23/02/2018 Newsnight

They've been working hard at the UN

Security Council today,

but getting nothing done.

Meanwhile, with no ceasefire agreed,

the Syrian government has been busy

in its familiar way -

bombing Eastern Ghouta.

You might have hoped that somehow

diplomacy or human decency

would lead to a pause

in the brutality.

But hope is all too scarce.

I'm witnessing these

things before my eyes.

When the bomb landed near us,

the children panicked

and were crying out loud.

It's part of the United Kingdom,

except it opts out

of the socially liberal bits.

What explains Northern Ireland's

social conservatism?

We know the society

that we want to be part of.

We know there is overwhelming

public support for some of

these issues, so it's really

disappointing that some of our

leaders cannot enact that change.

And fewer people are using public

transport in the capital.

A blip, or an early sign we've

finally reached peak London?

Hello.

It's been one of those

days that demonstrates

the limits of diplomacy.

The Security Council

was meant to vote on a motion

for a ceasefire at 4 o'clock this

afternoon, our time.

Then it was postponed to 7.30.

And in the last few minutes the vote

has been rescheduled again -

this time delayed until tomorrow.

You probably don't need me to tell

you that it is the Russian veto -

or the threat of it -

that has blocked the motion.

However, the Russians have said

they'll sign up to a ceasefire

as long as it is guaranteed to be

observed by rebels as well as

the Syrian government.

Talks will no doubt continue

overnight before the vote -

which we're now told will happen

at 5pm our time tomorrow.

Well, we'll hear from an air-raid

shelter in Douma in Eastern Ghouta

shortly, but what hope

is there for a ceasefire?

And an effective one at that.

Mike Thompson reports.

While politicians talk, the

incessant bombardment of rebel held

Eastern Ghouta by Syrian and Russian

forces goes on and on.

Is now, if you can hear,

the jets are bombing.

With hundreds dead over the last few

days, and many more injured, medics

there are struggling to cope,

and it's a battle that this doctor

says they are losing.

When you get injury to the hospital,

you expect to deal

with 70, 80 injuries

at the same time.

This, you cannot imagine any

hospital can deal with these

numerous cases.

Ultimately, events are likely

to go only one way for

the people who are bombarded

and besieged in Eastern Ghouta -

evacuation.

This was the fate of this rebel held

area. And then east Aleppo several

months later and finally Homs in

2017. People were pounded and

starved into submission before being

taken to rebel held Idlib province.

Death and destruction has not been

all one way. Mortars have been fired

into downtown Damascus by rebel

groups in Eastern Ghouta, one of

which had formal ties with Al-Qaeda.

One former British ambassador to

Syria who is a director of a group

with links to President Assad's

family believes the pictures we are

seeing do not reflect.

It. Do you

think it remarkable in the harrowing

video we are being regaled with, the

war pornography we are wallowing in,

is it remarkable you never see the

thousands, probably 7000, 8000

jihadi warriors who won there and

why not? Because all the images we

see come from the jihadis and

auxiliaries in Eastern Ghouta, who

are adept at stirring western

sympathy, hoping we are going to

come in over the horizon to save

them.

A spokesman for the White

Helmets rescue teams in Eastern

Ghouta said there is a good reason

for that.

You do not see them

because they are targeting directly

civilian neighbourhoods. At the

front lines. They are at the front

lines. There is no one armed between

civilians.

The horrors happening in

Eastern Ghouta mirror the fate of

East Aleppo. It brings back terrible

memories to this woman, who I have

interviewed many times, before she

narrowly escaped from the city with

her life.

We can present the same

feeling we have felt in the past. I

can hear the sound and crying of the

kids.

kids. I can even smell the dust of

bombing.

bombing.

So what chance a ceasefire?

Some are optimistic.

A ceasefire,

every

every time when the start, he begins

bombing and shelling.

If any

ceasefire deal here is to last, it

will require trust on all sides.

Right now, there is precious little

of that. Mike Thompson.

Nowhere are the effects of those

delays at the United Nations

being felt tonight as firmly

as in eastern Ghouta itself.

Before we came on air,

I spoke to Mahmoud Bwedany.

He's a 20-year-old student activist

who has spent much of the last

week in an underground

shelter with his family.

The regime claims the images we are

seeing look worse in eastern Goutha

than it actually is.

