01/08/2017 Newsnight

tonight for the violent crackdown in Venezuala.

As these opposition leaders are arrested, the UN and the EU

the situation, with the help of an opposition senator

Fentanyl, an anaesthetic fifty times more powerful than heroin

is the drug that killed the rock star Prince.

Today we learned that its illicit use has killed at least sixty people

already this year in one area of the county alone.

We'll ask why did it take so long to realise this was going on?

And Ryanair's shy and self effacing boss is warning of severe turbulence

The world has finally focussed on the severity of the crisis

in Venezuela following Sunday's vote to put more power in the hands

of President Maduro.The lethal cocktail of violent crackdown,

food shortages, spiralling inflation, rapidly draining

The abduction of Opposition leaders in the middle of the night,

filmed on the mobile phones of their families, will have

been viewed millions of times in the country,

and the international response has been overwhelmingly condemnatory.

Only Cuba is standing four square behind President Maduro.

Following US sanctions imposed yesterday the UN

Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for urgent political

negotiations between the government and the opposition to curb

Vladimir Hernandez is a Venezuelan correspondent for the BBC and has

this report on the crisis in his home country.

In the middle of last night, in pyjamas, in front of family members,

a Venezuelan opposition politician is bundled into a vehicle belonging

to the intelligence services. Help, said Antonio Ledezma who has been

kept under house arrest for two years for allegedly plotting against

President Maduro. This is a dictatorship says this woman while

Toby Jones has taken away. But the same time, and other opposition

politician, Leopoldo Lopez is also arrested. He is a well-known

politician who was recently put under house arrest after being

imprisoned since 2015 for supposedly inciting violent acts. For half a

century, Venezuela was seen as one of the most stable countries in

Latin America but since Hugo Chavez was elected at the

turn-of-the-century, increasingly their democratic credentials have

been been called into question. The arrest last night, midst of an

ongoing political battle between the successor of Hugo Chavez and plans

to change the constitution. And the political instability is fuelling

social unrest. In the streets, protests have been erupting since

April, Venezuelans have long put up with inflation of at least 800%.

Severe food and medicine shortages mean that the people are living

through the worst year since that Chavez revolution. This is basically

collapsed. President Maduro says that the

changes to the constitution voted in on Sunday were to restore peace in

the country, but here, he is also saying that with these new powers,

he will seek to remove the Attorney General, a former government

supporter who has now accuse the government of state terrorism, for

the way it has dealt with protesters and opposition politicians.

Over 100 people have died in these months of anti-government protests.

Thousands more have been arrested amid heavy criticism from human

rights organisations. This current wave of protests feels very

different from those seen in the past years. With hunger and despair

are growing, some of those involved in these demonstrations have told me

there is not much to lose any more. Will Grant is a BBC

Latin America correspondent First of all can I ask you, or

whether you know were people built where the opposition leaders are

tonight? And I think he is uncertain as to whether he will be speaking

just for a second so we was up to him in a moment.

In a moment I'll be speaking to the Venezualuan MP

Juan Mekhia, one of the leaders of the country's

But first I'm joined here in the studio by Javier Farkhe -

he's an activist and journalist who supports the Maduro government.

Good evening to you. Thank you for having me. You have prep President

Maduro, is he capable of sanctioning torture. He is hugely underestimated

in terms of the way he is dealing with the situation. He has been

facing protests, looting, violence, strikes, attempts to bring him

down... He been arresting people and there has been tear gas, is he

capable of ordering torture? No. President Maduro called for the

assembly not to change the constitution but he introduced

reforms because the institutions could not stay the same. But the

power to appoint judges does change and people are protesting and they

felt it was removing their democratic rights of the people. The

judges were appointed in 2015 with the endorsement of the Attorney

General who has turned his back on the government and one of the

reasons that she is in trouble is that she denies she has the --

anything to do with the appointment of the judges before the government

to over the National Assembly. The country is practically on its knees.

It is. We have a situation where there is international condemnation

of what is going on in Venezuela and particularly from the UN, the

bundling into cars last night of two opposition leaders, was that a

mistake? It could have been handled in a different way but they had

violated the conditions under which they have been put under house

arrest. They were in their homes. Should they have been arrested in

any case? One of the reasons they were arrested was because they

violated -- Michael violated the conditions of their house arrest.

First of all they called for protests which was forbidden by the

government and they called for violence. There are videos which

show... He actually calls for violence? You can quote that?

