13/02/2018 Newsnight

He's been the remainers' public

enemy number one ever

since he led the out campaign,

but now he comes in peace.

Tomorrow he makes a speech saying

let's all be friends again.

We'll look ahead to that speech,

in which the Foreign Secretary's

main message is that Brexit

is a liberal project,

not a nationalist one.

It may not entirely convince

all his opponents.

I think we've had

enough of sound bites.

Liberal, outward-looking, global,

buccaneering, Brexit means

Brexit, deep and special

partnership, no deal better than a

bad deal.

All those are slogans.

We'll ask the liberal

in chief how he feels

about Boris's tanks on his lawn.

The Oxfam crisis.

Is this only about one agency?

Or does the whole sector have

questions to answer?

This boy is an outstanding science

student at the state school in the

North of England. What's his

ambition?

Do you see science in your future?

Yeah, like, I want to become a chef

and apply science to cooking.

Young, gifted and Paul, what should

we do to help realise their

potential? --

potential? -- and poor.

And you probably saw

the Obama painting.

It's gone down rather well,

so we'll be asking someone who has

painted the former president

what makes a great portrait.

Hello.

Boris Johnson has become something

of a hate figure to a chunk

of liberal Britain who blame him

for what they see as

the Brexit catastrophe.

They think he lied in the referendum

campaign, and persuaded

Britain to self-harm,

all to serve his own

political career.

So, Mr Johnson is bravely trying

to appeal to those core

Remainers tomorrow -

his is the first in a series

of speeches on Brexit by cabinet

ministers over the next few days.

He will argue Brexit is

basically a liberal project.

It is about pulling down barriers,

not erecting them -

so he means it's liberal

in the sense of free trade.

Apart from trying to

heal Brexit division -

good luck with that -

it's an attempt to reclaim Brexit

from any suggestion it's

all about Nigel Farage.

So, does Johnson's argument fly?

Certainly, there is a lot

of illiberalism on the continent -

but Mr Johnson's problem is that

it's that there's a lot

of illiberalism here too, much of it

on his Brexit-supporting side.

So what's the Foreign

Secretary trying to do?

Our political editor

Nick Watt reports.

We are, it would seem,

a divided country.

In the 20 months since the Brexit

referendum, the two sides seem

as divided as ever but have no

fear, help is at hand.

The man who transformed

the Leave cause is

reaching out across the divide.

Boris Johnson will criticise some

ardent pro-Europeans who he will

accuse of trying to reverse Brexit

but I'm told he's also expected to

put balm on the wounds caused

by the bitter referendum campaign.

This may all seem a far

cry from his joshing

of the Remain camp

just a few months ago.

Every day a distinguished pink

newspaper manages to make

Eeyore look positively exuberant.

Just under a year ago,

you wouldn't have known

there was a divide that needed

to be healed.

This year, after a period of intense

debate over the right

future for our country,

there is a sense that people

are coming together and uniting

behind the opportunities

that lie ahead.

Boris Johnson now feels it's time

for something of a reset

of the optics around Brexit.

I understand he has told his inner

circle that he wants to rescue

Brexit from what he privately calls

a Faragist worldview.

Inward and backward looking.

As passionate as ever

about the opportunities that

will be provided by leaving

the European Union, he believes

you can support Brexit whilst

being an internationalist,

a globalist, and a liberal.

The values he says he shares

with many Remain supporters.

Well, I'm all in favour

of reaching out.

I think people voted Remain out

of fear for the short-term

economic consequences.

And it is great news that those

forecasts were wrong and the economy

has continued to grow and we've got

more jobs and house prices

did not tank and so forth.

So there will be some of those

who say maybe it was not

quite as bad as thought.

And we want this to

work for everybody.

Those of us who believe in it

believe that Britain will be more

prosperous and more free

when it is a self-governing

country again.

A leading pro-European Tory

is not changing her view

of the Brexit is a sceptical

that the Foreign Secretary's claim

that it is a liberal cause.

Liberal doesn't mean anything.

