not

the way to run a negotiation. When you look at the rhetoric used, John

Redwood saying there will be no economic damage. Boris saying

countries will be queueing up to be our trade partners. Michael Gove

saying our best days are ahead. He's saying don't promise otherwise you

create a distrust all over again between the public and politicians.

I don't think the public expects this to be a complete walk in the

park. The way it's sold, they would. I'm not so certain about that. If

you look carefully at what's being said, what people are saying are

that it's in the hands of the British people to do the best out of

this and actually do well. It's in our hands. It's not in somebody

else's hands now. That's the point. You can be optimistic going forward

because you believe that the British people are capable of remarkable

things. But to be pessimistic about them is the wrong attitude. I got

from this speech a deep pessimism about the idea of the UK outside the

European Union. But we've had that debate. We've had that vote. The

point I'd simply make is, and I'm really sorry that he's chosen to

couch this in really what I consider to be quite bitter terms about the

process, and such a depressing forecast about the future, it would

be far better that he should actually say, like the British

people have made their minds up, let's get on with this. Let's make

of most of this. Let's do the best. A former Prime Minister should have

more faith in the British people. He points his finger at the Brexiteers

who shout down disagreement, who claim to want Parliament to have

sovereignty and have taken issue with anyone that has asked about

amendments, questioned how Brexit will happen. That's crazy, isn't it?

That's the nature of debate. That's what he says. He says you have shut

it down. You talk about frustrating the will of the British people, or

calling it a slap in the face if the Lords frustrate it. He says you have

shut down debate. With a bit of respect to John Major, I was here 25

years ago when the Maastricht Treaty was being pushed through. I seem to

recall he and many of his Cabinet shouted down those concerned about

Maastricht, which has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. A bit of

humility in this might not be a bad thing. The reality is that is the

nature of robust debate. We're going to have this huge reform bill coming

through. Everything will be debated ad nauseum. Then people will get a

vote at the end of it on whether or not they agree with the agreement

that Theresa May brings forward. When he says Brexit cheerleaders

have shown a disregard that amounts to contempt for the 48% of those who

voted Remain, you don't call that a disregard for what they're saying.

You're encouraging them to do that, are you? I encourage everybody to

debate. I'm happy with debate. Why do you call it a slap in the face,

why call it shenanigans? Those who voted Leave will have their opinion

on where we go in the future. I relish that. And amending if you

need to after the debate? What are you going to amend? The difference

is are you going to amend this short bill that says we want to trigger

Article 50? There's no point in debate then. You can have a go at

amending the other bill ad nauseum. Why do you think John Major entered

the debate now? I don't know why he chose to speak. I would have hoped

had John Major spoken he might have been a lot more positive. He might

have actually said, there are going to be difficulties rgs thction what

-- difficulties, this is what I would do, this is what we can

achieve. I felt today's speech was a lost opportunity for someone who was

the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, rather like Tony Blair, not

