17/03/2017

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:03:24. > :03:31.Mr Osborne's new job makes it onto the front page of his new paper

:03:32. > :03:34.although the main splash is reserved for a supposed mopeds maniac on the

:03:35. > :03:38.11. Friends of Mr Osborne have told Newsnight he taken this job because

:03:39. > :03:42.he felt that 45, he was too young to retire and that editing a paper like

:03:43. > :03:50.the Evening Standard is exciting, new and challenging. But who will Mr

:03:51. > :03:54.Osborne now be speaking for? I will speak for London and Londoners

:03:55. > :03:57.through this paper, as its editor. We will judge whatever the

:03:58. > :04:03.government does, what ever the mayor does against that simple test, is it

:04:04. > :04:07.good for London or not? In his constituency, 130 miles away in

:04:08. > :04:12.Cheshire, definitely not in London, the News of the MP's new job was

:04:13. > :04:16.greeted by some with incredulity. What? He's going to be the editor of

:04:17. > :04:23.the Evening Standard in London? We're asking people you think. I

:04:24. > :04:28.don't think very much of it, to be quite honest. He's not a journalist,

:04:29. > :04:33.is it? But he's going to be the paper's editor. That's what I mean,

:04:34. > :04:38.not a journalist so how can he be an editor. Which brings us onto the

:04:39. > :04:42.next problem. Will you stand down as an MP. Mr Osborne says he will work

:04:43. > :04:47.as a newspaper editor for days a week but only until lunchtime. This

:04:48. > :04:50.is edited primarily in the morning and parliament votes in the

:04:51. > :04:54.afternoon. You can work as many hours as you like but to do the

:04:55. > :04:59.Evening Standard properly, you have to work a lot of hours. And I think

:05:00. > :05:03.you should be an outsider. George as the former Chancellor is the

:05:04. > :05:08.ultimate insider, while still being a member of Parliament. You have not

:05:09. > :05:13.willing pushed any of that. You are party to a whole heap of things.

:05:14. > :05:17.Journalists are outsiders, that is what we do, we question things, we

:05:18. > :05:21.challenge things. You can't be part of too many great institutions. It's

:05:22. > :05:26.not like he has not got plenty of other jobs as well, since being

:05:27. > :05:28.sacked by Theresa May last July, he earned ?771,000 for public speaking

:05:29. > :05:33.although these engagements don't seem to take too much of the MP's

:05:34. > :05:40.time. In November, he earned ?85,000 for a speech to Citibank which

:05:41. > :05:44.according to the register of members interests, was three hours work. He

:05:45. > :05:49.gets ?650,000 per year as an adviser to Blackrock investment in return

:05:50. > :05:58.for just one day per week's work. He will also get an unspecified number

:05:59. > :06:04.of shares at a later date. He also gets ?120,000 at Kissinger fella is

:06:05. > :06:08.the McCain is a dude, making a total of ?1.54 million which does not

:06:09. > :06:11.include his full-time job as MP for Tatton. Among George Osborne's

:06:12. > :06:16.Conservative MPs, the reaction to his job has not been uniformly good.

:06:17. > :06:22.One told us it makes us all like part-timers on the make. Another

:06:23. > :06:25.asked whether he planned to use his new position to frustrate the

:06:26. > :06:31.government's attempts to get a clean Brexit. Even MPs who are supportive

:06:32. > :06:34.of Mr Osborne admits that they worry about what he might have to do to

:06:35. > :06:43.prove his impartiality as a newspaper editor. I think if you are

:06:44. > :06:45.a Conservative MP, far for me conserve -- conflict of interest

:06:46. > :06:52.benefiting the Conservative Party, one would hope that George won't

:06:53. > :06:56.over correct and actually perhaps be a bit more critical of the

:06:57. > :07:01.Conservative Party than the Evening Standard has been. And also, the

:07:02. > :07:04.politics journalists of the Evening Standard are well-known. They are

:07:05. > :07:08.very strong minded people. I'm not sure they are going to allow George

:07:09. > :07:15.Osborne to interfere, and nor would he want to do so in political

:07:16. > :07:18.coverage. Labour have tonight written to the permanent Secretary

:07:19. > :07:22.of the Cabinet Office asking for an investigation into whether Mr

:07:23. > :07:26.Osborne has broken the rules on former ministers taking new jobs. Mr

:07:27. > :08:11.Osborne shouldn't, perhaps, remove his hard hat just yet.

:08:12. > :08:20.The editors' union will be green for days a week and half a day as well.

