06/03/2017 Newsnight


06/03/2017

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The Chancellor will set out his plans.

:00:00.:00:08.

But as Mike Tyson famously said, everyone has a plan until they get

:00:09.:00:12.

Phillip Hammond knows Brexit hangs over everything right now.

:00:13.:00:17.

But can he carry on the job of getting borrowing down?

:00:18.:00:21.

I think the public sector is coming to the point

:00:22.:00:25.

where there are going to be large social costs from increasing amounts

:00:26.:00:28.

We'll ask if austerity has gone as far as it can

:00:29.:00:34.

Also tonight, the Netherlands prepares

:00:35.:00:38.

Is an anticipated far right surge also an identity crisis

:00:39.:00:45.

for a supposedly relaxed and liberal country?

:00:46.:00:47.

That is the good thing about the carnival.

:00:48.:00:58.

Right. What about the rest of the time?

:00:59.:01:00.

I heard somebody say something about Obamagate.

:01:01.:01:11.

Looks like it's time for us to investigate!

:01:12.:01:15.

We'll hear from President Trump's more unusual internet

:01:16.:01:19.

Hello. This is Budget week.

:01:20.:01:33.

On Wednesday the Chancellor Phillip Hammond will take

:01:34.:01:35.

to the dispatch box, and set out his plan for taxes,

:01:36.:01:40.

for borrowing, for spending, for improving British productivity,

:01:41.:01:42.

It's a strange one - perhaps the strangest for a while.

:01:43.:01:46.

Brexit offers an excuse for a pause on painful decisions,

:01:47.:01:49.

but at some point, if the Chancellor is to match the aims

:01:50.:01:52.

set out by his party, he'll have to find a way

:01:53.:01:55.

More public spending cuts are already written

:01:56.:01:59.

into the government's projections, just as Article 50 is about to hit

:02:00.:02:02.

Now helping out is the fact that the economic news has been good

:02:03.:02:12.

But unfortunately he can't rely on bags of money

:02:13.:02:15.

falling from the sky, and that means this is not an easy

:02:16.:02:18.

Sometimes you want a safe pair of hands at number 11, a man who does

:02:19.:02:28.

This is probably one of those times and in

:02:29.:02:34.

the last few days, he has been out and about, sensibly managing

:02:35.:02:38.

If your bank increases your credit card limit, I don't think you feel

:02:39.:02:43.

obliged to go out and spend every last penny of it immediately.

:02:44.:02:46.

I regard my job as Chancellor as making sure that our economy is

:02:47.:02:53.

resilient, that we have got reserves in the tank,

:02:54.:02:56.

so that as we embark on

:02:57.:02:59.

the journey that we take over the next couple of years, we are

:03:00.:03:02.

confident that we have got enough gas in the tank to see us through

:03:03.:03:05.

There are two kinds of budget, those that have a specific problem to

:03:06.:03:14.

solve, normally a crisis in the public finances. And there are those

:03:15.:03:19.

where there isn't much to do, chances just have to stand up and

:03:20.:03:23.

look like they've been keeping busy. Well, this one is more in the latter

:03:24.:03:28.

category. Part of the reason for that is that breaks it is looming

:03:29.:03:32.

over everything at the moment. The old slogan used to be, you must fix

:03:33.:03:37.

the roof while the sun is shining. -- Brexit is looming over anything.

:03:38.:03:42.

Today might be, there is no point in fixing the roof if you think a great

:03:43.:03:45.

victory might come toppling down on top of it. You should wait to see

:03:46.:03:51.

what happens. -- a great big three. Until Brexit getting it down was the

:03:52.:03:57.

main goal of getting it down, the deficit, and it slowly came under

:03:58.:04:01.

control. The idea is it carries on going down but the basic job is far

:04:02.:04:06.

from done. It's fair to say that a lot of people, perhaps ourselves

:04:07.:04:09.

included, were sceptical about the scope for the scale of public

:04:10.:04:13.

spending cuts experienced over the last parliament, but those were

:04:14.:04:16.

essentially delivered as promised without everything falling apart. We

:04:17.:04:20.

don't need to panic about the level of public borrowing at the moment,

:04:21.:04:25.

but we do, broadly speaking, need to get it down rather than let it go

:04:26.:04:29.

up. So we can't expect to borrow more as an answer to all our

:04:30.:04:34.

prayers. Yet, when you look at the public sector, it's beginning to

:04:35.:04:37.

scream that it needs more money. So if you are a Chancellor at number

:04:38.:04:42.

11, you look out there, it doesn't look like there are any easy answers

:04:43.:04:49.

to the long-term problems. Finding public spending savings now, after a

:04:50.:04:54.

period of six or seven years of efficiency savings, is a much more

:04:55.:04:58.

challenging job to do without hitting front line services or

:04:59.:05:03.

significantly increasing poverty. Imagine you were Chancellor. Where

:05:04.:05:06.

would you go for further cuts? Defence? Just as Nato is being told

:05:07.:05:14.

to raise spending? Prisons? Amid the current violence and disorder?