harking back to what happened, not sounding bitter and angry, not

looking like you don't have a lot rove inspect for what the British

people are capable of doing and making the wrong decision. Instead

of which saying, look, we can do these things. We have faith in the

British people. After all, when we were elected in 1992 and John Major

became the Prime Minister, I don't recall he turned around and said I

really don't have a lot of time for the British voters. They seem to

have made the wrong decision. He accepted their decision. Thank you

very much. Michael Gove's claim that "people

in this country have had enough of experts" was one of the most

memorable lines of the EU But was it just a throwaway

soundbite or did Mr Gove Are we really less willing to trust

the people who were once And have we come to distrust

all experts or just the kind who claim to know how

the economy will behave? Our editor Ian Katz went

in search of some answers. June 24th was a grim day

in Britain's ivory towers. The Brexit vote a punch

on the nose for an intellectual elite who had lined up

in favour of staying in the EU. This will be affected

for ordinary people. But did the referendum reveal,

perhaps even cause, lasting change in our relationship

with the people we once The Bank of England,

the IFS, the IMF, the CBI and most of the leaders

of the trade unions The working people of this country

at last get a fair deal. I think the people in

this country have had enough of experts with organisations

and acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting

it consistently wrong. Michael Gove may have trotted

out a glib sound bite to deflect an awkward question,

but it was one with potentially Have we ceased to believe

that men and women with An assault on the very idea

that society is built Those who are expert,

who have the knowledge, who have the intellectual ability

to dissect these difficult problems In recent years politicians

have increasingly pushed experts to the fore,

to justify their decisions. But in a world where experts lose

trust, how can politicians tackle climate change or convince us that

vaccinations are safe? Some even see in the anti-expert

rhetoric a slippery slope that leads to the post fact morass of Trump's

America. I've always wanted to say this,

I've never said this before, all the talking we all do,

all of these experts, we need an expert here,

the experts are terrible. The assault on experts has

implications for fields But it's economists who find

themselves on the front line. We are right to question experts,

particularly after what happened When experts said that consumer

confidence would fall, the stock markets would fall,

growth would cease, house prices would go up immediately,

as a result of the vote, Do you think it's time we gave up

listening to economists? I think we should pay a lot

of attention to economists except when they're talking

about the future. In 1949 a young economist

from New Zealand built this He used bits of old Lancaster

bombers and DIY skills picked up Phillips's machine, now

at Cambridge University, uses flows of water to model

the behaviour of the British economy, literally

trickle-down economics. The economy comes out through here,

around the pump at the back, Some of which goes off to savings,

so this is the banking sector. It could be a perfect metaphor

for what's wrong with economics. The embodiment of a mechanistic view

that assumes people will behave Social science

masquerading as science. It is telling us when you move

the levers in the economy how It's a model of the economy

as a machine isn't it? Is it reasonable to see

the economy as a machine? I don't know, that's a deeply

philosophical question. Economic forecasting has always

been a bit hit and miss. It's early function,

said JK Galbraith, was to make Economists flag up the uncertainty

and assumptions behind their But that nuance is often

stripped away by politicians In defence of economists I would say

that short-term forecasting We are talking about trying

to predict the actions of millions of different consumers

across the economy and trying to impose some order on all of that,

those millions of decisions, is inevitably going to

be really difficult. Victoria Bateman is

an economic historian. She thinks the attack on experts has

implications far beyond economics. I also think it was dangerous,

when we looked through out history, when we look at attempts to attack

intellectuals and those go back to the period

before the Enlightenment. I think it's particularly dangerous

for a western politician in a western democracy to be playing

this game of anti-intellectualising. I think the people in this country

have had enough of experts, It's perhaps ironic that

a man regarded as one figures in British politics is now

famous for one of its most Gove insists he was

quoted out of context. He didn't mean to

impugn all experts. I was particularly thinking

about organisations like the IMF, who I thought had called the Euro

wrong and were calling And I felt, at the very least,

we should challenge their arguments rather than simply saying,

oh well, because you are a tenured academic, or because you work

for the IMF, you must be right. You are famous for your linguistic

rigour, why didn't you say something more like what you've just

said to me? It was a high-profile,

high intensity, high tension, There is a difference

between the considered use of language in a conversation

like this and having Do you regret having used the word

experts in that context? No, I think, life is

too short for regrets. I think one of the things

that is occasionally irritating is that people assume that

what I was saying was a blanket rejection

of facts, evidence, rigour. Or the Chancellor or

the Prime Minister? They don't know any more

than we do, do they, really? Before the referendum,

Newsnight came to Bognor where Joan and some friends told us why

they would ignore warnings from experts like the governor

of the Bank of England. Does he know what it's like to go

around Sainsbury's, shopping? That line seemed to reveal something

profound about our changing relationship with experts,

so we've come back. Joan is away but over a cup of tea

I asked a few of the locals how It's too much scaremongering

from so-called experts. Too many organisations

and businesses that all they do is study graphs and take polls

and they just seem to make And I don't believe that they can,

that they know best. How on earth do we decide what to

listen to and what not to listen to? A lot of people have

got good common sense. You are not impressed

by the expertise of academics, why are you sceptical about people

who have spent often years They are just ordinary people

but unfortunately they get stuck in this little bubble

of what they are doing. So you will make all your judgment