Rebelling against the government is not calling for violence. If you're

calling on the Army to do that, you're asking the Army to rebel

against the government, then you are calling for a military coup, they

have been doing that for a long time, ever since the failed coup of

2002. Obviously, notwithstanding the oil price, and the collapse,

President Maduro cannot keep a handle on what is going on in his

economy, there are food shortages, people cannot move freely around the

country any more, a government is not working. The government is

working... It is difficult for the government to handle that situation

because of low oil prices. There is little hard currency available to

buy products not produced in Venezuelan. The accusation is that

in the middle of all this hardship there is utter corruption. There is

clear evidence in videos and images that show that convoys of food for

distribution have been attacked by gangs of opposition motorcyclists.

There has been a lot of speculation within the Private sectors that

handles the warehouses. Why are you so sure that the combined opposition

does not have the policies to relieve the situation? 60% of the

people according to an opinion poll, in favour of the government, says

that the opposition do not have the capacity. They have been trying to

bring down the government. They do not have a clear position on the

economy. Can I be clear? You back entirely President Maduro. Not at

all. I think the stakes have been made, they could have dealt at

better with the issue of the exchange rate, it is a big problem.

Yes. At the same time, when he took office in 2013, that coincided with

the drop in oil prices. No government would have been able to

handle that situation better. Now we can go to our correspondent in

Caracas. Will Grant, ASCII first of all tonight, we saw those pictures

of the opposition leaders being bundled into cars last night by

security services, we have heard a supporter of President Maduro saying

that they violated their curfew at home, what has happened, do you have

any idea where they are? It appears that both men are in a prison on the

outskirts of Caracas. Very little more than that is known at this

stage. Theoretically they need to come before a judge to hear the

reasoning for their rearrest. Which, as far as we know, considering a

statement was released by the government is for two reasons, one

that they broke the terms according to the government of their house

arrest, specifically because they released videos around this very

controversial vote for a new legislative body, which they said

was an appeal to people to take to the streets. Obviously that is a

very controversial idea, their lawyers and families deny that, but

the other reason put out by the government was that they were trying

to flee. The family say that was not the case. Do we know what the mood

is like tonight, not just in Caracas but other big cities? The videos of

the arrest have gone around the now, presumably? In Caracas, it is

extremely tense, people have been setting up barricades on the streets

over the past few days, particularly on the day of the vote itself, it

was extremely tense, there was a lot of nervousness, there were clashes

between the security forces and ordinary people and protesters,

journalists were attacked in one part of the city as well. It is an

extremely strange... Unique kind of feeling on the streets at the

moment. I used to live in Caracas when Hugo Chavez was in power and it

is starting to feel like the rule of law is slipping compare to those

days. Since then, these two men have been arrested and that adds further

to the tension, particularly in areas that are controlled by the

opposition. Thank you very much indeed. We had been hoping to speak

to a leader of the Venezuelan opposition tonight but we had

technical problems and we will return to the story again.

In amongst all the claims and counter claims of the impact

on our lives of Brexit, in every industry, the future

of travel to some of our most loved European destinations aviation

is exercising airline owners and passengers alike.

And two of the most vocal airline bosses have directly opposing views.

Willie Walsh, the boss of BA, insists all flying conditions

will be smooth, but Michael O'Leary of Ryanair, is the doom-monger.

I'll be speaking to him in a moment but first in case of you need it,

Michael O'Leary has long been a pantomime villain. They occasionally

foul-mouthed Irishman has never been afraid to ruffle a few feathers. And

ruffle feathers is exactly what his airline has done over the last three

decades, with humble beginnings and is 51 staff in 1985, it has sought

to become the largest airline in Europe carrying 170 million

passengers last year. It has also attracted consumer anger,

developing, some might say nurturing, a reputation for

ruthlessness and uncaring service. Now however, Mr

O'Leary is centrestage with dire warnings about the risk of Brexit.

He argues that it threatens the EU open skies arrangement which

guarantees important freedoms to airlines. These freedoms established

in 1944 permit for example, airlines belong to one country to fly

passengers to and from their country of origin. They also allow air

blogger to one country to fly passengers between two different

countries or internally within another country. For instance,

easyJet, UK airline can fly from London to Paris and back but also

from Paris to Rome or from Rome to Milan. With Brexit, these freedoms

could be at risk. For one thing, the system operates under the

jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice which

Britain has vowed to leave. So, will we see a disguise and hundreds of

grounded planes at Heathrow and Manchester the day after we leave

the EU? With his alarmism dismiss, Mr O'Leary is largely alone in this

assessment. He has not been afraid of

You're Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, what is your pitch? It is