I asked Mahmoud

about his experience.

Well, how can we make it worse?

It's the worst situation there is.

And I am witnessing these

things before my eyes.

When the bomb landed,

near us, the children

panicked and were crying out loud.

They were not holding any guns.

The front line aren't

being bombed as heavy

as the centres of the city.

You perhaps have

heard that the United

Nations is struggling to get

a ceasefire motion agreed.

The Russians are

obviously saying they

will veto the motion, the Swedish-

Kuwaiti motion for 30 days of

ceasefire.

It must be frustrating for you.

What is devastating,

the international community is not

doing any actions to prevent

the tragedies

from happening in this area.

400 people were killed

in the last five days.

32 casualties just today.

And a lot of wounded.

The medical staff is

overwhelmed with patients and

injured people from the bombardment.

They are working most of the day,

I think more than ten hours.

It is horrible.

The international community...

Go on.

They are still delaying

the meeting and we probably

know the Russians

will veto this motion.

What is your hope?

A UN resolution for

a 30-day ceasefire

would be enormously helpful.

Well, that is not

something I know for

sure what to say about.

But I think that is

the international community,

the world leaders' job, to fight war

crimes to prevent more tragedies

from happening.

So I hope the ceasefire

goes through.

This is a difficult question.

Is there any way, if you

could surrender and just

get out, would you contemplate,

at some point, the

white flag might have to go up?

Well, that is just devastating.

First, displacement

is not the solution

to what we are living in.

The problem is that

the regime and Russia

and the forces that

are in

the alliance, they are attacking

Ghouta and other places in Syria.

That is the problem.

The solution is not to get

everyone out of their

homes and move them

out of their lands,

and into God knows where.

The solution is to

push Assad and the

regime, I'm sorry, the regime

and Russia to stop this assault

and to let this country get back

on its feet

with a legitimate country,

legitimate government that respects

human rights and

believes in equality.

Does everybody in Eastern

Ghouta believe that?

Do you think there are

people who want to escape

and just want to stop

the war at any price,

or do you think everybody

there holds firm to the description

you have just given

me of your views?

Well, not everyone.

Of course there are

people who are tired and

have suffered so much in this war.

So, yes, some people might think

of that as a solution.

But, let's face it, nobody

can guarantee what will

happen if they decided to move

us out of this area.

They might take everyone

to the slaughterhouses and

just execute.

Everyone against this regime.

And who fought in this revolution.

If that is going to be our choice,

then the entire world

has not done anything.

Mahmoud, it is very good

of you to talk to us

and describe the plight there,

which obviously everybody here

thinks is quite horrific.

We wish you all the best, very much.

Thank you.

Northern Ireland was condemned

today by a UN committee.

The Committee on the Elimination

of Discrimination Against Women

attacked the fact that

Northern Ireland criminalises

abortion, restricting it

even in cases of rape,

incest or fatal foetal abnormality.

The committee said the restrictions

caused great harm and suffering.

This is pretty routine criticism,

but the strange thing

about it is that it's aimed

at a piece of the UK,

and yet most people in the UK

would probably agree with it.

Northern Ireland has

allowed itself to become

an exceptional piece of the UK,

in clinging to some socially

conservative norms.

It is the one nation not to have

same-sex marriage for example.

And yet it's a complicated

picture there because polls

in Northern Ireland show support

for liberalisation of the abortion

law and support for

same-sex marriage.

Matthew Thompson has been

looking at the strength

of social conservatism there.

The history of Ireland

is traced upon the cross.

In this land of saints

and scholars, religion held

immense power over minds,

lives, and indeed, deaths.

Divided as they were,

the island's squabbling

churches were united

by their stance on public morals.

You will legislate

perversion and immorality.

But in recent years,

most notably in the

Republic, such

attitudes have shifted.

Scandals have shaken public faith

in the Catholic church -

secularism is on the march.

The Republic's gay

marriage referendum

in 2015 left Northern Ireland nearly

alone in Western Europe as one of

the few places where same-sex

marriage was still forbidden by law.

Take the issue of abortion, however,

and Ireland's isolation is even

starker.

Strict laws north and south

of the border mean the island ranks

alongside Andorra, Malta

and San Marino as the most

restrictive places in Europe.

A forthcoming referendum

in the Republic could

compound Northern

Ireland's isolation.