:08:21. > :08:22.But come on editors have been bizarre people throughout history.

:08:23. > :08:27.Before the war, they were politicians effectively. I don't

:08:28. > :08:31.think it is a big problem in itself. He can organise his day, I'm

:08:32. > :08:34.assuming he will be a sort of editor in chief and someone else will run

:08:35. > :08:37.the paper but you can't run a paper for half a day. George Osborne is an

:08:38. > :08:43.intelligent man, he appreciates that. Much more problematic for him

:08:44. > :08:46.I think is really whether he can be a poacher in the morning and the

:08:47. > :08:49.gamekeeper in the afternoon. Journalists have gone back and forth

:08:50. > :08:53.but they have not done the same job at the same time. I think it is

:08:54. > :08:57.difficult. He is aware of this, I'm sure. It is difficult to slam of

:08:58. > :09:01.your friend in the morning and go and talk to them in the afternoon.

:09:02. > :09:07.He is a party politician and you can do that, you know, one year and then

:09:08. > :09:11.be in editor and a beer but to do it within the course of 24 hours, I

:09:12. > :09:15.think he will find it very difficult and it's going to be interesting to

:09:16. > :09:18.see. The conflict-of-interest of the top of my head, what happens if the

:09:19. > :09:22.cheap reporter at the standard comes in with a scoop about the unfolding

:09:23. > :09:26.Conservative expenses problems and says, "We have traced this one all

:09:27. > :09:35.the way back to the then Chancellor, Boss". It's going to raise a big

:09:36. > :09:38.question as to which is his day job, editing the standard or being a

:09:39. > :09:40.loyal Tory backbencher? I suggest that he's probably gone it's

:09:41. > :09:45.probably going to be the former. His constituency in Tatton is being

:09:46. > :09:51.redrawn anyway. It interests me that he has not decided to dump the

:09:52. > :09:53.voters of Tatton already. Evgeny Lebedev has described him as a

:09:54. > :09:58.Londoner through and through which might be news to them. It just

:09:59. > :10:04.strikes me that he feels he has more power running a newspaper, however

:10:05. > :10:08.many hours in the day he does so, than he does as a backbencher when

:10:09. > :10:16.all signs of dissent are stifled by the autocracy of the Tory right and

:10:17. > :10:20.his passion for the Remain cause and Europe, he's not allowed to give

:10:21. > :10:23.voice to that because he's called an enemy of the people and stamped on.

:10:24. > :10:28.Of course, he has had to leave Parliament in order to make these

:10:29. > :10:33.points using a very effective platform of a big London daily

:10:34. > :10:36.freesheet. Good for him. Good for him? Because it gives him the

:10:37. > :10:41.freedom to say the things he does not have the freedom to say? From a

:10:42. > :10:44.selfish perspective, he saying the things that I don't big enough

:10:45. > :10:49.people are saying, and being quelled, look at the MPs who voted

:10:50. > :10:53.to Remain who then had to vote for Article 50. Dissent is not permitted

:10:54. > :10:58.in Parliament any more but luckily still in the press. For now! The

:10:59. > :11:04.other question that springs to mind, Simon, is whether there is a bigger

:11:05. > :11:09.game plan. Try to work out what he hopes to get out of this and you

:11:10. > :11:12.Adam in most people, yourself included, achieving the editor 's

:11:13. > :11:14.chair is in end of protests, but there's a suspicion this is the

:11:15. > :11:18.beginning of a process but no one quite knows what that is. You are

:11:19. > :11:21.dealing with an intelligent man who has a game plan of some sort but we

:11:22. > :11:25.are not privy to it. I think editing a newspaper is more fun than being a

:11:26. > :11:29.backbencher and he probably thinks that too. But where he is going, we

:11:30. > :11:37.don't know. Is inherently not sustainable, it has to be said.