:05:15.:05:20.

Police? Just last week the official inspector said they were in a

:05:21.:05:23.

perilous state. In transport, we are meant to be getting Brexit ready by

:05:24.:05:29.

spending more on infrastructure. In business we are trying to launch a

:05:30.:05:31.

new industrial strategy and it's already on the cheap. Health? Good

:05:32.:05:36.

luck with that. Social care? You need to find money and not cut it.

:05:37.:05:41.

You have to go a long way to look for low hanging fruit nowadays. Most

:05:42.:05:46.

of that was plucked in 2011 and 2012. There was probably a lot of

:05:47.:05:50.

low hanging fruit there. If you want to go foraging for some more, the

:05:51.:05:54.

places to look are presumably, and this isn't what I am suggesting you

:05:55.:06:01.

should do, but you could look at overseas aid where spending has

:06:02.:06:04.

risen very fast over the last five or six years, but we have

:06:05.:06:07.

commitments in that direction. Secondly, spending on pensions and

:06:08.:06:11.

pension benefits, all of which have been more than fully protected over

:06:12.:06:15.

the last five or six years in contrast to most areas of spending.

:06:16.:06:21.

Inside the Treasury, they have got a lot on their plate. Getting to the

:06:22.:06:24.

next two years is hard enough, and then the long-term beckons

:06:25.:06:29.

thereafter with some difficult decisions to be taken.

:06:30.:06:34.

Our political editor Nick Watt is here.

:06:35.:06:37.

A little bit of news on education spending is out as we speak. Theresa

:06:38.:06:42.

May and Philip Hammond are saying they want to move on from the era of

:06:43.:06:47.

George Osborne where we had big political announcements surrounding

:06:48.:06:52.

a budget. These are serious and earnest affairs. Tomorrow's

:06:53.:06:55.

front-page headlines on all the papers are a big announcement that

:06:56.:06:59.

will allow Theresa May to say she is pressing ahead for plans for grammar

:07:00.:07:04.

schools. Speculation that was on the back burner. The Chancellor will

:07:05.:07:09.

plough ?320 million into expanding the government's free school

:07:10.:07:14.

programme. The key point is that will create extra spaces and those

:07:15.:07:17.

schools would be able to select on the basis of academic ability. That

:07:18.:07:22.

is obviously the big headline they want to get out tomorrow. The

:07:23.:07:25.

important thing to remember about this budget is that it is the last

:07:26.:07:30.

spring budget. In the Chancellor's mind we will have the first autumn

:07:31.:07:36.

budget later this year. In his mind, that's the big moment where you

:07:37.:07:39.

would make any big tax changes. And you would have a bit of news about

:07:40.:07:44.

Brexit by then. What would you look out for as the things he will be

:07:45.:07:48.

interested in either in this one or autumn? The key thing to remember

:07:49.:07:53.

about autumn is that Brexit negotiations will be underweight for

:07:54.:07:57.

several months by then. The French and German elections will be out of

:07:58.:08:01.

the way. And the belief is the negotiations will be bumpy. They say

:08:02.:08:06.

to Eurosceptics, who say all those Treasury warnings from George

:08:07.:08:10.

Osborne were overstating it, they were based on the assumption Article

:08:11.:08:14.

50 would be triggered immediately. We are about to trigger it, so we

:08:15.:08:19.

will see what happens. In the autumn budget, will when the funding of

:08:20.:08:26.

social care is addressed, the Chancellor is wary of taxing

:08:27.:08:30.

inheritance. No death tax is the cry that is evidently going around the

:08:31.:08:35.

Treasury at the moment. He's more interested in an idea from Baroness

:08:36.:08:39.

Altmann, the former tension as minister, who says it's like an ice

:08:40.:08:42.

for social care. The Chancellor likes that idea, he is responsible

:08:43.:08:49.

to put on working people. The other thing he is alive to his criticism

:08:50.:08:53.

on the Tory backbenches that stamp duty reforms from George Osborne

:08:54.:08:56.

slowing down the housing market and not yielding the revenues talked

:08:57.:09:04.

about. The Chancellor will hear that, but he needs to see more data.

:09:05.:09:08.

If the concerns are true, he will be happy to respond.

:09:09.:09:11.

Labour MP Helen Goodman was a minister in the Department

:09:12.:09:13.

for Work and Pensions and now sits on the Treasury Select Committee -

:09:14.:09:17.

A good evening to you both. Helen, what would you cut at this point? As

:09:18.:09:25.

we have seen, and as your package showed, I think it's extremely

:09:26.:09:31.

difficult to cut public service now. Adult social care in crisis. Three

:09:32.:09:36.

quarters of NHS trusts in deficit. I would be amazed if they would spend

:09:37.:09:41.

money on grammar schools, because across the country individual school

:09:42.:09:45.

budgets are being cut in real and cash terms now. I think that's very

:09:46.:09:51.

surprising as a development. I think it's necessary now to go back to

:09:52.:09:58.

some of George Osborne's tax cuts. It's sensible to help people to save

:09:59.:10:02.

for the long term for their care, but an inheritance tax cut that

:10:03.:10:09.

enables people to leave ?1 million home? That is costing the Chancellor

:10:10.:10:13.