With its religiouus quarrels

and fractious political

landscape, Northern Ireland can

seem, to large swathes of British

opinion, a place frozen in time.

And nowhere is the country's social

conservativism more in evidence than

here in Ballymena, the buckle

of Northern Ireland's Bible Belt.

If you were voting,

would you think it

was important that the politicians

were representing religious values?

Yes, certainly, certainly.

That's why I do support

DUP, because they

do have a lot of religious values

on same-sex marriage

and stuff, where, you know...

Where is that all coming from?

I have nothing against gay people

in any way, but I don't think it's

right for them to be married,

definitely

not, not the way I was brought up.

The DUP is not the only party

to hold these views.

The Ulster Unionist Party,

for one, is split on

such issues.

But the DUP's unique brand

of fundamentalism find fertile

ground here.

The religion of the DUP informs

the party's attitude to such

questions as same-sex

marriage and abortion.

The fact is that on a scale of zero

to ten, when we asked

how much should faith and church

condition the outlook of the DUP,

members scale that at

almost seven out of ten.

It's difficult to imagine

any other party across

the United Kingdom

having such an outlook,

wanting faith and church

to

condition the outlook

of their party.

The power to legislate on social

issues rests with Northern

Ireland's devolved government,

when it actually sits.

The Assembly here at Stormont

has declined to endorse

more liberal legislation on both gay

marriage and abortion.

In 2015, a vote to

legalise gay marriage was

actually passed

by a majority of one,

but the DUP were able to use

a

controversial veto power, known

as the Petition Of Concern, to block

the legislation.

This move, in defiance

of both majority public

opinion and the majority of Assembly

members, provoked outrage.

The 2017 Northern Ireland

general election

survey indicated that 54% of people

supported same-sex marriage.

Only 23% opposed it.

Other polls have put

support higher still.

But only 50% of unionists

were in favour, against

66% of nationalists.

And of DUP supporters,

almost exactly as many

oppose as support same-sex marriage.

People's views in Northern Ireland

on same-sex marriage are conditioned

more by age than necessarily

religion these days.

And with a new generation

coming through, the

chances are that at some point,

same-sex marriage will be allowed in

Northern Ireland.

As symbols of that new generation

go, it's hard to look

past the Sunflower bar

in central Belfast.

At the height of the Troubles,

it was the scene of a

loyalist terror attack that

left three people dead.

Now it's a trendy bar that

attract a younger, more

progressive crowd.

These issues are incredibly

important to students...

These young people voice frustration

with a political system that they

feel isn't working for them.

People, for a variety

of reasons, continue

to vote on a sort of community

affiliation basis rather than

particular social issues, so it

isn't effective to necessarily say

to people that they should vote for

this particular party because they

will bring abortion reform

or marriage equality.

It simply doesn't work that way

in Northern Ireland yet.

We know the kind of society

that we want to be a part of, and we

know that there is overwhelming

public support for some of these

issues, so it's really disappointing

that some of our leaders can't

actually enact that change.

Olivia, you're the president

of the National

Union of Students in

Ireland, and you've met

actually with a lot

of

the parties, I think as recently

as last week with the DUP, to talk

about some of these issues.

What...

How did you come away from that?

I don't think anything

has come out of

these talks that wasn't really to be

expected, personally.

I think, if anything,

one of the things that's

become crystal-clear

is, for any progress

to be made in any sort

of

area in legislation

in Northern Ireland,

the Petition Of Concern is most

definitely in need of some

desperate reform, and it is unclear

as to whether or not any

of the parties have a clear path

forward for how that should be done.

Sinn Fein have made

much in recent years

of what they call the equality

agenda, but their position on

abortion has only recently softened,

and they still don't officially

support any unrestricted access.

The nationalist SDLP,

sister party of

Labour, remains staunchly pro-life.

In October, the Supreme Court heard

an appeal from the Northern Ireland

Human Rights Commission

against the country's abortion laws.

That judgment is expected

within the next month.

The most recent Northern Ireland

Life And Times Survey

suggests that abortion is is another

area in which politicians are out of

step with public opinion.

Ask people whether abortion

should be given in

the case of serious fatal

abnormality, or in the case of rape

or incest, and significant

majorities are in favour.

But ask if a woman should

be able to have an

abortion on demand and the balance

tips significantly.

Fully 60% of people

are opposed in this instance.