:11:38. > :11:42.Writing to horses. These particular to horses, let's not underestimate

:11:43. > :11:45.the sky, the fact of the matter is, he will be watched very closely for

:11:46. > :11:48.the things that Rachel is mentioning. His own staff will be

:11:49. > :11:52.watching him like a walk. They will be teasing him with stories about

:11:53. > :11:58.his friend in the London's diary. It will be hell for him at times. But

:11:59. > :12:01.it won't be dull. London's diary is the gossip column, for people

:12:02. > :12:04.outside the capital, which has a political bent at the best of times

:12:05. > :12:12.and will probably be more political now. What is good news for the

:12:13. > :12:14.standard is he won't have taken this job without promises of investment

:12:15. > :12:17.and jobs and so one because without that, you will be discredited. He's

:12:18. > :12:20.got to have been given various understandings which will be good

:12:21. > :12:23.for the newspaper. But that it self speaks of an understanding about how

:12:24. > :12:27.newspapers were and I don't think it would be uncharitable to suggest

:12:28. > :12:29.there's not a great deal of evidence to support the idea he has the

:12:30. > :12:35.vaguest understanding of how newspapers work. You do an

:12:36. > :12:39.editorship for half a day, you will not be the full-time editor of that

:12:40. > :12:42.newspaper. He's got a good team there, very good people working with

:12:43. > :12:46.him. He will effectively be the editor in chief, I think. It's

:12:47. > :12:50.perfectly feasible. It's been done before. But as you mentioned,

:12:51. > :12:55.resources and investment, he's not going to know where best to put the

:12:56. > :12:59.money. People will. He will have a very close relationship with Evgeny

:13:00. > :13:04.Lebedev, the proprietor, that is a given. That is the best security any

:13:05. > :13:10.paper can have. What is in it for him? His long-term gain. For

:13:11. > :13:14.Lebedev? He's got a star editor, access to people in power, things

:13:15. > :13:18.that proprietors always love about only newspapers. Not that this is

:13:19. > :13:24.necessarily the most popular angle to adopt but show some sympathy for

:13:25. > :13:27.the ordinary journalist now. Forgive me if my years are slightly wrong

:13:28. > :13:30.but how would you have felt when you are poised to resume the editorship

:13:31. > :13:35.of the times and then it was announced Norman Lamont had got the

:13:36. > :13:38.job? I would have been very annoyed! And someone like you, Rachel? You

:13:39. > :13:41.might have thrown your hat into the ring for the job or similar and then

:13:42. > :13:44.it turned out the former Chancellor can come out of nowhere? You're

:13:45. > :13:58.right, if I'd known a few weeks ago that someone with

:13:59. > :14:01.less experience than the messenger boy on the Brighton evening Argos

:14:02. > :14:03.was going to take the helm of one of the largest circulation newspapers

:14:04. > :14:06.in the country, I would have been in there like a bathtub drainpipe but

:14:07. > :14:08.there we are. In the old days, journalist have aspired to be

:14:09. > :14:11.politicians. In the New World order, the new, crazy world we live in,

:14:12. > :14:15.politicians are aspiring to be journalists so what does that say

:14:16. > :14:18.about the relative power bases of Parliament and the fourth estate? I

:14:19. > :14:20.don't know but it is interesting that he clearly thinks he can have

:14:21. > :14:26.more fun and more influence doing both. He's not having to dues at the

:14:27. > :14:31.moment. It is the new politics. At risk of the list becoming endless,

:14:32. > :14:35.he is also the chairperson of the Northern Powerhouse partnership. It

:14:36. > :14:40.is an unpaid position but I think he is going to scrape by with some of

:14:41. > :14:46.his other remunerations. We are all in this together. He's in his prime

:14:47. > :14:52.job together. ?2700 per person in London spent on transport, ?201 in

:14:53. > :14:54.Yorkshire and ?5 in the north-east. How can he represents the Northern

:14:55. > :14:58.Powerhouse while also come as both Lebedev and he said today,

:14:59. > :15:07.campaigning for the rights and pleasures of London?

:15:08. > :15:16.He is now running the Southern powerhouse. And the North can

:15:17. > :15:21.whistle. From his point of view. You had better ask him. I can sense he

:15:22. > :15:24.has seen his future is in London. Whenever anyone says they are

:15:25. > :15:28.passionate about anything in their state but you know they are talking

:15:29. > :15:35.through their hat. Jacob Rees-Mogg suggested this could be a precursor

:15:36. > :15:39.to a bid to be Mayor. I would believe anything at this stage. By

:15:40. > :15:44.the end of this interview he will probably be the director-general of

:15:45. > :15:49.the BBC. He could be presenting Newsnight on Monday! The 1922

:15:50. > :15:54.committee is supposed to be out confidential conclave, it is not

:15:55. > :15:57.supposed to have any outlets to the outside world and yet you will have

:15:58. > :16:01.the editor of the daily newspaper sitting in it. Can you imagine he

:16:02. > :16:07.will be under pressure to bring in scoops? We could have problems. They

:16:08. > :16:12.should sack him if he does not! This has happened before. You have had

:16:13. > :16:17.this close relationship between editor's chairs and politicians and

:16:18. > :16:21.in the old days, the editor of the daily Herald was in and out of the

:16:22. > :16:27.Labour Party office. Those with the old days. They are not overreact.