?800 million. Capital gains tax, again reductions made by his

:10:14.:10:18.

predecessor are costing him ?700 million. I would have thought he

:10:19.:10:23.

would look there. You are saying, we have done enough on the spending

:10:24.:10:29.

side, we have to look at taxes next. Chris, do you really believe,

:10:30.:10:32.

because we haven't cut this year very much at all, there has been a

:10:33.:10:37.

pause, can they do it and get the spending down? Putting the figures

:10:38.:10:43.

in context, in 2016 real pounds, total government spending between

:10:44.:10:49.

2010 and 2020 is about the same at ?760 billion per year in real terms.

:10:50.:10:53.

People talk about the austerity of cuts, but in real terms the

:10:54.:10:57.

government budget has stayed the same. In Helen's term, putting up

:10:58.:11:02.

taxes willy-nilly, the way to clear a deficit is creating jobs and

:11:03.:11:05.

growth. You help that by cutting taxes. One of the reasons

:11:06.:11:11.

corporation tax receipts has gone up is because we have cut corporation

:11:12.:11:15.

tax down from 28 to 20 and shortly 17%. That encourages businesses to

:11:16.:11:20.

create jobs. It's not about government hand-outs or tax and

:11:21.:11:23.

spending, it's about encouraging the economy to grow, which is what we

:11:24.:11:27.

have done. Would you agree there is enormous pressure in many public

:11:28.:11:31.

services at the moment? You see the headlines and you don't dismiss

:11:32.:11:37.

that? Of course not. Social care is an obvious example. There is the

:11:38.:11:43.

better care fund. ?3.5 billion more. Your government didn't manage to

:11:44.:11:48.

make cuts this year, but the next three years it's intending that real

:11:49.:11:52.

spending in departments, not welfare, but departments like health

:11:53.:11:56.

and Home Office and so on, real spending cuts of 2% per head of

:11:57.:12:02.

population per year. The fact is, the population of our country is

:12:03.:12:06.

growing quite fast and that has put pressure on public spending, as the

:12:07.:12:10.

public has told us. The population is growing at about 0.4% per year.

:12:11.:12:19.

You believe that after six years of austerity, 2% cuts per head in real

:12:20.:12:23.

terms spending is possible? Population is growing at 0.4% per

:12:24.:12:29.

year. If you are freezing it, I think we can reduce public spending

:12:30.:12:35.

per head after inflation by 0.4% per year and maintain services. Your

:12:36.:12:39.

chart a few months ago showed how the government has progressively

:12:40.:12:44.

reduced the Labour deficit from 2010 all the way down. The plan is to

:12:45.:12:48.

continue that trajectory for the next few years until the deficit

:12:49.:12:53.

hits zero. There is nothing responsible about raising more money

:12:54.:12:58.

and sending the bill to our children. That's not what I

:12:59.:13:01.

suggested. You need to take into account we have an ageing

:13:02.:13:05.

population. The population is not what we had ten years ago. We have

:13:06.:13:10.

more old people, they are older and more frail, so we have more NHS

:13:11.:13:15.

needs. There are more adult social care needs. I think it's very hard

:13:16.:13:20.

in a situation where we have food banks flourishing around the

:13:21.:13:26.

country, to say, people must be allowed to inherit without any tax

:13:27.:13:33.

at all, ?1 million inheritance. The inheritance tax will not be enough

:13:34.:13:37.

to put money into the health service and pay for social care and get the

:13:38.:13:42.

prisons and police and defence to levels people want. You have to do

:13:43.:13:46.

have some proper tax increases on the average person as well as just

:13:47.:13:51.

picking off a few... Not necessarily. As Chris says, for

:13:52.:13:56.

example, we have already had ?6 billion of cuts in corporation tax

:13:57.:14:00.

with another one in the spring. It raises more money. Maybe we could

:14:01.:14:05.

leave corporation tax rate at 19% and not go to 17. Chris, what would

:14:06.:14:12.

you actually cut? Give us a suggestion of something that would

:14:13.:14:15.

save ?2 billion, which is the figure we sort of talking about. The

:14:16.:14:21.

government is controlling spending in all areas. The biggest line

:14:22.:14:24.

height is the welfare budget, and we have to get people off welfare and

:14:25.:14:31.

into work. We have been successful. We have record employment, wages are

:14:32.:14:34.

rising and we have record female employment as well. That's

:14:35.:14:38.

ultimately the way you reduce public spending. We will have more of this

:14:39.:14:40.

discussion on Wednesday, I'm sure. Now one of the more intriguing

:14:41.:14:45.

suggestions that has been trailed as a budget possibility

:14:46.:14:47.

is an increase in National Insurance It kind of makes sense at one level

:14:48.:14:49.

as the self-employed people do pay less National Insurance,

:14:50.:14:54.

and the government thus loses revenue when people switch

:14:55.:14:56.

from employment to self-employment, which has been happening

:14:57.:14:58.

more and more. But does it make sense

:14:59.:14:59.

to Kevin Green, the Chief Executive of the Recruitment

:15:00.:15:02.