based on what you hear, not It depends on what

they actually say. It sounds like what you're saying

is we should just pick Well there's plenty

of them out there. Perhaps not everywhere in Britain

is as allergic to boffins as Bognor. But it does seem we are far less

willing to take the pronouncements At least part of the answer must lie

with the Internet and the way it handed all of us the keys

to the kind of specialist knowledge Which of us hasn't diagnosed

an ailment with a little help from Doctor Google long before

arriving in the doctor's If the Internet has chipped away

at the respect commanded by many experts, it's done the opposite

for one man. Polls, if they still count

for anything consistently found that Martin Lewis was the figure trusted

most on Brexit. He thinks the trouble

starts when experts start Because you can't

make that prediction. This is a world about probability

and chance but what we had in the EU referendum was people giving us

black and white Lewis thinks that part

of the problem is that many experts appear to take sides

in the referendum argument. It was a problem we wrestled

with on Newsnight. In the eyes of the two campaigns,

no expert was sufficiently I think some experts made

the mistake of campaigning and therefore presenting their views

as part of a campaign which immediately says that

you are biased one way or the other. The public will perceive

it and not trust you. And even those who didn't then

allowed their information to be If the Enlightenment

has its sacred texts, one of them is Isaac Newton's Principia

Mathematica. Newton's own annotated copy

is the prized possession A temple to knowledge so chilly,

the librarians wear anoraks. So this is a Newton's own copy

of the Principia Mathematica? This is indeed, it's

one of the great works It's the book that inflicted

calculus on centuries Newton helped put science

at the centre of our modern world. Yet some worry that the assault

on experts has spread beyond economics and the social

sciences and now challenges Unfortunately, Mr Gove's remarks

spilled over into all sorts of other areas where experts have an enormous

contribution to make to the proper running of society

and for good policy development. Science is absolutely

there because science is based on reason and evidence and the fact

that experts have been derided in this way does have an effect

in undermining science We've come to another

temple to knowledge, London's gleaming Francis Crick

Institute. Noble prize-winning geneticist

Paul Nurse believes Michael Gove probably was thinking of economists

in his infamous comment, but it was irresponsible not

to clarify his remarks. Opinions on the front foot,

and those who are expert, who have the knowledge,

who have the intellectual ability to dissect these difficult problems

are being derided and pushed back. My view about this is that it cannot

last very long because opinion And it rapidly falls apart,

and I think we are seeing that The expert bashers believe

they were vindicated by the fact that most economists got

the short-term consequences But have they started

something more dangerous? Has Gove emboldened people

to dismiss all kind of expert Worry that you've actually let

something bigger get rolling that I entirely understand that,

yes, and I think that, I'm sure there are people who have

latched on that word, either those who fear that rise of,

a superstitious approach towards knowledge, who think that

I may have legitimised it and it may be that there are some people out

there that think that I am giving All I would say is that that phrase

apart, during my political lifetime, both when I was Education Secretary

and when I was Justice Secretary, I wanted people to know more,

to have more information and knowledge and a greater capacity

for critical thinking. You were out campaigning every day

after that interview, you could at any point in the days

after when I am sure it came up countless times, you could have

qualified that remark. Funnily enough it did

not come up that often I think it was used particularly

afterwards because people felt that the Brexit vote had somehow

been a triumph of know My argument is that actually

many of those who were making assertions during the campaign

on the Remain side where relying on people meekly submitting

to authority as though we were still operating in the age

of the pre-Reformation Catholic Church, rather

than actually making Science writer Matt Ridley believes

this greater public scepticism about experts is healthy,

the very opposite in fact of the challenge to Enlightenment

values others fear. One has to remember

about the Enlightenment did consist of challenging the experts,

particularly challenging priests and saying you do not

have all the answers. People can work out

the answers for themselves. It's hard to argue that a more

questioning public is a bad thing. But here's the problem,

where do we stop? All these people have had experts,

oh, we need an expert. Can any layman decide

that if the evidence on climate change stacks up,

or if vaccines are safe, or whether After seeing their Brexit advice

ignored, at least one expert decided to express herself more forcefully

in the days after the referendum. Yeah, so I made the decision

to spend the day at the University naked, as both an expression

of my feelings about the referendum, which is that it's a rather dramatic

event and will have dramatic long-term consequences,

but at the human level more Victoria attended the monthly

faculty meeting wearing only the words "Brexit leaves us naked"

scrawled across her torso. For some, the scene might have been

a perfect metaphor for our changing The emperor revealed to have

been naked all along. So did Michael Gove put his finger

on something no one had yet noticed? If only there was an

expert we could ask. Well, we have three right here -

although maybe they won't Tracey Brown is the Director

of Sense and Science - Because Evidence Matters,

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is the author of Black Swan and Swati Dhingra

is an Economist LSE. Nice to have all of you here, I will

start with you Nicholas, did JK Galbraith get it right when he said

economic forecasting makes astrology look respectable, should it all be

left well alone? Well, it's right that in a similar system you should

let the system decide for itself, but, let me put some precision here

because I've done some work since, the first time I was in your studio

was nine years ago where I had to explain that economists were not

experts. Since then I have had to refine some of my work, so there are

domains where we have experts, we need experts, 99% of the people you

will run into tomorrow through evening will be experts, the driver

will be an expert at driving, the baker and expert at making bread.

