19/03/2018 Newsnight

Tonight, a broadcast

exclusive with the CEO

of Cambridge Analytica.

Alexander Nix responds

to the allegations of dirty

tricks at his company -

and vast breaches of data security.

We see this as, er as a coordinated

attack by the media that's been

going on for very very

many months, in order

to damage the company

that

had some involvement

with the election of Donald Trump.

We put to him the accusations

of a whistleblower that he runs

a full scale propaganda service.

We get our biggest glimpse

yet of the Brexit deal.

Is it to be a full English

or a dog's dinner?

Now today was about

the steps we will take

next year when we leave the EU,

but before we fully relinquish our

legal ties with Brussels.

And there are signs of some cheeky

Continental interlopers sneaking

on to our plate.

Jacob Rees-Mogg is here

to sample the menu.

And this..

Vladimir Putin!

CHEERING

Look who's back in power.

If he completes this term he'll be

the longest serving leader

in Russia since Stalin.

We'll hear from one of those

who stood against him.

Good evening.

Tonight, the boss

at the centre of one

of the UK's most controversial

companies speaks exclusively

to Newsnight about allegations that

company has developed -

in the words of one whistleblower -

The Full Service Propaganda Machine.

Alexander Nix is the CEO

of Cambridge Analytica -

employed, by Donald Trump amongst

others - to help his

presidential election campaign.

The company uses the micro targeting

of individuals to work

out their behavioural patterns -

as consumers and voters.

After a report in the Observer

yesterday, they stand accused

of using data from Facebook users

without their consent - to change

minds of millions of Americans.

Facebook shares dropped 8%

today on the news.

Tonight, the company faced more

trouble in an undercover report,

Channel 4 filmed the company bosses

offering to entrap foreign

Politicians with dirty tricks.

Here's John Sweeney.

Tonight Cambridge data company

Cambridge Analytica stands accused

of taking part in one of the

greatest preachers of ordinary

people's data in history. Cambridge

Analytica's Boz Alexander Nix

tempted what he thought was a

wealthy client with a bag full of

dirty tricks. What we owed it only

did not know was that the client was

in fact an undercover reporter for

four News.

Cambridge analytic and Alexander Nix

deny any wrongdoing. The company,

which denies it a role in furthering

Brexit that did work for the Trump

campaign, is also facing an

investigation by the British

information Commissioner tonight as

the scandal grows. But the question

potentially affecting millions of

people around the world is whether

their personal data was mined, and

to what end. Imagine somebody knocks

on your door and enters and rummages

through all your staff and then

rummages through the bits and bobs

of 300 of your friends and family.

You would tell them to bugger off.

But that's exactly what Cambridge

Analytica is accused of doing to the

Facebook data of 50 million people.

At the heart of this story is a

Russian born digital genius Doctor

Aleksandr Kogan. Reports say he

scraped data from Facebook users who

took part in the coming personality

test he defied. Taking advantage of

Facebook's obscure privacy settings

and claiming he was doing research,

Dr Kogan reportedly was able to

access personal data not only of the

almost 300,000 users who took the

test but also of almost all of their

Facebook friends. That apparently

opened up access to some 50 million

user profiles. Dr Kogan has declined

to comment, except to maintain that

his programme was, quote, a very

standard vanilla Facebook app".

Facebook dumped its relationship

with Cambridge Analytica on Saturday

but today its share price tanked by

around $35 billion. Professor David

Carroll from the United States is

suing Cambridge Analytica in the

High Court in London.

It was a

reality check, you just get the data

and see it as accurate in terms of

my voter file some sort of accurate

in terms of my politics. But what

was really disturbing to me was that

it came from the United Kingdom. And

it came from the military

contractor. And I knew that, and

that was really distressing.

He has

been -- there has been and is about

the activities of Cambridge

Analytica for months, the firm has

consistently denied helping Brexit

along or doing dirty tricks 4-team

Trump. Tonight 's revelations raise

a simple question. How reliable is

the word of Alexander Nix?