:16:28. > :16:40.You are right to point it out, I think there will be a lot of trouble

:16:41. > :16:42.in that area because people will be watching. On a personal level, what

:16:43. > :16:44.about negative stories regarding David Cameron or some of his other

:16:45. > :16:48.political allies? Can you foresee enormous tensions if the troops are

:16:49. > :16:53.prevented from bringing their stories to the paper? They will be

:16:54. > :16:57.encouraged to do so by the prospect of possibly embarrassing their

:16:58. > :17:01.editor. The internal dynamics of a newspaper or a change with the

:17:02. > :17:05.editor is in that position. I presume that George Osborne knows

:17:06. > :17:11.what he is doing but there will be embarrassing things for them,

:17:12. > :17:19.editors have it anyway. You speak so casually because you are immersed in

:17:20. > :17:27.that world and he is not. If he is not, he has got a problem. We --

:17:28. > :17:32.when will we be able to judge if it has been a success or not? It is

:17:33. > :17:38.difficult with the standard because you do not have the normal Leavers.

:17:39. > :17:45.If advertising craters or all the staff leave en masse... Watch this

:17:46. > :17:48.space. You give the paper away. Many thanks.

:17:49. > :17:51.Donald Trump has just met Angela Merkel in Washington.

:17:52. > :18:00.shown himself an enthusiastic advocate of the handshake.

:18:01. > :18:02.Sometimes they've appeared to go on painfully long.

:18:03. > :18:04.But today was not one of those times.

:18:05. > :18:06.He rejected the formal clinch with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,

:18:07. > :18:10.and the two faced off in an awkward tension - to the shout

:18:11. > :18:15.from press photographers - mirroring in their body language

:18:16. > :18:19.what we know already of their political difference.

:18:20. > :18:23.This - it was clear from the start - was never going to be a love-in.

:18:24. > :18:27.And at the heart of it lay the question of America's broader

:18:28. > :18:32.mean an isolationist approach to foreign policy?

:18:33. > :18:34.Donald Trump has been deeply critical of foreign trade

:18:35. > :18:36.and national security agreements, but the president suggested

:18:37. > :18:39.that he was only trying to revise them to serve US interests,

:18:40. > :18:43.not pull back from the world entirely.

:18:44. > :18:46.His blueprint for a budget, released earlier this week,

:18:47. > :18:49.suggested he would like a huge rise in defence spending and big cuts

:18:50. > :18:53.to the State Department, which does all the diplomacy.

:18:54. > :18:56.Diplomacy, as we know, not always his strongest suit.

:18:57. > :18:59.When asked today whether he regretted any of his past

:19:00. > :19:01.tweets about Merkel, he replied, "Very seldom".

:19:02. > :19:04.When he was first elected, her support for Mr Trump

:19:05. > :19:13.TRANSLATION: Germany and America are connected through shared values,

:19:14. > :19:16.democracy, freedom, respect of the law and dignity of man,

:19:17. > :19:19.independent of origin, the colour of skin,

:19:20. > :19:24.religion, gender, sexual orientation or political views.

:19:25. > :19:26.On the basis of these values, I am offering the

:19:27. > :19:31.future US president Donald Trump close cooperation.

:19:32. > :19:33.Chancellor Merkel, it is a great honour to

:19:34. > :19:46.welcome you to the people's house, the White House.

:19:47. > :19:49.What will that look like for the world?

:19:50. > :19:51.Joining me now, Jeffrey Rathke, senior fellow and deputy director

:19:52. > :19:54.of the Europe Programme at CSIS and Constanze Stelzenmueller,

:19:55. > :20:03.It is lovely to have you here. Let's get this handshake or the

:20:04. > :20:08.non-handshake out of the way. Do you think it was an arrangement or a

:20:09. > :20:12.mistake? Who looks awkward and who looks stronger? If you look at the

:20:13. > :20:16.greeting at the West Wing, they shook hands, came into the building,

:20:17. > :20:24.it was an awkward moment in the Oval Office. I think that we will forget

:20:25. > :20:29.over time. I think what they talked about and their press availability,

:20:30. > :20:35.that leaves a lot to try and dissect. A certain coolness from

:20:36. > :20:40.Angela Merkel does her nil disfavour at home. She knows full well that