If it means free trade,

we've got free trade.

We are about to throw away

umpteen free trade deals.

We've got frictionless trade.

But if liberal means doing exactly

what we want and hoping

everyone else will let us,

then I don't think

that world exists.

Is hiding all the vital

information we need to know

about what the impact of what we're

doing might be liberal?

I don't think so.

Is putting up new trade barriers

where currently none exist liberal?

I don't think so.

What does this mean?

If we are trying to make our own

rules, make our own laws,

and expect that everyone else

will respect our laws but we don't

really have to comply with theirs,

then that is not how

the world works.

CHEERING.

A pollster wonders whether Boris

Johnson is the right messenger.

After being very much

the Heineken Mayor of London,

reaching the parts that other

politicians cannot reach,

Boris Johnson may well regard

himself as the best person

on the Leave side to

appeal to Remainers.

And indeed if he can't do it

then perhaps nobody can.

But what he may find is that he

is not Heineken, he is Marmite.

And for Remainers that means a lot

of people see him simply as a Leaver

and they don't like it.

So Boris Johnson will cast himself

as the nation's healer.

With divisions in his own

family, he knows he faces

a monumental challenge.

But in the end he believes

the free spirit unleashed

by Brexit will prevail.

We are joined by two men who

consider themselves liberal in their

own way.

We are now joined by the leader

of the Liberal Democrats Sir Vince

Cable and the Conservative MEP Dan

Hannan.

Good evening to you both. Boris as a

healer, do you feel healed, what do

you think about his message?

He can

be charming and witty but the

substance is not helpful. What I

can't understand is the use of the

word liberal. It is either a

deliberate use of language or to

cause confusion. The European

project that he once asked to

disengage from is the Single Market,

which is fundamentally a liberal

idea, about the free trade in goods

and services and freeing up capital

movements and Labour -- he wants us

to disengage from. The whole point

about the government strategy,

particularly the hardliners like

Boris Johnson, the Chancellor is in

a different position, is about

getting us out of that liberal

arrangement and creating extra

barriers to trade as a consequence.

The other red line is about

withdrawing from the customs union.

Even if you manage to negotiate a

tariff free agreement you would have

friction at the borders because you

have to check...

So it is about

creating barriers? That is the

paradox of what Boris Johnson is

asking, you have the most liberal

trading deal in the world, the EU,

and then you are leaving it. So deal

with that paradox, if you would.

Obviously I don't see it that way, I

see the EU as a top-down project and

there has been a general global

economic and trade liberalisation

which is a good thing, a great

vehicle for poverty alleviation but

the European Union hasn't been at

the forefront of it. Being an

internationalist and Liberal lever

is about raising our eyes to the

other opportunities. At its exports

to the US and New Zealand have grown

by 40% each, to China and Japan,

60%, South Korea, 100%, the EU, 10%.

The idea that I somehow remaining in

a tariff wall and often

protectionist EU we are necessarily

advancing the liberal projects, I

don't agree with. There's another

thing which is important for a

Foreign Secretary to be stressing, a

lot of overseas observers and media

only see the Farage argument for

Brexit. They've got this kind of

idea that the only reason to vote

Leave is bigotry, nostalgia or

disliking immigrants but I think

it's the duty of the Foreign

Secretary to make the case that we

are an engaged country involved in

many countries and Europe.

I want to

go back about trade, it is abstract

about talking about global this and

liberal that. Can you give me a

concrete way in which we will be

more liberal as a result of leaving?

I want to know what this means in

practice, not the abstract. What

does being more liberal mean in

practice?

Well, the EU applies a lot

of barriers, especially nontariff

barriers to some of the poorest

countries in the world, especially

agriculture.

Sorry to interrupt, is

it your contention that we will

remove those barriers and have more

imports of cheap agricultural

products from poorer countries?

So

the prices in the UK fall, which

will benefit all of us, but will

especially benefit the people on the

lowest incomes who spend a higher

proportion of their weekly budgets

on Minister cities like food.