John Sweeney reporting,

I spoke to Alexander Nix, the CEO

of Cambridge Analytica this

afternoon, in an interview arranged

to discuss the data breach

and before details of the latest

Channel 4 accusations were aired -

I began by asking him was it

right Dr Kogan offerred

Cambridge Analytica access

to Facebook apps that were given

special permission to harvest data.

It is certainly right that he gave

us access to a dataset. I think we

would disagree with the veracity of

the claims concerning how powerful

this data was. We rang many models

over a period of time, to understand

if we could use this data in a

meaningful way and ultimately it

proved fruitless so we moved down a

different avenue.

Because he says

the data came not just from using

the apps but from a far wider circle

of friends, or their contacts gave

you status updates, like some

messages. So from touching 200,000

people you expanded into their

entire social networks which scathe

you to most of America.

Look, I

think it's important to understand

what happened back in 2014 is, we

were approached by a very

respectable academic, who said that

he had the wherewithal, the

legitimate and legal wherewithal to

collect data on Facebook users that

we might be able to use an part of

our modelling. And we entered into a

contract with his individual to

undertake large-scale piece of

research for our company. And that

involved going out and seen close to

40,000 individuals to undertake

survey. A bit like an opinion

survey. And as part of that survey,

the individuals consented to give up

some of their data to this academic,

Dr Kogan, and also some data on some

of their friends. This work was

undertaken by Dr Kogan in its

entirety. He simply delivered to us

the model derivatives of the data he

collected. And we then looked at how

we could build models on top of

these models to understand whether

that would give us any insight or

signal into these audiences.

So when

Chris Wylie says that Dr Kogan was

using apps from people who had no

idea on Facebook, is he wrong, is he

lying?

I think, my understanding is

that Dr Kogan sought permission from

the people who filled out the survey

and then they were giving update on

their friends. Let me point out that

this is no different to what Barack

Obama's campaign did in 2012. His

campaign produced a Facebook app

that requested their supporters to

give up their Facebook data and also

allowed them to give up data on

their...

They knew they were doing

it.

Exactly and it's exactly the

same.

You are saying everyone you

asked knew they were giving up their

data.

Everyone, let me clear up, we

didn't ask everyone. Everyone that

Dr Kogan engaged with, my

understanding is that they knew they

were giving up their data, and they

would have signed some sort of

permission for that.

Why do you

think Channel 4 then has been

filming an undercover sting to prove

that you had involvement in er and

unethical way of using people's most

intimate and personal data?

Look I

can't speak to Channel 4's motives.

I think they're undercover sting was

intended to embarrass us...

Why?

Again, look, we see this as a

coordinated attack by the media

that's been going on for very very

many months, in order to damage the

company that had some involvement

with the election of Donald Trump.

Do you know what they filmed? Do you

remember what you said? Do you know

what they will use?

I have a fair

understanding, yes.

Is it as bad as

you think?

You asked earlier if I

had regrets, yes, I have a huge

amount of regrets about the fact

that we maybe undertook this meeting

and spoke with a certain amount of

hyperbole about some of the things

we do. What we were trying to do was

to elicit from the undercover

reporter the true intentions of the

meeting. These meetings started out

as very bone fide philanthropic all

Facebook request to save this is

delivered services to help in the

country of Sri Lanka, to help make

it a better country and help spread

the wealth through projects of

information technology and health

care. By the time I joined the

meetings, the undercover reporter

pivoted them such that he was asking

us about entrapping political

officials, the use of honey traps,

and all sorts of other behaviour.

Cambridge Analytica has data on how

most of America thinks. You are

completely confident that Cambridge

Analytica has not in any way

influenced the outcome of the Brexit

vote or of the Trump click to rate?

Of the Brexit vote. Of the Trump

victory we were involved in the

Trump campaign as I've made clear

for many months now. We managed

everything from research to date to

analytics, to all the digital

marketing, to also the TV marketing

that was undertaken. We had a role

that was core to some of the

functions delivered to the campaign.

And do you feel you have skewed

democracy by playing a part in that?

By providing campaign services to a

candidate who had been fairly

nominated as the Republican

representative of the United States?

How is that possible? So you think

that Hillary Clinton is alleged to

have a campaign team and Donald

Trump isn't?

Do you feel there is

anything ethically that you would do

differently as a company now?