Overall, Catholics are more likely

than Protestants to oppose abortion.

For Sinn Fein, I think

that what we see is

a changing relationship

of

the citizens of Ireland

with the Catholic church,

so over the past 20 years,

you see that, but Sinn Fein

also having their position

on the constitutional question,

which is overwhelmingly supported.

So, they can have this liberal

agenda that's there.

For the SDLP, they are more

conservative traditionally, but I do

think that they are going

to change as attitudes

change on the island

of

Ireland, where they will not want

to be caught on the wrong side of

social change.

So, what hope for change

for those who seek it?

Absent reform, delivering same-sex

marriage, will be an uphill struggle

for a restored Assembly at Stormont,

abortion even more so.

Though, of course,

the Supreme Court could

force the issue.

Should Stormont remain empty,

direct rule ministers

could legislate from

London, but that will

hardly be a priority

for a

Government dealing with Brexit

and in bed with the DUP.

Short-term, then, in

spite of the will of a

majority of its people, it seems

likely that Ulster's peculiar

political system will

continue to say no.

For three decades, London has been

enjoying a long boom.

Its economy, its population

and its global status have all been

growing to the point that it has

sometimes felt increasingly

disconnected from the

rest of the country.

It's almost taken for granted that

there's that kind of imbalance.

So listen carefully.

Something strange is currently

happening in the capital.

It happened quite suddenly

and unexpectedly.

It could be nothing significant.

But it could possibly be historic.

It's public transport

that offers the

most important sign something's up.

Actually, I've expressed that badly.

It's that passenger

numbers are down.

The decline sounds small -

bus journeys down 5% over the last

two years, Tube journeys down 0.3%.

But small falls cause a big headache

for transport bosses.

Infrastructure spending

in London has been based on

ever-growing passenger numbers.

It was meant to be 1.44

billion Tube journeys

next year.

Now, it's expected

to be 1.34 billion.

The gap leaves hundreds

of millions in lower

revenues.

It's not just London.

A couple of years

ago, I heard it from

New York, that the subway ridership

had levelled off and was beginning

to decline, bus ridership in fact

had started to fall before that.

And since then, we've seen this

phenomenon on extended to London,

probably to Toronto,

levelling off on the Paris Metro.

And it appears as if

something more broadly is

occurring to big city transport

and the ridership on it.

Heads are being scratched

in search of a definitive

explanation.

Is it the Uber effect, for example?

People taking taxis rather

than trains or buses.

Is it cycling?

Certainly, it can no longer be

dismissed as an irrelevance in

the big transport picture.

Is it terror keeping

people away from the

crowds?

Or is it that people shop from home

these days and entertain

themselves there too?

I don't think this there's likely

to be a single answer.

It's more likely to be a complex one

involving the way we

live in and use big cities.

It could just be something

more than transport.

The end of a three decade surge

in the role of megacities.

You see, it's not just

transport feeding

it.

In London, museum visits are down

as well, for example.

The British Museum, down 8% in 2017.

Not untypical of the sector.

For years, mega city

growth has felt like a law

of nature.

But you don't have to go back far

to know that cities shrink

as well as grow.

London's population declined

after the Second World War,

right through to the 1980s.

It was a story of managed decline.

Is it possible that we

are seeing an early

sign that we've reached peak city,

that the inevitable crowds,

congestion and expense

out way the advantages,

that the long-awaited rebalancing

to the rest of the

country is poised to occur?

Let's reflect on that, remembering

that the population of London is

still growing and the number of jobs

is still growing.

I'm joined now by Richard Florida,

an American Urban Studies theorist

and Professor at the University

of Toronto, and by Sian

Berry, a Green Party

London Assembly member.

Richard, do you think this is a

turning point? Is something

happening in some of the big cities?

No, I think we live in a winner

takes all urban system. London, New

York and Toronto, that you mention,

are big winners. Transit users are

down because they walk, ride a bike

or

or take Uber. I put a long bet on

London and I think it will be just

fine.

You accept that these cities

have long cycles, and London and New

York had a long cycle. They have had

their period of decline.