You've

given us a good one. -- on

necessities like. You're not going

to argue about the Single Market but

do you see that there are things

where you can say it works both

ways? The Single Market, you call it

liberal, but agriculture could be

more liberal if we leave?

There are

some barriers to developing

countries but compared with 20 years

ago the European Union is a much

more open economy than the United

States, Japan, China and other

trading... The EU has led the way to

opening up world trade through the

World Trade Organisation. Of course

barriers remain. What I'm not clear

about is what the Brexiteers wants

to do about it. One thing you could

do is save, we are going to have the

open market, get rid of the trade

barriers and just enjoy that

freedom. That is an economic liberal

argument but that isn't what Theresa

May is doing, she's charging around

the world signing, in a rather

pathetic way, trying to get the

Chinese and Indians to sign

bilateral agreements which fragment

the trading system even more. That

isn't a liberal way to approach

trade.

Do you think the British

people who voted for Brexit thought

they were voting for more cheap

imports from poorer countries, for

more globalisation, for more free

trade, perhaps for more immigration

from India and other parts of Asia

and Africa, when they voted for

Brexit?

17 point formerly people

voted Leave so clearly there was a

broad range of motives and I can't

tell you what every single one of

those people said but plainly there

were liberal lever is Mac. Not every

libertarian is a Leave voter. To get

away from this caricature of Leave

as being a basically backward

looking project. The day after the

referendum I came on this programme

and spoke to you and said voting

Leave doesn't mean there will be

zero immigration, it will be subject

to democratic control and you did a

Paxman face of incredulity and

banged the table but I've said the

same thing through the campaign, has

had Boris.

It is a strange thing

that it is such a liberal project

that immigration control features

are so heavily as the way to sell it

to the British people. More

globalisation...

In the main... In

the main debate, the most watched

debate, the great Wembley debate,

Boris begun by saying he's not only

liberal on immigration, he's

favoured giving an amnesty to

migrants. It isn't something he

tried to slip into the small print.

A slightly grotesque caricature has

been built up since the vote, not

least in overseas media and I think

it's quite important that the

British Foreign Secretary should be

relying friends and allies that we

remain an engaged and trusted global

partner?

Do you trust that?

Dan

Hannan is Aina minority of the

leavers on this, the government are

arguing they want to restrict

immigration. You can make a

theoretical liberal argument to say

we will have less legislation but

the government are arguing the

opposite, coming to Parliament

arguing that none of these

regulations will be removed. -- have

less regulation. There is a

fundamental dishonesty in the use of

the word liberal.

Thank you for

joining us.

It's a sign that Oxfam has not

managed to close down its sexual

misconduct crisis that we are now

deeply into the phase

in which incremental news

drips out day after day.

Tonight, the actor Minnie Driver,

an Oxfam ambassador,

has quit her role -

saying she was "horrified"

by the allegations.

And it was reported today

in the humanitarian

news website Irin -

that the man in charge

of the Haitian operation,

who resigned from Oxfam for himself

using prostitutes, had lost a job

in Liberia some years before

with a different British aid agency

on similar grounds.

Roland Van Hauwermeiren

reportedly denied the

allegations, but did resign.

What this latest news does, perhaps,

is simply harden the suspicion that

Oxfam is just the tip of an iceberg

I'm joined now from Boston

by Diane Mazurana,

from Massachusetts Tufts university.

She has conducted a major

study of sexual assaults

in the aid industry.

And in the studio we

have Bocchit Edmond,

the Haitian Ambassador to the UK.

If I can turn to you Diane, there a

difference between sexual assault

and using prostitutes. But what did

study find?

What we found in the

study was sexual assault and

harassment of humanitarian aid

workers was pretty widespread. The

most reliable numbers we have is

about 24% of aid workers, women aid

workers, reported being sexually

assaulted while on a mission. And we

found that the primary perpetrators

are other men who are humanitarian

aid workers who are their colleagues

and usually people in a position of

power, more higher ranking than

them. But also mail Security

officers hired by the agencies to

provide security.

provide security. We looked at

Oxfam, actually.