I have

some regrets about the way that I

have represented what the company

does. I certainly feel that the air

of mystery and negativity that

surrounds the work of Cambridge is

Miss founded, and as the CEO I take

responsibility for that. I take

responsibility in light of the fact

that the staff have worked

incredibly hard to build this

business up. They are very driven

and finding you know, high-tech

solutions to very real problems that

face people in the world today, and

if I have, you know, failed to

convey what we do in the right way,

to viewers, and the public, then

that is a failing and yes I have

some regrets about that.

Thank you

very much.

We did ask Alexander Nix

if he wanted to talk to us again

after the Channel 4 report

but he declined.

Channel 4 and the Observer have told

us they stick by their reporting.

Finally, you might say,

a cheer or two - but not three.

The long awaited transition deal

between London and Brussels marks

what now feels like a real milestone

in the Brexit negotiations.

The agreement sorts citizens' rights

and the transition deal and

provides legal

continuity after Brexit takes

place on March 29th 2019, but it

came only after painful compromises

and a debate that pitted business

calls for certainty against Brexiter

demands for sovereignty.

Britain is now set to wait

until at least 2021 to take control

of laws, immigration and money.

In return, businesses

in the UK and EU are given

stronger assurances that

an abrupt cliff-edge

will be avoided next year.

EU negotiator Michel Barnier hailed

the deal as a "decisive step".

But the future of the Irish border

remains unresolved and some

Brexiteers have questioned

what wins the Government had

in the negotiations.

We've waited a long time, but now,

at last, we know the flavour

of the first stages of Brexit.

There's been a bit of give and take

on the road that is meant -

eventually - to deliver the full

English.

Or should we say, a full UK Brexit?

So, finally we have

something to chew over.

Now today was about the steps

we will take next year

when we leave the EU,

but before we fully relinquish our

legal ties with Brussels.

And there are signs of some cheeky

continental interlopers

sneaking onto our plate.

Britain has given ground in four

main areas in the hope that EU

leaders will sign up to a transition

period at their summit

later this week.

Not quite, perhaps,

the full English Brexit

supporters had hoped for.

Britain has agreed that...

The rights of EU citizens

will continue to be guaranteed

during the transition.

That transition will end on the last

day of 2020, slightly earlier

that the UK had hoped.

The UK will still be bound by EU

fishing rules until then,

though the UK will be consulted.

And Britain will stand by a back

stock agreement from last December

on Northern Ireland if no overall

deal is reached.

Downing Street points out

that there are wins: The UK will be

free to negotiate and sign trade

deals around the world

during the transition.

A special committee will make sure

that both sides act in good

faith during that period,

and Theresa May can say

that the UK will gain full

control of its borders,

money and courts at the end of 2020.

TRANSLATION:

We're able

this morning to agree,

and after all those days and nights

of hard work, on a large part

of what will make up

an international agreement

for the ordered withdrawal

of the United Kingdom.

And there is a lot of work still

to be done on important subjects,

including Ireland and Northern

Ireland.

Our teams have worked hard

and at pace to secure the terms

of a time limited implementation

period that gives

the certainty demanded

by businesses and citizens

across the European Union

and United Kingdom.

But the 13 strong contingent

of Scottish Tory MPs are unhappy

that the UK will not have control

of its waters during the transition.

I don't think anyone should be under

any illusion that we can try

try and sell this as,

"Better than expected",

"It could have been a lot worse",

you know, "Take your medicine

and go away"...

A useful phrase, whether you agree

with it or not, it would be easier

to get someone to drink a pint

of cold sick than try and sell this

as a good deal for a fisherman

and it's clear from the reaction

from fishermen in Murray,

fishing communities,

that they don't think this is a good

deal and they agree

with me on that point.

At the end of this year,

when the 2019 quotas

are in agreement, the UK

will still be at the table.

At the end of 2020, we will be

there as a third country,

so full control of our waters.

The question is, what happens

in middle year, just for 12 months,

where I understand we would not

actually be in the December council

but there is a process

by which we would be able

to feed into that.

I'm sure everyone will be looking

at what are the extra protections

we've got for that one year?