Employment Confederation - the professional body

:15:03.:15:04.

for the recruitment industry Their members place self-employed

:15:05.:15:05.

contractors into jobs. Good evening. Just explain to

:15:06.:15:21.

everyone, what is the difference between employment and

:15:22.:15:25.

self-employment. In relation to National Insurance, if you're

:15:26.:15:29.

self-employed, you pay 9% and if you are employed, you pay 12%. That is

:15:30.:15:34.

what the Chancellor might go after. The much bigger gap, is that my

:15:35.:15:42.

employer is paying 13%. You do not have an employer if you're self

:15:43.:15:47.

employed. If you look at some of the business models like Cooper, they

:15:48.:15:50.

will not be paying National Insurance contributions for the

:15:51.:15:55.

people who work for them are self-employed and that is a

:15:56.:15:57.

significantly bigger number. It is about 16% gap. Would it make sense

:15:58.:16:04.

to do something in this budget to deal with that? The way it has been

:16:05.:16:08.

positioned it looks like he will go after the worker rather than the

:16:09.:16:12.

business and I think some of that is because it is much more complex when

:16:13.:16:16.

you get into the business. We have a number of NEETs that we are waiting

:16:17.:16:22.

for decisions on like Uber... They do not seem to have done anything

:16:23.:16:27.

wrong. There is a definition about whether they are workers...

:16:28.:16:30.

Employment tribunal 's have said that they are self-employed. No,

:16:31.:16:37.

they said they were workers. We have got a fundamental problem between

:16:38.:16:41.

employment regulation and taxation policy. Employment regulation you

:16:42.:16:44.

have three definitions, self-employed, employed and worker

:16:45.:16:50.

and taxation is self-employed or employee. Fundamentally, is there a

:16:51.:16:56.

good case for charging self-employed people, basically 15 or 16% less tax

:16:57.:17:03.

overall on the value of their Labour at the Newchurch employed people?

:17:04.:17:08.

Clearly in relation to self-employed there is pension contributions,

:17:09.:17:15.

holiday pay... The key is how do we, but the system which recognises some

:17:16.:17:18.

of the risk about being self-employed, gives them some kind

:17:19.:17:22.

of tax advantage but creates clarity and at the moment we have huge grey

:17:23.:17:28.

areas in relation to tax for employers, employees cover the whole

:17:29.:17:30.

thing is a mess and what we are looking for is the government to

:17:31.:17:34.

come up with a systemic way of coming up with a fair taxation

:17:35.:17:39.

policy for businesses and for employees, which actually aligns

:17:40.:17:42.

these things so that we get the right tax for people. You're not

:17:43.:17:48.

against aligning them will stop at some point over time. If you are

:17:49.:17:53.

this government, you're not going to put 3p or 3% National Insurance on

:17:54.:18:00.

the poorest least secure workers who are driving a cab for Uber or

:18:01.:18:03.

working for Deliveroo, you will not say you will be paying more tax.

:18:04.:18:08.

They are the ones they're trying to help! The Chancellor is clearly

:18:09.:18:13.

looking for ways to raise tax. The issue at the moment is is this fair

:18:14.:18:18.

or transparent? If you're employed, should you be paying more tax than

:18:19.:18:23.

someone who is not employed? You are right, if the government is looking

:18:24.:18:27.

at the tax from self-employment, it should go after the businesses and

:18:28.:18:30.

really look that their model as well is looking at the workers because

:18:31.:18:35.

the workers take more risk, they need to have some kind of incentive

:18:36.:18:38.

to continue and we do not want to undermine our Labour market which

:18:39.:18:42.

has been hugely successful. Kevin Green, thank you very much.

:18:43.:18:44.

President Trump news now, and he has formulated

:18:45.:18:46.

a new executive order to replace his old travel ban.

:18:47.:18:48.

Remember, that was struck down in the courts.

:18:49.:18:50.

This one takes effect in ten days time.

:18:51.:18:53.

The executive order signed by the President earlier today,

:18:54.:18:56.

protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into

:18:57.:18:57.

the United States is a vital measure for strengthening

:18:58.:19:00.

It is the President's solemn duty to protect the American people.

:19:01.:19:09.

And with this order, President Trump is exercising his rightful authority

:19:10.:19:11.

Professor Stephen Legomsky was President Obama's Chief Counsel

:19:12.:19:20.

for US Citizenship Immigration from 2011 to 2013.