one of concern. The problem with the legislation is if the UK leads the

European Union it is automatically leaving Open Skies. As things stand

currently there are no flight rights between the UK and the EU and vice

versa. That happens at the end of March. UK Government therefore has

to negotiate a bilateral knot with individual countries but with the EU

27. There is no sign of that being negotiated and no sign of any

agreement. You're part of the EU, you're Irish, and a leading

businessman. You can go to Michel Barnier, to the 27 and say it is up

to you to go faster. We are but the French and Germans are saying Michel

Barnier, slow down. If we caused some disruption for a period of

months, and aviation comes up six months before Brexit, if we do not

have the right to fly will cancel those flights. But it is in

everyone's interest... That is the misunderstanding here in the UK. It

is not in everyone's interests. It is European interests, said in the

European airlines who are lobbying against this to not have an

agreement when it will not last for a couple of years but a couple of

months. But the British people when booking holidays for the summer of

2019 it will be dry or get a very to Scotland or Ireland. You are an

outlier on this. Everyone else was in denial. This is reality. There

are other legal realities which will come unto. But you attended a

meeting at the European Parliament last month and we have a clip of

Willie Walsh taking a diametrically opposed views to you. He says it is

going to be fine. With policy support it ought to be relatively

straightforward to agree a deal on aviation that will be ready when the

UK leads the EU. With policy support it should be relatively easy. There

is no policy support that is the problem. But when you see Chris

Grayling tomorrow? I hope there will be but Chris Grayling and the UK

Government have not been able to negotiate the divorce bill, they

cannot agree on whether the European Court of Justice governs European

citizens here in the UK put up never mind doing the sectoral agreement

for aviation. What is different about aviation is there is no

fallback position. It is not covered by WTO. The UK is out of Open Skies

and must negotiate an agreement. The UK is not yet out of Open Skies and

may perhaps at yet negotiate an agreement and also several airlines

including the one that controls British Airways will have a base

within the European Union. Easyjet will have... Untrue. That will allow

them to fly the way they are flying just now. That is incorrect because

there are two issues. Ownership restrictions and flight plans. The

current ownership setup will not survive Brexit. A Spanish company

owning British Airways. No one would like an agreement more than I would.

But you're not recognising the reality that continental Europeans

see aviation as a means to put pressure on British people around

September, October of 2018 because there will be no agreement. The

business of ownership, Ryanair has a big issue. In order to have the

ability to fly from one destination to another in the European Union 50%

plus the company has to be owned and controlled by EU nationals. Ryanair

is not, it is that 38%. We are at 40%. That is too low. We are buying

back 5% of our stock every year. That is not a challenge for me. So

you take money out of UK pension funds supporting Ryanair? We are

buying back our own shares. At the moment you do not comply with the

regulations which will allow you to fly between cities in the European

Union. At the moment we do because British shareholders are treated as

EU citizens. I accept that. In a hard Brexit if the UK leads we will

have two forced UK shareholders to sell but the Easyjet structure will

also have to be sold out. Easyjet cannot own and Austrian company and

British Airways will not be allowed... You have an Austrian

company 50% owned by European nationals. But Easyjet only own a

majority. They do not control it either. You're missing the point. At

the moment you can do this but after Brexit unless you can, unless

Ryanair is owned 50 plus percent by EU nationals, you cannot fly city to

city. That is not a difficulty. What I will not be able to do in a hard

Brexit is fly from Europe to the UK or from the UK and Europe. The

flight rights is the major challenge, not ownership. If I had

to buy back another 10% of my stock that is what I plan to do anyway, we

will be fine. But who will fly between the UK and the EU if the

British Government does not negotiate an agreement in about 12

months' time. And they had no idea how to negotiate that agreement.

Let's look at Ryanair. You said you would change the culture, if I'd

known being nice to customers was going to work so well I would have

done it ages ago. So why have you got this new policy of different

pricing between middle, window and aisle seats. Therefore if you are an

adult fly with a child that should be sitting beside you one of those

seats is more expensive than the other. The child seat is free. There

is a supplement. It is free, it is the adult who pays to reserve a

seat. The adult pays the extra. Yes. And that sounds like sophistry to

me. It is taking place at the moment and we have more than 50% of people

now selecting reserved seats when we are reducing our fair is about 4

euros per seat. We would be reporting July numbers tomorrow, the

low factor is 97%. Our flights are full. I'm not suggesting there are

not full. People love the service and they adore the prices. What you

have been reporting in the papers, with the random nature of algorithms

and everything else, you end up splitting up families. We have never

split a family, that is just not true. I have spoken to someone who

has been split up. If the child is under 12 cannot be split up, they

must together. Well we may get a lot of messages on Twitter after this.