So, it's not quite the full English,

though a considerable amount

of work has gone into this.

It will be just under three years

before we can see what the full UK

Brexit really looks like.

Nick joins me now, with hot off

the press, a letter from the PM

That was the last meal he got today.

He joins me now, hot off the press

news. This letter from the Prime

Minister and that Ireland border

arrangement. What do you know now?

Theresa May wrote to Donald Tusk to

offer assurances the UK Government

will ensure there is no hard border

in Northern Ireland. Now, Donald

Tusk had a few weeks ago warned that

the UK was in danger of backsliding

from an agreement is reached with

the EU back in December. The Prime

Minister has said this evening that

the UK is committed to that

agreement in its entirety. So what

does that mean? It means the UK

will, as it said in December,

maintain full alignment with the

rules on the single market and the

customs union which support North

South cooperation. Now, it is

important to say that Downing Street

believes that this backstop

agreement will not be necessary

because there will be, they believe,

a comprehensive free trade agreement

between the UK and the EU and that

will be so closely aligned that you

won't need to worry about the Irish

border.

What about this row over

fisheries?

As an aside, Scottish

Conservative MPs are very angry the

UK will not have control over its

waters during the transition.

Tonight they met the conservative

Chief Whip and Environment Secretary

Michael go. I'm told it was an

emotional and highly charged meeting

and there were passionate views.

There was frustration they were not

told, frustration and anger. But

what they have agreed is that they

cannot change what was agreed in the

transitional fishing because it is

an green, which means it cannot be

changed but they are saying there

must be very, very strong language

and fisheries for when the UK

definitively leads the European

Union. Interestingly, different

views on the cabin on this. On one

side, those same people who love to

buy into the betrayal myth. Others

are saying those Scottish Tory MPs,

they have a point.

Thank you very

much.

Jacob Rees-Mogg is the Chair

of the European Research group

and a leading Brexiteer.

You and other Brexiteers worked very

hard to convince the fishermen they

would be better off out. They voted

for Brexit in their droves. Douglas

Ross tonight says that deal is a

bucket of cold sick. They must feel

absolutely shafted.

The Secretary of

State for relevant department said

the other day that the UK would

leave the Common fisheries policy in

2019. I don't know what has happened

in this very short period,

unsatisfactory.

You agree it has

gone badly wrong?

It is not for me

to admit, I don't like this report

at all. I make no bones about it, I

think this is a very bad agreement,

not just on fish. The only thing

that makes it acceptable is the hope

it is leading to a proper Brexit at

the end of 2020.

It is a well saying

that...

This agreement gives oil

most everything and it is hard to

see what the government has got in

return.

All that stuff now an green

that you can't take back you think

big misses?

Nothing is agreed until

everything is agreed.

It has been

signed off, hasn't it?

There is a

process, nothing is agreed until

everything is agreed. There is an

important part of this because there

is a stage in the negotiations and

if the government isn't satisfied

with things at a later stage, then

it can pull back on things it has

previously agreed. That has been set

out very clearly throughout the

negotiations. Now, when you look at

the bits in green, so far it looks

like concessions from the British

government without counter

concessions in return.

That is all

you see? The UK giving up ground and

getting nothing back?

Someone said

to me that government rolled over

but hadn't even had its tummy

tickled. The question then is what

is the end state? Many of us can

swallow a good deal that is

unsatisfactory in the transition, if

it leads to a proper Brexit in the

end.

OK, let me look at the Northern

Ireland border question Nick just

raised. Theresa May is prepared to

stand by what you already didn't

like in December, in other words, if

there is no deal, then the UK will

remain fully aligned and those,

particularly on those three things,

in the EU's understanding on

everything, fully aligned with EU

rules supporting North-South

co-operation. In other words, if

there is no deal we all remain

aligned in the EU.

What that is

saying is we would stay in the EU,

still in the customs union and

single market at least those parts

that related to the Belfast

agreement.

Does that make no deal

less attractive to you?

No, no deal

means no deal.

Not if she says it

goes back to what we signed in

December?