Go ahead.

We did

look at Oxfam and I think it is

important to note that Oxfam

actually was best practice and I

still stand by that with all the

accusations and revelations coming

out. Oxfam was widely viewed by the

other agencies we talked to, UN

agencies and international NGOs as

having the best safeguarding unit

and policy and practice in place.

Other agencies do not even have

safeguarding, or proper mechanisms.

People do not even know how to

report if something happens.

Sorry

to the interrupting but that is a

very interesting finding. Given the

heat that Oxfam is under. Because

you're saying that perhaps worse is

going on elsewhere but unreported.

Absolutely. And I think one thing we

must understand is once you get

better reporting and investigating

mechanisms in place and people have

confidence to use those mechanisms,

reports are going to go up. So Oxfam

is taking the heat right now but I

can tell you that this is widespread

throughout the sector and other

agencies have not stepped up to the

level that Oxfam has. You have seen

from reports coming out...

I'm so

sorry, I keep interrupting. What

amazes me is that we have not heard

about this study. You have

interviewed a lot of people and

until it was reported on Oxfam last

week, no one had spotted your report

and said, this is interesting.

Yes

in fact the inter-agency standing

committee reported on that, a number

of other media outlets as well. But

it was used in part to help point

champions to the inner agency

standing committee to iron out tasks

with leading a task force, the

deputy High Commissioner for human

rights and president of interaction

and they are in charge of leading a

task force looking at how to really

address and take on sexual assault

and harassment of aid workers

throughout the industry. So it has

been maybe not in popular media

picked up but we definitely have

seen some action. Now what we need

to see is more action. And I'm a bit

concerned at the kind of heat that

Oxfam is taking right now, it makes

it look as if this is an Oxfam

problem but it is industrywide.

We've seen reports on this. Well I

want to stop you there and go to the

ambassador for Haiti. Good evening

to you. What do you make of that,

you have been putting Oxfam under

some heat?

Well my government is not

in the business of throwing Oxfam

under a bus. We

under a bus. We only saw the results

of the investigation and the

conclusion was that some car crimes

had been committed. And we

understand they were not reported.

-- some crimes. The British

Government has now asked Oxfam to

step up to the plate and take

measures.

But maybe you should be

focusing on all the others as well.

Of course. Right now we're talking

about Oxfam because there was an

investigation that came to a

conclusion about Oxfam. It does not

mean Oxfam is the only NGO facing

those kind of issues.

those kind of issues.

Just to put

the Oxfam defence to you which is

that at the time they said reporting

this to the government when law and

order was preoccupied, disaster

struck, it would have been

unlikely...

I heard about that.

Unfortunately we disagree with that

because even in a war zone it does

not happen. After the earthquake the

state of Haiti did not cease to

exist, there was law enforcement,

the police authorities were there.

But even at the best of times some

of these laws are not enforced.

I

will make the concession that there

are different considerations. But

why not reported to the British

authorities. And even though they

were aware that this guy had

committed crimes, I believe they

made a mistake by letting him go.

But we are here to request Oxfam to

share the facts.

I wonder how

worried you are that what is

happening now is being used by some

people as an argument that we do not

give money to aid programmes. But

these do-gooders are just there for

their own satisfaction. This could

lead to quite a backlash.

I

understand that and I am concerned

about that as well. As much as aid

is important, you cannot replace

protection. Even though you're

coming to bring aid and give

assistance, you always have to keep

in mind that those people you're

coming to help also have rights and

dignity. Therefore it is up to those

NGOs to step up to the plate and

bring in some changes.

bring in some changes. Have tougher

background checks for recruitment.

Because if you look at the

seriousness of this guy, Roland van

Hauwermeiren, he has been in many

organisations and been thrown out

and wide between themselves they

could not say that. This is

important to have background checks.

If you want to work for this

organisation at least then we are

protected. At least minimise it if

not solve the situation.

Thank you

very much.

It has become common to argue that

a lack of social mobility in this

country has dried up.