And so on. And now technicians, I am in New York, the technology is who

are able to make that connection are experts however they are domains

where they are not experts and where is the boundary? The boundary

appears to be micro versus Micro. There are three boundaries, micro

versus macro, in other words someone who deals with smaller fierce, it's

much easier to do micro because you're not going to be held to

account... Soap economics basically fits as macro? It's too big to get

right? That is not true, there are many facts we do know from

economics, how does trade work across countries from example and

that is what we know from hundreds of data and those are the facts we

are bringing to the public and I want to point out two issues in the

film, one is that experts and academics are being put in the same

category even though we know there are not many THEY TALK OVER EACH

OTHER I am talking about academic... Sorry, I don't see you guys here, so

I don't know, let me say a couple of things, I was a trader for 20 some

years and then I saw, I am not of course in an economic 's department,

I do applied maths, then we saw the rigour and economics, it makes me

cry, the statistical rigour because you use Gal C and distributions and

calcium metrics for things which are repeatedly not them. It's too

technical for the audience. I don't know what that means but broadly, is

economic forecasting something we should leave alone?

Joo economic forecasting, predicting the future, is taking the definition

of expertise to its outside edges. Most people in your film and people

in the business of looking at the economy recognise that. I really

feel we need to say something about this interpretation of what happened

in that debate because the referendum has become the reference

point for this discussion about expertise. It's a bit a false

situation for us to be drawing big conclusions about what people think

about experts based on that. I'm deeply suspicious when people make

sweeping retorical newerish of an anti-intellectual nature. They

usually don't mean let's equip the public with critical thinking. They

usually mean believe me don't believe them. That's an interesting

point. To go back to you Nicholas, when people reject experts what

they're saying is don't believe them, take it from me or another

source that I trust. Do you buy that? I definitely buy that. I buy

that people in at a microlevel trust some people for their opinion. To

build a pyramid at the bottom most people are experts at what they're

doing. Awes go up layers, the scaling, as you go higher and higher

then you lose in expertise because you can't check the person's

results. Eeconomists live in their own little bubble when they're not

judged by reality, they're judged by other economists. They can keep

being incompetent forever. I mean... Let me tell you... Just let me bring

you to one point, is it irresponsible when you hear

positions in great, politicians in great positions of power, be it

Donald Trump or Michael Gove at the time saying we've had enough of

experts or experts are wrong, do you agree that is irresponsible? I mean,

the word "expert" can mean a lot of things. Some classes of experts we

should dispence with because they've been very dangerous. When I was in

your studio nine years ago, talking about economics, it was an expert

problem. There is something we call an expert problem. There is an

expert problem we just have to train society to distinguish. It's

society's fault that we don't explain properly who is an expert.

It's not just about explanation. No, it's not. This is about how the

debate was portrayed. The same kind of people like Michael Gove was

letting their information being misused. They were saying ?350

million per week coming back to the NHS, we haven't seen that happen.

Why are only those particular experts who made - It happened on

the other side, we all remember them showing, on the Remain side it would

cost ?4,300 per family. These specific numbers. Those short-term

officials were made by public officials not independent experts.