In an earlier paragraph it

said nothing is agreed until

everything is agreed. Then in a

later paragraph, that if nothing was

agreed that and they would agree

this. What you have to ask, which

hasn't been made clear, is which of

those two paragraphs takes

precedence, the earlier one that

says nothing is agreed until

everything is agreed or the later

one? I would take the

interpretation, and when it comes to

votes in parliament would vote

accordingly, that the primary

paragraph is superior.

It does look

like you are being boxed in. It

looks like the PM has found a way of

making no deal look much less

attractive to you then let's call a

medium soft Brexit.

It's not a

question of being boxed in from my

point of view, it's a question of

whether the government is going to

deliver on the referendum result

that we leave the European Union.

The government has been very

generous, offering 35- £40 billion

and want in return a trade deal.

That is very beneficial to the

European Union. They're in mind,

without our money, for the final 21

months in the financial framework,

the EU is insolvent. People say what

plans have we made for no deal? What

plans have the EU made for no deal

question about what has it set to

remaining Bulgaru or Poland about

the funding it won't get if the UK's

deal doesn't come through.

In terms

of where your loyalties lie, at one

point you thought of no deal would

be a better way to proceed because

the WTO regulations were taken back

to zero tariffs.

I have no qualms

about no deal.

You would still

embrace from?

The Prime Minister said it has...

Could you vote for no deal?

The

Prime Minister said no deal is

better than a bad deal, in her

Mansion House speech just a week or

so ago.

So the worst deal looks, the

happier you are to just walk away

and sites, we are better off?

I do

like this transition Dilbert as I

said earlier, it is acceptable in

the event that the ends deal is

good. But on its own, this

transition deal is deeply

unsatisfactory and the government

has given way onto much.

Thank you.

Earlier this month, Chris Cook

and Lucinda Day brought

you an excluisve on bullying

and harassment of parliamentary

clerks at the hands of MPs

in the House of Commons.

Tonight, the House of Commons has

agreed to an inquiry

into their findings.

Chris is here now.

What has been going on today?

This

afternoon there was a meeting, the

House of Commons commission, the

governing body of the House of

Commons corporately. It's mostly MPs

and a few other people. They agreed

there should be an inquiry. They

also agreed it should be run

independently, and the terms of

reference that that inquiry are

going to be set by the two members

of the House of Commons commission

who are not parliamentarians, so

people have confidence in it. The

thing is, there is a big question

about what the remit is going to be

on the really big question comes

from what they will do if they

uncover a large body of evidence

about one MP in particular. Let's

say they get five people who come

forward and they have had problems

with this MP. They look into that

case and can understand the system

and how it does or doesn't work at

the moment and then they have to

come to a conclusion about what

should have been done. Will they

tell us they have gathered all this

information about the MP or will it

be kept secret? Last week in

Parliament Andrea Leadsom said there

wouldn't be individual

investigations into individual MPs,

which made it sound like they would

come to broad conclusions but not

name names. Frankly, that won't be

good enough for staff who are

worried this will be used to sweep

it under the carpet.

That has been

no response so far?

We need to know

what is going to happen at this

inquiry concluded an MP is a bad

person and needs to be dealt with,

will it be made public will it be

secret?

Chris Cook, thanks.

How does the world respond

to an election that Vladimir Putin

called, and won by a landslide,

and that no one else

really believes in.

Certainly there was no

official opposition.

And certainly the 70 plus percentage

share of the vote suggests the work

of a leader who never really doubted

he would remain Presidnet.

The big question perhaps is how

the world reacts to a man who has

continued to seize power

in a country that silenced dissent.

Should they congratulate him?

Should they freeze him out?

A muted reaction so far.

Mark Urban assess the options

for the West now.

Back in the 1870s when Britain and

Russia asked friend or foe about

their future relationship they did

so from a position of relative

equality.

equality. But as Vladimir Putin

celebrates an election victory that

propels him into a fourth 6- year

term he is consolidating his already

dominant position. One of his

cheerleaders, the editor of RT said

Russians would not now allow a

change of leaders.

In some ways he

has trapped himself, boxed himself

in. Because he is now very much seen

as the founder of modern Russia. He

certainly has been in power for the

majority of time Russia has been an

independent country after the

collapse of the Soviet Union. And at

this point it is not even clear how

to have a successor to someone seen

in this very Tsarist way.