And children coming along with luggage, you are also unhappy about

that. We are delighted. We have so few free seats. The thing I'm

concerned about is whether any children will fly with us from the

UK to Europe in April 2000 19. Thank you very much.

Carne Ross is a former diplomat who worked for the Foreign Office

Here's his take on why - after years working

for the government - he now believes in anarchism.

And if you want to know more about his journey from diplomat

to anarchist then you can find him in a Storyville documentary

on the iplayer now - look for Accidental Anarchist.

When drug dealers want to get the edge on the competition

and produce ever more extreme highs addicts end up taking

The laboratory drug Fentanyl, a pain reliever and anaesthetic,

is fifty times more potent than heroin and taking it illicity

mixed with heroin is described as being like like Russian Roulette.

Today the National Crime Agency said that it is responsible

for the deaths of at least 60 drug users in Engand and Wales

since the beginning of the year and may be implicated

Its killing potential is evidence by the figures in America

where the 19% rise in drug deaths last year - to 59,000 -

We'll assess in a moment what Britain can do

But first, I spoke earlier to Assistant Secretary

of State William Brownfield - he's responsible for anti-narcotics

I started by asking him how the problem with Fentanyl

Here in the United States in the late 1990s there was a demand

by patients on their doctors and the medical community to provide

The doctors, trying to be responsive to their patients,

asked for support and help from the American

pharmaceutical industry who produced opioids.

Not surprisingly as we moved into the 21st century,

the prescriptions and growing numbers of people that

were regularly using opioids developed eventually

into a dependency and an addiction problem.

And then as criminal enterprises realised that by using heroin

to short-circuit and provide a much cheaper hit than diverted opioids,

heroine then came into the market supplanting most of the opioids.

And then what we have discovered over the last two or three years

is that that same industry discovered that by adding a very

inexpensive and easily manipulable product such as Fentanyl

into the mix, they can at almost no additional cost to provide a much

more effective buzz or high and Bob's your uncle,

we have a first-class heroine opioids Fentanyl crisis

The likes of which we have not seen for more than 40 years.

I want to ask you about this, just to get to grips with it is

I mean, the example I use is a business sized envelope.

Into which you can easily insert enough Fentanyl that would provide

And if you assume perhaps he is getting ten bucks,

$10 per hit, you have $10,000 worth of merchandise in a business sized

envelope that you can mail at least here in the United States for 49

cents, somewhere in the vicinity I suppose of about 30p

Now the Home Secretary, our Home Secretary has been talking

about this today because obviously these figures have come out today.

But what can we do to counter it before it gets to

I will tell you some of the lessons we have learned from here.

That in less than two years entire cities go from having no experience

with Fentanyl whatsoever to an inundation.

Second, education is exceptionally important.

Most human beings actually do not wish to kill

themselves with a product that they are ingesting,

inhaling, or in some way inserting into their system.

And education can be tremendously helpful.

Education includes by the way how little of the product of the product

is Fentanyl or other analogues, can actually kill you.

Third you have to have some sort of intelligence system,

law enforcement intelligence is geared towards the

It does not come from the same production line that

produces the heroine, the morphine, or the

It comes from a different production line today dominated mostly

by the Chinese pharmaceutical industry and to get on top of this

you need to have an intelligence network with local law enforcement

William Brownfield, thank you very much.

Baroness Molly Meacher is a cross bench peer and the chair

of the all party parliamentary group on drug use.

Professor Sir John Strang is one of Britain's leading experts

on addiction and heads the addictions department

The evening. I think for many people they will not have heard of this,

they will have heard of cocaine and heroin but not Fentanyl but it seems

to be utterly deadly. Let us be clear what it is, it is an opioid

drug, it is a drug whose effects are very similar to heroin and morphine

and those classes of drugs. The particular problem with Fentanyl

which is the same as the problem with heroin is that if a slug of the

drug is taken, it turns off your respiratory drive, that bit of your

brain that sends signals to breathe. You're looking at the science and

the addiction together. I wonder if you think that a lot of addicts in

this country have sufficient knowledge of the possible impact of

Fentanyl when a single grain of this drug could kill you? You're

absolutely right. One of the key features of Fentanyl is the small

amount that is required to have that effect. In medical practice, that

has not been a problem. Fentanyl has been used for around 30 years as a

painkiller and anaesthetic because if you are needing to adjust the

minute dose in medical practice, you can do so. The problem comes,

particularly if you have illicit manufacture. With people who do not

know the strength of what they are putting in, that is the problem and

that is why it is described as Russian roulette in America. Perhaps

they do not care. Illegal drug dealers are trying to make big

money. They are not trying to kill their clients, but half the time,

they do not realise how dangerous it is. How did this creep up by mass?