Independent experts made only long-term positions. This wasn't all

about you. People were posing all kinds of questions in the

referendum. Like I live in Swansea, and my hope for my kids getting a

job or going on holiday in the next five years is zero any way. So your

national discussion and your national figures and projections are

not talking to me. People were posing questions that were political

questions. They weren't getting political answers. So, what we've

seen is a politicisation of expertise over the recent

discussion. Let's not draw grand conclusions. Last year, you could

say 2016 was not the year of post-truth. 2016 was the year in

which, for example, the Hillsborough families use a mass of expertise and

fact finding to hunt for the truth. You don't think it's eroded

confidence in experts then? I think there's a bigger question, there is

a fracture between the discussion we're having about our national well

being, at a national level, with economic contributions and what

people's lived lives are like that don't relate to that. There are

assumptions there and this has laid them bare. The point about this

question was when you talk about not believing experts and when people

start to gree with it, does it have a knock-on effect in different

fields, whether it's science, climate change, inoculations, all

those sorts of things? The biggest danger is the knock-on effect in

politics. If we have the belief starting to take hold among our

politician that's truthfulness is no longer a public value that people

don't expect things to make sense - It doesn't matter what the content

or the subject is, it's about the approach to trust? Yeah, it almost

becomes subversive. It's like the 50s when it was subversive to talk

about homosexuality or abortion rates. It becomes subversive to talk

about the facts about something if people think it's not going to play

well in one of the national newspapers. Except it's good to

question, isn't it? It's good to use common sense and everything we

heard. Experts have a great history of helping the public to pose

questions about their lives. In the run up to the referendum there was a

survey done which showed that people do trust academics. Our ratings were

at the level of 57 to 60% and that they trust organisations like the

ONS because it gives them fact. It's not as though people don't want the

facts. They want the facts. Nicholas, I know you're very

respected by Steve Bannon in the Trump administration. Have they come

to you with the offer of a job? I will not comment on that. But - Go

on, let us entice you gently on Newsnight. OK, let me tell you the

one thing that people seem to miss about all this thing that the point

isn't so much trusting experts and not trusting experts. The idea is to

build systems that are error proof and microsystems are pretty mush

error proof because the error doesn't generalise. When you have a

concentrated system, as in Brussels, one error can lead to very large

conclusions. Maybe the experts were not error free. This is where the

discussion should be is how can we build systems that can with stand an

expert problem. These systems have one atery bute, they need to be

decentralised. Thank you all very much indeed.

You'd be excused for thinking that the Oscars this year

essentially consisted of one big envelope-related cock-up.

Tonight, another missing piece of the jigsaw, as reports surface

in the Wall Street Journal that Price Waterhouse Coopers managing

partner, Brian Cullinan, was tweeting a backstage picture

of Emma Stone moments before that critical moment.

A tweet, incidentally, that has now been deleted.

But beyond the La La Land/Moonlight fracas, another rather different

The White Helmets are a group of civilian rescue workers in Syria.

You may even recognise their name from Newsnights over the past

few years and a film following their work in Syria,

simply titled The White Helmets, won Best Documentary.

We spoke to a member of the organisation, Majd Khalaf,

This piece contains images from the documentary which some viewers might

find upsetting. TRANSLATION: At the moment we

receive the news of winning the Oscar, one of our volunteers was

pulling a child from underneath the rubble in the city of Idlib. Other

volunteers were helping in the suburbs of Damascus. When we started

our work with the Civil Defence team, the white helmets, we pledged

to help as many civilians as possible.

It is an indescribable feeling when we get the call to help, although

our job poses a lot of threat on our lives.

TRANSLATION: Until now, we have saved 80,000 civilians, but we have

also lost 162 of our colleagues because of air strikes.

Although we are happy to save lives, we are also living the suffering of

the civilians every day. The film was shot in Aleppo, which was

considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Our colleagues

have put their lives on the line to get the message across.

The Oscar has shed a light on the suffering of people inside Syria and

made their voices heard. It introduced the work of the Civil

Defence teams and the difficulties and dangers they face when they

respond to calls. It also showed there is a humanitarian work taking

place in Syria and not just a Civil War happening. It's true there are

people dying and air strikes bombarding civilians, but there are

also volunteers who are working to make the people's voices heard.

We didn't think we would get to the Oscars or win it. Our message is

clear: To stop the air strikes on civilians.

We leave you with the The Sony World Photography awards,

whose 2017 shortlist will be on show at Somerset House in

The actual nominees can only be revealed at midnight tonight,

so obviously I'm not allowed to open the envelope and tell

After the disaster at the Oscars last night,

But here's a peak at a few strong contenders.

# I hurt myself today. # To see if I still feel.

# I focus on the pain # The only thing that's real

# The needle tears a hole # The old familiar sting

# Try to kill it all away # But I remember everything.

By some definition spring starts this week. It feels wintry at the

moment. A cold start to the day. Bright and crisp for some. Showers

for others, especially across western areas, snow over high

ground. This band of showers moving eastwards across the UK, followed by

something brighter for Northern Ireland and certainly plenty of

sunshine across central and northern Scotland through the afternoon.

Chilly,