Sub other

common consensus he has grown and

how Manning on with sanctions would

be as one person put it like mud

wrestling a gorilla. Instead British

mandarins are resigned to the power

realities of the situation.

We've

got Putin for another six years and

we can't deny he is popular with his

people. One can doubt how fair the

election was but he has a real

following in Russia, he won't change

his spots, we know how he operates,

this I win, you lose approach to

international affairs will go on. We

will have to continue to deal with

an aggressive Russia.

And if that

isn't tough enough to swallow one of

Putin 's campaign staff thanked

Britain saying its response to the

Sergei Skripal poisoning had got the

turnout up just when we needed it.

Putin seems like he's very much on a

trajectory to confront the West,

this is the defining foreign policy

and I don't see it changing any time

soon. I see the relationship between

the West, Europe the United States

and Russia, staying relatively the

same progressively worse.

But there

are areas where it is hard for him

to hit back in kind or harder. There

are large amounts of Russian Private

cash in London which is why

tomorrow's National Security Council

meeting could spell at further

measures against those who cannot

explain this wealth.

My own strong

feeling is we have to show the

Russians as a result of this case

that they can't go on behaving like

this and expect to be treated as a

responsible country. One of the

opportunities we have to send that

message is the fact that the City of

London has an awful lot of Russian

money. Some of it no doubt entirely

legitimate, some of it no doubt

extremely doubtful, put there by

people around Putin. So let's use

that opportunity to send a very,

very strong message.

Phase two of

Britain's response to Russia made

then be more of a whimper than a

bank but on a day that international

investigators were heading for

Salisbury and the police said it was

likely the inquiry would go on for

months, none of this is going away

soon. That was Mark Bourbon.

Earlier I spoke to Ksenia Sobchak,

a Russian reality TV

personality-turned-politician

who stood as liberal protest

candidate in Sunday's

presidential election.

I put it to her that -

should Putin complete this

next term in office -

he'd be Russia's longest-serving

leader since Stalin.

If he completes this term he will be

the longest serving leader since

Stalin in Russia.

That's true, that's very sad.

I'm actually, I'm in a very bad

mood from yesterday.

Today we're trying, you know,

to be a team together

and to discuss our campaign but,

you know, the mood is really

not good, to be honest.

You ran against him.

I wonder if you regret doing that?

You gave him, Navalny said,

credibility by doing that.

No.

I mean, you can see how we discussed

things with Navalny yesterday

and actually I was very disappointed

by this talk with Alexei Navalny.

He invited me to debates

and I was there because I am not

afraid to meet with Navalny

or with Putin, but if Navalny

would be permitted, Putin

have the same kind of credibility,

even more, so...

You must respect, you must accept

that while Putin is in power

there is now no effective

opposition, is that true?

I will be trying to be

effective opposition.

We are forming a party

with Dmitry Gudkov, he's

an opposition figure

from the protests of 2011.

He did a huge job on the deputies

voting in Moscow, so we're forming

a new power that I hope

will represent young, innovative

Russians who want change here.

Let me ask your question very

to British audiences'

hearts this evening.

Our Prime Minister, as you know,

has pointed the finger

at President Putin over

the poisoning of a Russian man

who is a former spy in Britain.

Do you believe Putin

was behind that?

Look, this is actually

a very interesting point,

because, you know, I really,

I very much respect,

I have very much respect

for the Justice in London,

and I know that many people,

from all over the world,

they come to Great Britain

because they know how

independent your court system is.

And I think that after 24 hours,

to make such conclusions,

is really something that breaks this

independence of all the system,

where you have to go to to make

a huge investigation and then come

to the court and then

do all those things,

so the answer, my answer is -

I don't know.

Maybe Theresa May is right.

Maybe she's wrong, but in any way

in such an old democracy

like Great Britain, Theresa May

should not behave herself

like Mr Putin does.

I mean, you can't answer

to our autocratic person by doing

the same kind of things.

You can't say in one day that it's

only Russia who is in charge,

because even if it's like this,

there should be a huge,

profound investigation.