:20:41. > :20:44.the American President is deeply unpopular at home and she was

:20:45. > :20:49.walking a thin line between being professional and seeking a working

:20:50. > :20:52.relationship with Germany's most important transatlantic ally and not

:20:53. > :20:57.making a fool of herself and I think she succeeded rather well in this

:20:58. > :21:03.and she managed to plug in a bit of dry wit from time to time and if you

:21:04. > :21:08.saw her bemused smile when he made that clap about wiretapping, you saw

:21:09. > :21:14.she was relaxed as well. Where is this relationship going? Will they

:21:15. > :21:18.do trade together? It was odd that there was no mention, almost a sort

:21:19. > :21:26.of silence where the European Union would have been? If we peel away the

:21:27. > :21:29.atmospherics and ask where is the transatlantic relationship today,

:21:30. > :21:34.how was it different than it was yesterday, I think if you look at

:21:35. > :21:37.security, and cooperation on fighting terrorism, you see some

:21:38. > :21:42.progress. If you talk about trade, I think we are left with a lot of

:21:43. > :21:47.questions. The President was not ready to say the words European

:21:48. > :21:50.even, even though he heard about it from Angela Merkel and yesterday

:21:51. > :21:56.from the Irish Taoiseach and from Theresa May who said a strong EU is

:21:57. > :21:59.in the interests of Britain. The Taoiseach was keen to enforce how

:22:00. > :22:05.critical that was for the Irish interest, so what is it that Donald

:22:06. > :22:09.Trump does not want to face up to in the EU? Is it that he will not trade

:22:10. > :22:13.with it as a body? We know from his advisers that they think the EU is

:22:14. > :22:19.essentially a smoke screen for German domination of Europe and the

:22:20. > :22:21.Germans are using the EU and the euro as a front for their own

:22:22. > :22:24.national interest. I would say that portrays a certain lack of

:22:25. > :22:30.understanding of how the EU actually works and that it works for other

:22:31. > :22:34.countries and that Germany's options of manipulating the EU and the

:22:35. > :22:38.currency are relatively limited. The European Central Bank has been doing

:22:39. > :22:43.quantitative easing against the violent protests of the government.

:22:44. > :22:46.He won't not trade with Germany or the body? He does not really have a

:22:47. > :22:51.choice. I think Angela Merkel was quite right not to push them on this

:22:52. > :22:55.because you are not going to have a seminar on European Union here in

:22:56. > :23:02.front of the President and the world press. I think she will leave that

:23:03. > :23:06.on the table as a learning process to be had. There is a G20 meeting

:23:07. > :23:10.and the G seven meeting in the spring and I think the important

:23:11. > :23:15.thing is that she said, do not forget that there are a lot of

:23:16. > :23:21.German investment and jobs created in America and she mentioned and

:23:22. > :23:26.very thinly veiled threat that if you do punitive taxes, so come way.

:23:27. > :23:30.What was interesting was that he definitely was emphatic about the

:23:31. > :23:35.fact he was not rolling back from an involvement in the world, that this

:23:36. > :23:41.America first, was not an isolationist policy and he said it

:23:42. > :23:46.quite like Nato. It is all sort of relative, but he was talking at one

:23:47. > :23:50.stage, about arrears, is that this idea that you would get those

:23:51. > :23:57.countries who have not paid their dues to actually pay back tax. This

:23:58. > :24:02.idea has come up a couple of times and he does not seem to be backing

:24:03. > :24:07.away from it. If you look at what he said, he said two quite positive

:24:08. > :24:12.things, I am a supporter of Nato, he recognised Germany's efforts to

:24:13. > :24:18.spend 2% of their GDP in line with what Nato has agreed, starting in

:24:19. > :24:24.Wales in 2014 and then he said, that there are nations that all vast sums

:24:25. > :24:40.of money for past years. That is not something that Nato leaders have

:24:41. > :24:44.ever agreed to. There is no concept of arrears. Where this comes from is

:24:45. > :24:47.unclear but it is certainly not going to fly. If this remains part

:24:48. > :24:49.of the US agenda before the Nato summit... I know it goes against

:24:50. > :24:53.everything you think. If you fail to pay your dues, they do not pile up

:24:54. > :24:56.in Nato, it does not work that way. Could he withhold the mutual

:24:57. > :24:59.defence... He has threatened that and he will find it does not work