:19:21.:19:30.

evening to you. Do you think this new executive order will get through

:19:31.:19:38.

the courts? Very difficult to say. There are two kinds of provision in

:19:39.:19:42.

this executive order and some of them deal specifically with refugees

:19:43.:19:45.

and others deal with immigrants generally. On the refugee site, the

:19:46.:19:52.

two main changes are eliminating the indefinite ban on Syrian refugees,

:19:53.:19:57.

all of whom are still subject to the 120 day moratorium and all refugees

:19:58.:20:00.

and the other thing they did was to eliminate what had been an exception

:20:01.:20:05.

for people who are persecuted because of their religion but only

:20:06.:20:08.

if their religion was a minority religion. This was widely derided,

:20:09.:20:14.

as a back door attempt to save Christians over Muslims and my guess

:20:15.:20:18.

is that the courts will not be fooled by it. The religious

:20:19.:20:23.

discrimination claim is still there and the evidence and pre-tax will

:20:24.:20:26.

still be a stroll. Why do you say that? Now, it is a country

:20:27.:20:31.

discrimination, it is not a religious discrimination. He surely

:20:32.:20:35.

is entitled to say no immigrants but this country or that country,

:20:36.:20:38.

legally? Absolutely and we do that all the time. What makes this

:20:39.:20:43.

different is that the plaintiffs are arguing that even though the

:20:44.:20:48.

document is neutral on its face, it is motivated by a different pre-tax

:20:49.:20:53.

and to back up that claim they cite multiple statements from President

:20:54.:20:57.

Trump about his intention to institute a Muslim ban, there is a

:20:58.:21:03.

statement by his closest adviser, a former New York City Mayor, Rudy

:21:04.:21:06.

Giuliani to the effect that the troubled campaign reached out to him

:21:07.:21:11.

to find a way to package the Muslim ban and then there are also the

:21:12.:21:16.

comments indicating a desire to protect persecuted Christians. The

:21:17.:21:19.

job for the plaintiffs will be to convince the court that although the

:21:20.:21:24.

order has changed, it is nonetheless religious discrimination and since

:21:25.:21:28.

those statements were made in the past, they really cannot be taken

:21:29.:21:31.

back. The question will be whether the courts by the argument or not.

:21:32.:21:35.

The courts surely look through his words, they do not listen to what he

:21:36.:21:39.

said, they look at whether it is a bad weather he said it was and they

:21:40.:21:43.

will look at this and say it is pretty different to the previous

:21:44.:21:48.

one. The differences are fairly cosmetic foot, it is true that the

:21:49.:21:52.

Syrians have been eliminated as a separate group and it is true that

:21:53.:21:55.

they have eliminated the religious minority exception but on the

:21:56.:21:59.

refugee site, everything stays the same and on the general side there

:22:00.:22:04.

is still a 90 day ban on entries from nationals from six countries,

:22:05.:22:08.

Iraq is off the list and the questionnaire again is whether this

:22:09.:22:14.

is motivated by religious pretext or whether it is a genuine national

:22:15.:22:18.

security measure. The process this time, it has been a few weeks

:22:19.:22:23.

coming, this executive order and it has a ten day lead time, are you

:22:24.:22:27.

impressed that they got the process side of this more in order than they

:22:28.:22:32.

did last time? They have clearly made improvements, the 10-day

:22:33.:22:36.

lead-in is important and in addition, they have exempted very

:22:37.:22:41.

important categories, for example people who have lawful permanent

:22:42.:22:45.

residents starters in the UK -- US are exempted as are those who hold

:22:46.:22:49.

valid current visas and that will go a long way toward strengthening the

:22:50.:22:53.

government case on the question of whether or not due process or what

:22:54.:22:56.

would be called natural justice in the UK has been observed but I do

:22:57.:23:03.

not know whether that gets them past the religious discrimination

:23:04.:23:04.

argument. Thank you for talking to us.

:23:05.:23:06.

We've been talking a lot about France and its impending

:23:07.:23:09.

But there are Parliamentary elections in the

:23:10.:23:11.

In the country often described as the most liberal in Europe.

:23:12.:23:15.

They used to joke, "do you know what's illegal in the Netherlands?

:23:16.:23:18.

Polls suggest many people will vote for Geert Wilders,

:23:19.:23:22.

a right-wing populist who wants to pull the country out

:23:23.:23:25.

of the EU and ban immigration from Muslim countries.

:23:26.:23:27.

He might even win the largest number of seats.

:23:28.:23:29.

So what happened to the supposedly tolerant, easy-going Dutch?

:23:30.:23:33.

We've heard from the populists on this programme,

:23:34.:23:35.

but Newsnight's Gabriel Gatehouse grew up in Amsterdam,

:23:36.:23:37.

and he's been back to try to find out what liberals there make

:23:38.:23:40.

The Netherlands is having an identity crisis.

:23:41.:24:14.

I don't remember people agonising over this question in the past.

:24:15.:24:25.

We are all the same, and we're very tolerant.

:24:26.:24:38.

And we drink and eat and play and dance together.

:24:39.:24:43.

That's the good thing about Carnival.

:24:44.:24:45.