Born poor, you stay poor.

The data points to a more nuanced

reading - there are huge social

mobility disparities

between different parts

of the country, and there is a big

rise in the numbers of young people

going to university,

including from poorer backgrounds.

So things are not standing still.

But a new way of understanding

the issue is to watch

BBC2 at 9 pm tomorrow,

for the first of two one hour

documentary programmes

called Generation Gifted.

It looks at the experiences

of six bright teenagers

from deprived backgrounds.

The programme will actually follow

the six over three years,

but obviously you'll have to wait

for the later years.

But how do these talented teenagers

fare at the start of the series?

Before we discuss social

mobility more generally,

here's a few minutes extracted

from the Generation

Gifted programmes.

In your bedroom, is there

anything that defines

you more than anything else?

Erm...

Erm...

I have books.

Lots and lots of books.

Anne-Marie is the sort of student

that every English teacher

wants in their class.

But she's so uncomfortable with her

own potential and abilities.

What makes you uncomfortable?

Everything.

Everything?

Is this a common issue for kids

from disadvantaged backgrounds?

A lot of pupils who come from such

backgrounds are the sort of pupils

who absolutely have low self-esteem.

She's very anxious person as well.

But at the same time she is capable

of a lot more than she thinks.

BELL RINGS.

So up here is science.

Science is one of my

favourite lessons.

In year eight I got

the gold award for science.

Liam is, you know,

he's incredibly bright.

We've done the first

kind of GCSE test.

So obviously it goes

from one to nine.

Where five would be

the new good GCSE.

And he got a nine which is,

you know, fantastic.

It's the highest you can get now.

You think about the grammar schools

and the private schools.

Why should they get all the luck?

If a kid is bright then they should

continue to be bright and we should

be doing everything we can to ensure

that they are making the best

possible progress for them.

How do you see science

in your future?

Yeah, like I want to become a chef

and apply science to cooking.

Amazing.

You know, cooking is mostly

chemical changes, isn't it?

All they have seen around

them is low ambition.

When people ask about what comes out

of this area, it's Geordie Shore.

When you ask the kids,

that's what they know

of Newcastle, Geordie Shore.

It's sad, really, because

they've got John Dobson

and George Stephenson,

amazing, you know,

scientists from this area.

That they have got no

clue about even though

part of the school is

named after them!

BELL RINGS.

OK then, you lot.

Shhh!

You lot, year nines.

Shakira.

In you come.

That's amazing.

So when you do homeworks

and sketches, try and do as much

as you can like that.

Because that's brilliant.

That's nice.

That's what I'm getting tattooed.

You're getting tattooed?

When are you getting a tattoo?

That's what I want my job to be.

With Shakira I think this is one

of my favourite subjects

because she is one of the best.

This is the type of

stuff I'm looking for.

Because that's really going to...

But she thinks she

can't achieve things.

It's just confidence.

It's a much harder task

to get through to someone

on free school meals.

Because of their constant struggle

or their constant battle

with believing in themselves.

Because people often think

if you are on free school

meals or if you're poor,

then you cannot

achieve anything.

BELL RINGS.

Did you put your name

down for the Rome trip?

I was going to, but my mum said

she hadn't got enough money to pay

for it because of what's

going on with Leo and that.

And I haven't got a passport, so.

So why don't you come and see

us about those things?

Because part of my job is to make

sure that anybody that's

in a difficult situation,

there is money available to support.

The big barrier that

she has is confidence.

But you find that one

thing that is the talent,

the skill, the interest,

and it suddenly opens the doors.

You should be confident, you know.

You enjoy singing.

It enables them to realise that

they're good at something,

realise that they can

belong to something.

And that enables you to sort

of broaden that horizon.

She doesn't just have to be Shakira

from Belgrave who lives in Tamworth

and dies in Tamworth.

An extract from

Generation Gifted, there.

We did ask the government to join

us but they declined.

With me is Jon Spears -

who you saw in that film -

he's an assistant head

at Tamworth Enterprise College.