There was

the period of mass suburbanisation

after the war that took middle-class

jobs out of the city, but what we

have seen over the past 20 or 30

years, and certainly since the turn

of the 21st century, is this massive

movement of jobs, of people, of the

affluent and educated, but also of

technology firms, which always used

to be located in these suburban

office complexes. They have come

barrelling back, and the places that

have grown more than anywhere are

London, New York and downtown San

Francisco, so I think you are right:

If the long cycle after the war was

the shrinkage of the city, the long

cycle of the past generation, and

certainly the past decade and a

half, it is big world cities like

London, New York and a few you have

mentioned.

Sian, is this just a

transport thing or is there

something bigger?

One of the

interesting part of why people are

not taking so much public transport

is that visitors from elsewhere in

the UK are down, so that is part of

your Museum figures. One of the

reasons why you might not be taking

so many journeys is partly that you

have replaced things with technology

and people delivering to you, but

also that you can't afford that. You

can't afford to go out... Not just

the journey but the reason for it.

And that is worrying. We are also

seeing a drop in the number of

20-something people coming to

London.

Run that passed me again.

Population is still growing, is the

big counterargument to any of this.

Siam of course, London is a world

city will

city will stop --

of course, London

is a world city. Nobody wants to

raise children in London because of

air pollution, and they can't afford

to offer even if they wanted. We

have also seen a drop off in the

number of 20-somethings coming in. I

am not from London, I came in my

20s, seeking my fortune, and those

are the people we have to keep

attracting. And from the rest of the

UK, people don't see London as being

as attractive as it was.

You cannot

move to London unless you have a job

before you get here.

I turned up

with nothing but an overdraft and

managed to survive because it was

possible back then to get a bit of

money together. Astronomical costs

now. I think people are choosing

other cities, and London cannot take

its place for granted.

I wonder if

you are being too optimistic about

the limits that you perceive. You

just do reach a point where you say,

that's it, we had 30 years of

growth, and then it is not.

Two

points. She's absolutely right.

First, London will continue to grow.

It has overcome bigger problems than

a decline in transit users. It has

gone through world wars, bone to the

ground. It is the most resilient

city on the planet, maybe New York

in second place. It is a tale of two

cities, which we didn't talk about.

London has replaced working people

with rich people. Young people with

old wealthy people. The people who

use public transport tend to be

working people and less wealthy

people. The affluent people working

in London do not live in London

full-time. They owed a big flat and

they do not take transit, but a

private car, or Uber or something

like that. I think public transit

transport use a ship is not the key

figure.

I would like to give a

Northern perspective on this. London

has had all the money spent on

transport over the last decades, and

the North has craved some of it, and

London is basically saying, we need

a subsidy to pay for this that

because we have built it now and it

is not being used as we anticipated.

We have had a lot of transport

investment, but we need a shift from

cars onto public transport. If I was

to swap something, I would swap HS2

for something else.

Won't this be

taken as a sign that Crossrail 2,

that money can be spent on the

Northern Powerhouse, and there are a

million things and suddenly all of

that is open again, isn't it?

We are

desperately short of new housing for

our families. Affordable housing

needs to be built, and in areas that

can be opened up by Crossrail 2,

that need investment. They also need

investment in mundane things like

better bus routes. We need the

Government to be giving us more

powers and money from the car income

they get.

Very briefly, Richard, you

wrote about the creative class that

made these big world cities such

dynamic places. At that class grown

less creative?

It has certainly be

the case that the creative class

revival has been a crisis of

success. My new book is called The

New Urban Crisis, and London is at

the epicentre of this. The way that

London grows in the future is to

expand its boundaries to include

those northern industrial cities,

connected by high-speed rail. It not

only becomes more dense, it connects

to these areas through high-speed

rail and that kind of transit is

London's future.

Thank you, both,

very much indeed.

Well that's all we have

time for tonight.

Before we go, news broke this

evening of the death aged 73

of soul star Eddy Amoo.

He was a member of the band

The Real Thing in the 1970s,

who were pioneers of black British

music and the first all-black band

to reach number one here.

That was with You To Me

Are Everything in 1976.

We'll leave you now with another

of their performances -

from Top of the Pops in 1977.

Good night.

# Love, love's such

a wonderful thing.

# Just think of the

joys it can bring.

# I've got so much

love to give to you.

# My love is a shelter.

# Let me be your shade.

# Somewhere you can run to.

# Your troubles will fade.

# Life's so full of shadows.

# It's so full of pain.

# Let my love surround you.

# And keep out the pain.#