Some people are not so the same as other people.

:24:46.:25:00.

I think the whole Islamic thing means that we are more

:25:01.:25:03.

Geert Wilders, the Netherlands' answer to Donald Trump,

:25:04.:25:09.

wants to ban the Koran, close the mosques, and the borders.

:25:10.:25:19.

In defence of their tolerant way of life, many Dutch people

:25:20.:25:22.

are apparently willing to vote for some pretty intolerant policy.

:25:23.:25:30.

When I was growing up here in the 1980s, the Netherlands,

:25:31.:25:34.

and Amsterdam in particular, felt like this sort of inclusive

:25:35.:25:38.

space, a place that was open and tolerant, where anything goes,

:25:39.:25:41.

and anyone, really, can come and be themselves.

:25:42.:25:46.

It doesn't really feel like that any more.

:25:47.:25:48.

So I've come back here to try and find out what's happened

:25:49.:25:54.

to that peculiarly Dutch brand of liberalism.

:25:55.:26:08.

This feels like a country on a difficult journey

:26:09.:26:10.

A country that has suffered a sudden loss of faith

:26:11.:26:18.

in a set of truths it once held be self-evident.

:26:19.:26:23.

On the outskirts of the city, an abandoned shipyard has been

:26:24.:26:26.

ADM, as it's known, is a community of artists and performers, the sort

:26:27.:26:34.

of people for whom Amsterdam was once a haven.

:26:35.:26:40.

It used to be a town with a lot of empty spaces.

:26:41.:26:43.

It was a paradise for people who want to make things

:26:44.:26:45.

It was really a part of, a sort of Utopia.

:26:46.:26:53.

# When I'm hungry, I eat out of the dumpster.

:26:54.:26:56.

# When I'm thirsty, is that your beer?

:26:57.:26:59.

# When I'm tired, I find an empty house to sleep in.

:27:00.:27:03.

# And if you don't like it, lock you!

:27:04.:27:07.

But the welfare state that nourished that Utopia

:27:08.:27:09.

These days, there's less space for squatters,

:27:10.:27:16.

Under pressure perhaps, the collective now has

:27:17.:27:22.

a surprisingly strict membership policy.

:27:23.:27:26.

Everyone is allowed in, but we should be able to send them

:27:27.:27:29.

out if it's not working, and close the gate behind.

:27:30.:27:32.

If that sounds like something Geert Wilders might like, well,

:27:33.:27:35.

he's not popular here, but perhaps the fate of the squat

:27:36.:27:38.

in some ways mirrors that of the country.

:27:39.:27:44.

The group is small enough to control ourselves,

:27:45.:27:46.

and now we begin this fantastic, nonconformist little town.

:27:47.:27:53.

Squatters were once a defining force in radical Dutch politics.

:27:54.:28:06.

The squatter riots of the 1980s are a vivid and sometimes

:28:07.:28:08.

In an apparent attempt to defuse the situation,

:28:09.:28:15.

a policeman dressed as Santa Claus was lifted off the roof by crane.

:28:16.:28:21.

Against the backdrop of Reaganomics and Thatcherism, the movement

:28:22.:28:23.

These were battles over the concept of public versus private space.

:28:24.:28:34.

As the squatters fought the riot police on the streets,

:28:35.:28:36.

an architect specialising in school design was having a similar fight

:28:37.:28:39.

I was in the first class of pupils to go to school here.

:28:40.:28:54.

The architect, Herman Hertzberger, believed that buildings had

:28:55.:28:56.

His aim was to foster a more egalitarian relationship

:28:57.:29:04.

And I always had the enormous fight for every square metre, you know?

:29:05.:29:12.

And this is not necessary, because the classrooms,

:29:13.:29:14.

The teacher is saying, this is the way the world works,

:29:15.:29:22.

But I said classrooms is one, but there's also the idea

:29:23.:29:32.

of doing things together, seeing what the others are doing.

:29:33.:29:34.

And so we must try to get space also for this communal thing.

:29:35.:29:48.

The architecture of the Netherlands tells us

:29:49.:29:57.

Walk along the canals in Amsterdam, you see not one or three

:29:58.:30:04.

You see thousands of small palaces, of citizens.

:30:05.:30:12.

At the heart of Dutch liberalism lies a fundamental tension,

:30:13.:30:18.

between the sometimes competing notions of liberty and equality.

:30:19.:30:21.

Of individualism versus the common good.

:30:22.:30:25.

They are not individual portraits of a king or a count or something.

:30:26.:30:31.

These are portraits of very proud citizens.

:30:32.:30:35.

We drink together, fight together, without a king, without a leader.

:30:36.:30:39.

When we talk about being liberal, it was also economically liberal.

:30:40.:30:47.

Yes, that's deep in the genes of the Dutch.

:30:48.:30:51.

Descartes, who lived for quite a long time in Amsterdam

:30:52.:30:54.

at the beginning of the 17th century, said already,

:30:55.:30:59.

everybody is only occupied here with earning money, nothing else.