I'm really actually surprised

that this hasn't been done yet,

but already such accusations

appeared and already many people

maybe would lose their possibility

to go and study in Great Britain,

many Russians would lose

the possibility to get visas.

I mean, Russia is not

right in many cases,

but Great Britain should not behave

in the same kind of manner.

This would bring us

to end, to nothing.

I mean, someone should be wiser

and I hope that Great Britain can be

wise and can be really profound

on the investigation.

OK, Ksenia Sobchak,

thank you very much.

Joining me now Dr Javier Solana,

former Secretary general of Nato,

and formerly the EU's top

foreign policy chief.

Very nice to see you, you heard

there from the opposition candidate,

I wonder whether you agree that

Britain, has been, as an old

democracy, slightly too hasty to

point the finger directly at Russia?

It is very difficult to answer that,

not being a British citizen. But it

seems to me that it has two condemn

what has happened in this recent

period of time, it is not the first

time it happened on your territory

but it seems to me to use the

terminology of the use of force,

unlawful use of force has been the

terminology used by the United

Kingdom, is pretty close to... Use

of force... It's too heavy

formulation, I think.

Do you think

it is irresponsible to use that

phrase?

I wouldn't say irresponsible

but it's too close to other

terminology applied which I don't

think anyone wants.

So how do you

react to something that looks like

not a one-off but part of a whole

sequel.

I think you have to react to

who is making the definition of a

crime, a dramatic crime, terrible

crime...

A crime with no diplomatic

effect?

A crime with diplomatic

effects, which has to be dealt with

by appealing to the convention of

chemical weapons were investigating

can be done. Where Russia doesn't

have the power of veto, therefore

they have to go in and deal with the

situation. And at the same time, do

something that may be possible

against people that are very close

to President Putin...

So what would

that mean?

You can use your

capabilities as a government to look

at current accounts from many

people...

Frees rich Russians?

It is

very damaging for Putin and Putin 's

friends. I think there is reaction

-- this reaction that we have had of

taking diplomats out and bringing

diplomats in etc, it is something

that hasn't been... It isn't going

to affect your country or the

European Union.

We are one day after

a landslide election which no one

outside Russia or within Russia may

be recognises as an election. Putin

will soon have been in power as long

as Stalin and yet the West has

accepted him and invited him in as a

legitimate president. They too

frightened of him?

I don't think

anyone has congratulated him, that I

know of, by the European Union.

They

haven't frozen him out, he's still a

member of the G7 the G8. A meeting

of the G7 and the G8 is no longer

meeting, it doesn't exist any

longer, news a number of

international organisations, cannot

avoid that, it is an important

power. The fundamental question

behind that is, is the West too

scared? Look at nature which seems

to have failed time after time,

whether when it was a cyber attack

on Estonia or incursions into Crimea

or murders on British soil, as we

now think, doesn't there, point

where Nato is to stand up and be

counted?

I think Nato is counted,

and is counted today, counted

yesterday and will be counted

tomorrow. But counted doesn't mean

you have to act in a military

manner. I don't think we, anybody,

would like to have a confrontation

with Russia in a military front.

It's an absurd situation right now.

Therefore we have to do to be tough,

to take important decisions on

things which

things which are not preventing us

from having some kind of

relationship with Russia. And at the

same time be very careful not to

step up attention which may lead

when nobody wants to go. The

situation today in the world is very

complicated.

Let me ask you one

question before we speak about

Brexit, Jacob Rees-Mogg just said in

his eyes, with the Brexiteer so far

the UK has conceded everything and

the EU has conceded nothing, is that

how it seems to you?

No, on this

subject of course not. We have been

in great solidarity with the United

Kingdom. It has nothing to do with

Brexit, we will continue...

The

Brexiteer?

It's been a good

agreement. I honestly think what has

happened today is a good agreement

and has to be considered like that.

Time is ahead of us and we have to

see what may happen at a later

moment but for the moment it's the

first day that the step has been

taken and an agreement moving

forward.

Dr Javier Solana, thank you

for coming in.

That's it for tonight.

Quick message to whoever's

tweaking the road signs

on the A4130 in Oxford -

stop it at once.

We leave you with the originals,

AND how they look now.

Goodnight.