Also here is the historian

Selina Todd - she's a professor

in modern history at Oxford

University.

She has written about the history of

the working class. Interesting to

watch that. When you are teaching,

how much priority do you give to the

more gifted disadvantaged students

as opposed to the others?

Well, as

opposed to the others, it's got to

be as well as the others. We can't

single out one group. You know,

philosophically and morally, as a

teacher, every student in the room

is gifted. In terms of the higher

ability, we need to push as much as

we can.

Do you give them extra

lessons, do they hang around?

Yes,

we do, we look to do extra lessons.

It is an issue because of funding

and staffing, being able to afford

that resource is an issue for us. We

have extra classes in registration

times through the day as well.

Certain times of the year we might

collapse a subject and intensify the

maths and English.

Of the people are

presented in the documentary, the

more academically bright students,

let's say, from less advantaged

backgrounds, free school meals,

basically, what sort of number

should go to university and what

kind will go to university?

Well, I

suppose in a year group of 200, a

good 40%, on paper, should be able

to go to university from our school

and given our intake and their

predicted grades. In terms of how

many will, will go to university,

it's often a very different picture.

Much lower, yeah. There's obviously

such a broad range of factors that

mean it's an issue.

Let me turn to

you, Selina. We have a traditional

motion of social mobility, that it's

about helping people whose talent

might otherwise be wasted, giving

them the leg up so they can exploit

their potential. Is that the right

notion of social mobility?

No, I'd

argue that part of the real problem

with social mobility is that it has

been used by successive governments

as really an opposition to equality.

What has been described here is

excellent practice in a nonselective

school that seeks to value every

child and say that every child

matters but what we've seen with the

political and media discourse around

social mobility is that only a few

are talented and we have to somehow

get them on. Historically that

doesn't work. The place where it was

enshrined, one of the teachers on

the documentary mentions the grammar

schools. Between 1945 and the 70s

the system is all about selection of

the so-called brightest.

Which

involves taking them out.

And giving

them a particular education. It is

predicated on the idea that children

from working-class backgrounds are

disadvantaged, a work that has been

used tonight, that their background

gives them nothing, they need to be

taken out on it, but they can be

prepared for university. The fact is

it didn't work because we now know

you cannot test or define brightness

at 11 or even 16. Also it didn't

work because the fact is that

education alone cannot lead to

social mobility.

Are you saying it's

not desirable to get those

youngsters into university? You're

not arguing that, are you?

No,

everybody who wants to go to

university should be able to and if

I had my way, I would elect Jeremy

Corbyn tomorrow, I would end these

pernicious tuition fees, I would

properly fund comprehensibility

education and I would say, let's

rise up as a society and get rid of

this ridiculous inequality.

What do

you do, suppose Jeremy Corbyn

doesn't win the election tomorrow,

where resources are limited, in a

school like Jon's. Do you focus on

the brighter ones and focus on

getting them to university?

I don't

think that is being done at Jon's

school, but that is right because

these kids are not lacking

aspiration, they are lacking

material resources because...

Is

that true, Jon?

There is an element

of aspiration but that is a knock-on

about the material resources. Social

mobility for the students isn't just

about getting a group to university,

it has to be about improving

housing, improving the income of the

families and actually wrapping

around the whole child. We are

seeing cuts constantly, with mental

health and all those other specs

that are so vital...

What is the

main barrier to progress of those

children? Is it home, chaotic lives,

the teaching resources, the school?

This is the crux of the issue which

is why there isn't a magic bullet to

solve the problem. It's everything.

They have home lives which are

chaotic, sometimes. I know through

my own Jordan Cameron I've had a

stressful day I'm not necessarily

going to be devoting the time to

educate at home in the way I should.

-- through my own children, if I've

had a stressful day. As we saw with

Shaqiri, I am desperately wants

better for her but she's at a loss.

Selina, very briefly, pin you down,

you are telling people not to go

with the notion of social mobility,

as popularly talked about, that it

isn't the right metric to judge

success?