:31:00.:31:04.

Money, money, that's the big go-to here.

:31:05.:31:06.

The Bergers of the Golden Age turned the Netherlands into the biggest

:31:07.:31:09.

This new prosperity was driven by immigrants -

:31:10.:31:17.

Protestants and Jews fleeing persecution in Catholic Europe.

:31:18.:31:23.

Because we are a society full of minorities and groups,

:31:24.:31:26.

That creates a society which has to be tolerant,

:31:27.:31:30.

Growing up, we were taught that tolerance was as much a part

:31:31.:31:44.

of Dutch culture as eating mayonnaise with your chips.

:31:45.:31:46.

And that had less to do with the 17th century

:31:47.:31:48.

I used to live in one of those buildings over there, number ten,

:31:49.:31:53.

Before I lived there some other people did, whose

:31:54.:31:58.

names are commemorated here in these plaques.

:31:59.:32:01.

Seven of them, who were murdered by the Nazis

:32:02.:32:05.

during the Second World War because they were Jewish.

:32:06.:32:08.

There were similar plaques all along the canalside here,

:32:09.:32:12.

and during the War one tenth of the population of this city were

:32:13.:32:15.

The German occupation had a huge impact on how

:32:16.:32:21.

Discriminating against people because of their religion,

:32:22.:32:27.

their cultural or ethnic background, that was something that other

:32:28.:32:29.

I grew up in a time when all of us in this country were still very much

:32:30.:32:38.

under the impression that we lived in the most liberal,

:32:39.:32:40.

I used to actually, literally say this to people -

:32:41.:32:48.

that I'm from Amsterdam, so I live in the best

:32:49.:32:51.

country in the world, the best city in the world,

:32:52.:32:53.

and anything goes, and you are free to be whoever you are.

:32:54.:32:56.

However, now when I look back I think, oh no,

:32:57.:32:58.

there was definitely a lot going on under the surface that

:32:59.:33:01.

Beneath the surface, many people felt uncomfortable

:33:02.:33:06.

Fuelled by Geert Wilders, the debate has focused on Islam.

:33:07.:33:18.

A lot of people think that Islamophobia,

:33:19.:33:21.

or anti-Semitism and racism, they are all different things.

:33:22.:33:26.

Sylvana Simons has set up a political party trying

:33:27.:33:32.

to highlight what she says is a hidden current

:33:33.:33:35.

Death threats is what I have received just for simply

:33:36.:33:43.

That doesn't sound like the most tolerant,

:33:44.:33:49.

the most progressive country on earth.

:33:50.:33:52.

We used to take pride in saying we are so tolerant.

:33:53.:33:55.

We've been tolerant, we have been tolerating.

:33:56.:33:59.

And tolerating means accepting something that you really don't

:34:00.:34:02.

actually agree with, but you are just,

:34:03.:34:04.

Here's one thing that has definitely changed since I was at school.

:34:05.:34:12.

People seem to have stopped believing that the future will be

:34:13.:34:15.

I am from a generation that was just thinking everything

:34:16.:34:24.

is going to be better, more, and that stopped now.

:34:25.:34:30.

And we feel that our next generation will have more difficulties

:34:31.:34:35.

It's still optimistic, but it's not an optimism of,

:34:36.:34:44.

It's now an optimism of, when we do our best,

:34:45.:34:52.

So, conservatism and hard work has won out over progressive

:34:53.:35:04.

This really is a different country to the one I remember.

:35:05.:35:13.

At the squatters' camp, it feels like the party is almost over.

:35:14.:35:20.

Don't be surprised if a crack in the ice appears under your feet.

:35:21.:35:26.

Because you are hippie and tolerant and everything is possible.

:35:27.:35:35.

Even in ADM, we had a problem, and I was one of the people

:35:36.:35:39.

always defending everyone, until I found out it's not

:35:40.:35:41.

A hippie community can burst because everybody has taken too much

:35:42.:35:47.

drugs or everybody has went to sleep with everybody, and

:35:48.:35:51.

Perhaps the idea of the Netherlands as free space was never anything

:35:52.:36:03.

Now, in an age of identity politics, the Dutch are asking themselves some

:36:04.:36:09.

And does the Netherlands still want to be a place

:36:10.:36:20.

We are discussing the same topic day after day in many different

:36:21.:36:37.

manifestations. For opponents of President Trump,

:36:38.:36:40.

particularly those without much imagination, it is hard

:36:41.:36:42.

to understand how anyone "What are they thinking?", is

:36:43.:36:44.

a sentiment quite widely expressed. The idea that a person of colour

:36:45.:36:47.

might support him would seem Well, two black women -

:36:48.:36:50.

siblings and keen supporters of President Trump - have made a big

:36:51.:36:57.

impact on social media. They've even appeared

:36:58.:36:59.

at his rallies, as the They are Lynnette Hardaway

:37:00.:37:01.

and Rochelle Richardson, former Democrats who style

:37:02.:37:06.

themselves Diamond and Diamond on the left,

:37:07.:37:07.