:25:00. > :25:04.and the other member states including Canada will say we do not

:25:05. > :25:10.do it this way. Nobody is going to boot the US out of Nato! It is not

:25:11. > :25:15.going to happen. The Germans and other Europeans can make a very

:25:16. > :25:19.persuasive point that they have been increasing their defence budget is

:25:20. > :25:23.since 2014, the aggression of the Russians in Crimea and Ukraine and

:25:24. > :25:25.that they are gorged having a much higher defence budgets and the

:25:26. > :25:28.Russians in Crimea and Ukraine and that they are gorged having a much

:25:29. > :25:35.higher defence budgets and they can make military and it resides in the

:25:36. > :25:43.political realm as well the board in propaganda warfare in the EU. What

:25:44. > :25:45.you also have here is a growing political consensus that the forward

:25:46. > :25:53.defence of Europe is defence of America. I think that is also a

:25:54. > :25:57.changing element here that is important to keep in mind and there

:25:58. > :26:00.are other ways. The US administration could ask countries

:26:01. > :26:04.to raise their spending faster and there are other ways to try and move

:26:05. > :26:09.this along. If we look at where we are now, two months into the Trump

:26:10. > :26:15.administration, what this tells us about his foreign policy, one thing

:26:16. > :26:25.that has become clear is that in a sense, he does not really put a vast

:26:26. > :26:27.value on diplomacy. His skinny budget as it is called talks about

:26:28. > :26:29.cutting the State Department, you know the State Department well, you

:26:30. > :26:32.were there and putting more money into defence and whether or not he

:26:33. > :26:35.gets his budget through is a different thing but for him the

:26:36. > :26:40.State Department and that diplomacy is not very valuable, right? I think

:26:41. > :26:44.his generals would beg to disagree. Knowing the American military, they

:26:45. > :26:47.would be the first to say, we would always like more money for defence

:26:48. > :26:55.but if you cut the development budget and you cut the state

:26:56. > :26:58.department budget like this, we will be left holding babies that we do

:26:59. > :27:01.not want to hold and we will be asked by you to solve problems that

:27:02. > :27:06.we cannot solve. Whether it works or does not, he does with a phone call

:27:07. > :27:12.and a tweet. There are entrenched forces of resistance. Let's keep in

:27:13. > :27:16.mind, we are at a point where we are not yet dealing with an

:27:17. > :27:22.international prices, we are talking about a largely theoretical

:27:23. > :27:26.discussion where Congress is lining up in a different place. I think,

:27:27. > :27:29.the Department of defence, including the secretary of defence, they value

:27:30. > :27:33.the contribution that diplomats make because they do things that you

:27:34. > :27:38.cannot ask the military to do, whether that is development in some

:27:39. > :27:41.cases or it is civilian security assistance, working with law

:27:42. > :27:45.enforcement, working with the officials who can help fight

:27:46. > :27:50.terrorism and share information with the United States, things that our

:27:51. > :27:54.military, as good as it is, things they are not trained to do. And do

:27:55. > :28:00.not want to do. They know full well that others are better at doing it

:28:01. > :28:03.and should be doing it. I would expect significant resistance that

:28:04. > :28:05.and I do not expect the President have a lot of success with this

:28:06. > :28:05.idea. That's all from Washington for now,

:28:06. > :28:08.we'll be back on Monday as President Trump fights to get

:28:09. > :28:11.those in his own party to agree to his reforms

:28:12. > :28:21.for America's healthcare. the poet and playwright

:28:22. > :28:29.Derek Walcott died this morning He was 87 years old and had been

:28:30. > :28:33.in poor health for some time. Linguistically fearless

:28:34. > :28:35.and thematically epic in scope, the Nobel Laureate and winner

:28:36. > :28:37.of most major international poetry prizes nevertheless saw himself

:28:38. > :28:40.as an avowedly Caribbean writer. It is fitting, then,

:28:41. > :28:42.that the Jamaican British poet Linton Kwesi Johnson should close

:28:43. > :28:45.proceedings tonight with a recital The time will come

:28:46. > :28:55.when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving

:28:56. > :29:01.at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile

:29:02. > :29:05.at the other's welcome, You will love again

:29:06. > :29:11.the stranger who was yourself. Give back your heart to itself,

:29:12. > :29:23.to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored

:29:24. > :29:27.for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters

:29:28. > :29:29.from the book shelf, the photographs,

:29:30. > :30:10.the desperate notes, Good evening. Away from the North of

:30:11. > :30:11.Scotland and one will not