If we say that success

means that people can lead lives

that they find fulfilling and where

they can provide for their families

then we must expand employment

opportunities and stop asking

schools to do the work that

government should be doing.

The

education system at the moment isn't

doing that fully.

Thanks very much.

As political portraits go,

the ones unveiled yesterday

of Barack and Michelle Obama -

you might have seen them,

they're all over the place today -

are pretty radical.

African-American subjects,

by African-American artists in

striking poses.

They'll "shake up the expectations

and assumptions of visitors

to the traditionally button-down

presidential galleries," said

the Washington Post.

"Pretty sharp" said Mr Obama.

Well, few politically-themed

paintings get quite as much

attention as those two have,

and all the chatter made us wonder

what it is that makes

a great political portrait.

Who better to give us an illustrated

talk through that than Nicola Green?

She has herself painted portraits of

Obama in his 2008 campaign. We're

going to do this with illustrations

starting with an old one. Let's go

back to Elizabeth the first. Well,

this is 16th century painting, she

is standing on top of the Earth.

What's special about this?

This is

an early political portrait. I guess

there are three elements to it, the

collaboration, between the subject,

the institution that commissions it

and the artist. And in these early

portraits, in a sense the monarch

had absolute power in the 3-way

collaboration. So she didn't

actually commissioned portrait, it

was commissioned by Ditchley, but he

wanted to impress her and obviously

the artist did too. She had absolute

power.

She's standing on top of the

world. They did things like that,

they wore things like that then.

It

is the ultimate power dressed! She

has jewels and lace. This was just

after the defeat of the Armada. The

portrait expresses the beginning of

Empire and that absolute power.

So

power is the word you keep using.

Let's go onto another one, jumping

ahead hundreds of years. Churchill.

This is Graham Sutherland's famous

one, which people who have watched

the first series of the Crown, this

was in one of the episodes.

Barcelonnette powerful?

This is a

really interesting portrait because

it was very controversial,

Parliament and the House of Lords

commissioned the portrait for his

80th birthday -- does he look

powerful? It was a birthday present

to Winston Churchill and was

presented to him and everyone loved

it and it was critically acclaimed.

He could understand it, he hated it

because I think it didn't the picked

him in a position of power.

He is

old, basically.

He is old and he

said he thought he looked drunk in

it. But actually Sutherland didn't

see it like that, he was inspired by

Winston Churchill saying, I am a

Rock and he saw it as solid.

Let's

go through another couple. We have

Kennedy here, this is the ship Le

Mans, I think it was done after the

death of Kennedy.

It was

commissioned Jackie Kennedy. She

said she wanted a portrait where he

wasn't looking out with a piercing

gaze, she was bored of that. She

wanted this kind of pose. The artist

said he wanted to depict him as a

thinker and reflective but of course

you can't help feeling about the

national crisis and the personal

crisis of what happened to Kennedy

and how he died. But you know this

was a radical portrait and when it

was made, amongst the other

presidential portraits which were

more of an assertion of power, this

is more reflective.

You picked them

but I like all of these! Let's go to

this Obama one. Do you like it?

He's

a good friend of mine, I saw him in

November and he talked about the

process of photographing and

choosing the pose, the artist. For

him, that's great, it was

commissioned by the National

portrait Gallery, by the American

people. I know what that

responsibility feels like. A great

weight.

I think for a political

pose, the backdrop is what is

obviously striking.

Incredibly

striking. Sitting down, Jefferson's

portrait, George W were sitting in

this pose, it is meant to signify

being a man of the people. In a way

that isn't uncommon but the foliage,

which Kehinde Wiley is known for, he

has the chrysanthemums of Chicago

and the blue lilies, representing

cannier, where Obama's father was

from and the jasmine, from Hawaii.

In a sense it is about identity. He

talked about wanting to think about

whether the story of Obama, the

story around him was bigger than

Obama himself and I think that's

represented by the foliage.

I like

it very much. Thanks for talking to

us.

That's it for tonight.

I will be back tomorrow but until

then, good night.