Silk on the right, and asked them why they thought that

:37:08.:37:13.

African Americans didn't, African Americans did go out

:37:14.:37:16.

and they did march to those voting polls and they voted

:37:17.:37:25.

for President Donald J Trump. The problem that we

:37:26.:37:27.

have is the left. The Democrats, the Liberals,

:37:28.:37:32.

that keep pushing an agenda They love that people burn

:37:33.:37:37.

down their communities. President Trump wants to build

:37:38.:37:45.

back these communities. President Trump wants

:37:46.:37:47.

to stop the violence. He is going to be a President,

:37:48.:37:52.

a good President not just for black You will know, he just lied

:37:53.:37:55.

about how many people were at the inauguration,

:37:56.:38:23.

everyone can see that it Let me go ahead and stop

:38:24.:38:25.

you and we will get you straight. We were there, there were thousands

:38:26.:38:30.

upon thousands upon thousands We were there, we saw

:38:31.:38:34.

it with our own eyes. Honestly, Diamond, I think

:38:35.:38:38.

it was easier to see it from the camera positions

:38:39.:38:41.

and you really could see, there were more people there under

:38:42.:38:43.

Obama than there were under Trump. OK, so, OK, why are you debating

:38:44.:38:46.

me with this question I suppose I'm just interested

:38:47.:38:48.

in what you think, He sometimes on occasion just

:38:49.:38:52.

says stuff that is just Excuse me, my President,

:38:53.:38:58.

wait a minute, my President never That's what's wrong

:38:59.:39:02.

with you left people. You always want to be

:39:03.:39:05.

so politically correct, well he is not politically correct,

:39:06.:39:07.

he is honest and we love Many people are saying he has had

:39:08.:39:10.

a slightly rocky start, he lost Michael Flynn,

:39:11.:39:14.

obviously Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General,

:39:15.:39:16.

has had to recuse himself Lots of questions over

:39:17.:39:18.

the original travel ban, do you think it has been a bit

:39:19.:39:24.

messy, who do you blame for that? Do you blame Donald Trump

:39:25.:39:28.

for that or who you blame? I blame the media for taking

:39:29.:39:30.

and conjuring up a story about the Russians and insulting

:39:31.:39:33.

the American people, the millions that got out

:39:34.:39:37.

and voted for our President, President Donald Trump,

:39:38.:39:40.

it was not the Russians that hacked the elections,

:39:41.:39:42.

the American people hacked it, we went to the polls

:39:43.:39:44.

and we voted for him. Is there anything this guy could do

:39:45.:39:47.

where you would not say You wouldn't get in a car

:39:48.:39:50.

and let him drive you over Is there anything this bloke

:39:51.:39:55.

can do that is wrong? You think it's wrong

:39:56.:39:59.

because it's not your way. He is trying to secure the border

:40:00.:40:07.

to keep people safe. He is trying to keep people

:40:08.:40:13.

from coming into our country wanting The people that come from these

:40:14.:40:15.

certain countries that do not like Americans,

:40:16.:40:19.

he is trying to create the atmosphere where people

:40:20.:40:23.

are thriving again, where the inner and urban cities are

:40:24.:40:25.

being built again. So we, the American people we love

:40:26.:40:27.

it, so there is nothing my President The thing is, everybody makes

:40:28.:40:33.

mistakes, it would be very odd if Donald Trump did not make some

:40:34.:40:43.

mistakes and I am just wondering if you can think of anything,

:40:44.:40:47.

can you think of anything he has If you can't, it probably tells us

:40:48.:40:50.

that you are, you know, you're just big fans and you're

:40:51.:40:55.

on his side, come what may. Well you know what, the only mistake

:40:56.:41:01.

that I can think of is the mistake of not continuously every single

:41:02.:41:04.

day, all day, keeping He needs to do it on a regular

:41:05.:41:08.

basis, every day. Tweet it out all day every

:41:09.:41:13.

day about the fake news We are very loyal to our President,

:41:14.:41:16.

we trust his decision, we trust that he will make the right

:41:17.:41:22.

decision and the way that it will affect American people,

:41:23.:41:25.

we trust that he wants to do things that are going to benefit

:41:26.:41:28.

us and not hurt us. We trust his judgment,

:41:29.:41:31.

that's why we voted for him Can I ask, do you two ever disagree

:41:32.:41:34.

yourselves between the two of you or do you always

:41:35.:41:40.

agree on everything? We agree to disagree

:41:41.:41:43.

when we have a disagreement. Diamond, Silk, thank

:41:44.:41:46.

you so very much. We've run out of time

:41:47.:41:50.

for anything except this, news of the official confirmation

:41:51.:42:06.

from Guinness that German Engineer Albert Beer and his Robot,

:42:07.:42:09.

named Sub 1, are now the world As a political side note,

:42:10.:42:12.

they beat Ed Miliband's 90

:42:13.:42:16.

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