We have had these laws for 60 years that ban all these. How did Fentanyl

as a component creep up on us? The Chinese are exporting it. It comes

from China and as we introduced a law about one year ago banning a

whole pile of psychoactive substances. These substances are

purchased online from China to get around the law, it is impossible to

police substances coming in from China directly to the homes of

people. The government seems to think... All you have to do is ban

things and that is fine but we have to be a great deal more intelligent

about the strokes. Interestingly, I wonder if you think that dealers to

know how to do this properly. When we saw police covered in outfits,

but we watched two policemen in America who were not covered and

became sick from inhaling it. The potency of it and the way they mix,

it must be under controlled conditions. We can learn a lot by

looking at the experience in the US. Very clearly, the product that is

put out there in the marketplace, is not carefully titrated. If it was

that there was the fine tuning of the dosing, then you would still

have your problem of the heroin addiction and its equivalent but you

would not have the death rate that comes with it. It is worth pointing

out, for those people and those families with a son or daughter

involved in this, let us be clear about the partially protective

effect of being in treatment. We already know both with heroin

overdose and Fentanyl over those that a move into treatment massively

reduces your risk of dying. You would hope this would scare people

into seeking treatment. It is a hugely important point but then you

ask the question about having the capacity to respond and retain

people in treatment and the evidence on the whole is that treatment has

become less available and more difficult to hold people in

treatment. My understanding is that these figures are very start because

it is only July and at least 60 with another possible 70 but it is

because the wait up -- the toxicology was examined, Fentanyl

could have been something that has been growing over the last two or

three years. Further products will come out as well. We must not just

assume there is just this one. The Chinese are producing new and ever

stronger and more complex compounds. How do you stop them getting it into

the country? In my view, we have to regulate the way we do these things.

Sir John Baird some excellent research into heroin treatment

centres, in Switzerland, there are wonderful centres were heroin users

get the clean heroin illegally in special treatment centres and

through consumption rooms and Durham Police are doing something similar.

If we do that, people get their heroin clean, not with Fentanyl edit

on the whole thing becomes much more safer. Thank you very much indeed.

Apart from the occasional burst of banter over Brexit,

politics seems to have packed up its bags and disappeared

The snap election was only in June but feels to some

But today memories of it were evoked by the publication

of a piece of analysis by the British Election Survey team

For three decades they've been monitoring the reasons people

And today's findings shed some new light on what was going

on behind the scenes of that extraordinary election.

Our policy editor Chris Cook is here.

Chris, what with the surprises? I think one of the things that sheds

light on this, it understands the position of Labour on Brexit in

particular. We have got a graphic here which is about to pop up which

shows the 100 blogs on the left in red representing Labour voters at

the 2017 general election, the blue blobs represent the Tory voters. Let

us look, using the data, how they voted in the 2016 referendum. What

it shows you is that roughly, about 70% of Labour voters voted Remain

and 70% of Tory voters voted Leave in the referendum. There is a

pleasing symmetry and that leaves people saying why aren't Labour

being more assiduous and trying to basically lock picks it? The British

election -- but the British Election Survey on thickness. The question as

it is what is almost important thing to you and people have to write in

what they think the top issue is and what we can do is sweep away all the

blogs by people on the screen who did not say break that was the top

issue. It shows you that basically there is a huge enthusiasm gap. You

bring up the numbers, about 18% of Labour voters are hardline Remain

voters and make Brexit is the most important issue compared to 30% of

Tory voters. 70% of Labour voters were Remain voters but only a small

portion of those still pick it is the most important issue. What is

the most important issue? Tuition fees, fox hunting? The amazing thing

about this study is there is no silver bullet that explains the

election. It is amazing that you would not know from the study that

tuition fees even came up or fox hunting, the best we can say is that

those things, if they were important, they were important to

secondary issues that supported the broader issues and broader images of

the two major parties. So was an election that never really was in

terms of sparks and passion. There was lots of passion but no clear

thrust that damaged fatally or it saved one of the parties. Like very

much indeed. A quick look at the front pages. The Guardian revealed

that tycoon 's own 652 empty homes in the Grenfell area and there is

the new Vogue editor on his first day in the job, the first man to

edit the magazine. The Telegraph, green tax ends home energy bills.

The Daily Mirror, greedy British Gas boss revealed that cars have gone

down but he is putting up prices.