21/03/2018 Newsnight

It's been one year since terror hit

the streets of Westminster

and five people lost their lives.

The attack confounded

security services.

Who was the perpetrator?

Had he worked alone?

Tonight, an extended Newsnight

investigation brings

you significant new information

about who he radicalized,

and why he acted when he did.

-- on how he was radicalised.

What's going to be our next

move against Russia?

The Prime Minister will address

the our relationship with Russia

at the EU summit tomorrow,

and she won't be holding back.

EU leaders will be warned by the

Prime Minister that they are all

under threat from Russia, but will

they listen?

Also tonight, a status update

from Mark Zuckerberg

on Facebook's data breach.

We'll ask if the social media

giant is doing enough

to salvage its reputation.

Good evening.

One year ago a 52-year-old

British man,

Khalid Masood, brought terror

to the heart of Westminster.

More than 50 people

were injured, five were killed.

Tomorrow the lives of PC

Keith Palmer, Kurt Cochran,

Aysha Frade, Leslie Rhodes

and Andreea Cristea

will be remembered

at a memorial service.

The man behind the attack

was out to hit the seat

of British democracy,

driving a vehicle into

pedestrians along the Bridge

before attempting to

enter Parliament itself.

But he didn't fit

the typical profile.

We were told he acted alone.

That police were baffled

by his motivation.

Tonight, in an extended film

and investigation

Newsnight reports

on who he was

and how he was radicalised.

Richard Watson and producer

Maria Polhofska have worked

on this report which contains images

of the attack some may

find distressing.

London, 22nd of March last year.

Khalid Masood floors

the accelerator of his 4x4,

mounting the pavement on Westminster

Bridge.

Watch the highlighted circle,

the car was his murder weapon.

This wasn't a random attack.

This was an individual who'd been

an extremist for many, many years,

whose pattern of behaviour over

many, many years

was characteristic of many Islamist

extremists that we see.

Minutes earlier,

Masood had sent a document to his

Whatsapp messaging group,

justifying his terrorist attack.

It was called "Retaliation".

Three people were killed

outright on the bridge,

one died later in hospital.

Newsnight has learned it

could have been even worse.

Security sources have told Newsnight

that these barriers saved 25-30

lives of the day of the attack,

and that's because Khalid Masood's

car was forced off the pavement

and onto the road at the start

of the barriers,

he drove along here and then cut

back into the pavement

at the end of the barriers,

crashing the car over

there on the left.

My God!

Seconds later, he jumped out

of his car armed with two knives,

ran down here through a barrier

leading to the Palace of Westminster

and stabbed PC Palmer.

A plainclothes protection

officer shot Masood dead,

but PC Palmer was mortally wounded.

There was an awful

lot of blood loss.

We had a pulse at that point,

which I was pleased about,

because I thought absolutely we can

keep him alive.

Tobias Ellwood MP, seen

here kneeling next to PC Palmer,

used his army medical training,

chest compressions, mouth-to-mouth

resuscitation,

in a desperate effort

to keep him alive.

Eventually doctors said,

OK, I think we're just

going to have to call it,

and I remember looking

at him and saying,

"You're going to have

to tell me to stop, Sir,

because otherwise I'm

going to keep doing this."

And he just said, "Sir,

you've done your best,

we've all done our best here,

I call the time of death."

I do recall the silence.

The doctors and all the medics

and the entire team then moved away

with all their equipment

and I was left there with a couple

of the original policeman,

who by this time were very,

very upset because it

was their colleague.

It was very eerie to be able to hear

the leaves in the trees and sounds

you're not normally familiar

with at all but not a single

movement of traffic, not a horn,

not anybody speaking,

no shouts, nothing whatsoever.

To be in front of his body,

when everybody else then disbursed,

and then it was up to us to,

in a dignified way,

cover the body up

and then wait for the

forensics to turn up,

because of course this

was now a murder scene.

Look, here.

From here?

Yeah.

Masood had murdered five people

in an attack lasting 90 seconds.

The first of a series

of terrorist attacks

that killed 36 people last spring.

A year later, approaching

the anniversary of the attacks,

Newsnight has been investigating

Khalid Masood and his connections

to UK extremists,

searching for clues that might help

explain his murderous rampage.

We have significant new information.

There is a widely-held belief

that this was the work

of one crazed individual,

a so-called lone actor.

While it's true that Masood was not

part of a terrorist cell,

he's had contact with extremist

terrorists over the past 13 years.

We started by looking at his links

to drugs and violent crime.

A source in Eastbourne,

where he once lived,

told us he was using crack cocaine

in the '90s.

He was dealing drugs

and could be extremely violent.

He'd already been convicted

of stabbing a man in the face

in 2000 in East Sussex,

and later, in another attack,

when he got out of prison,

he stabbed his friend.

Full on punched me, stabbed me

straight in the face.

Put me straight on the floor.

I've turned round to try to get

up,

and he's trying

to stab me in the back.

Most Islamic extremists

that we've come across in the last

five or ten years

have had a history

of criminality,

most of them are criminals,

and many of them have got a history

of violence as well,

and violent criminality.

Masood, then Adrian Ajao,

is thought to have converted

to Islam while in prison.

Freed in 2003, he chose to live

in a succession of places which have

been extremism hotspots in the UK.

They were all strongholds

of the Islamist group

I've investigated for nearly 20

years, al-Muhajiroun.

This is a proscribed

organisation in this country,

a proscribed terror organisation

but it takes root in certain parts

of certain communities,

and Khalid Masood moved from one

area to another

where there was activity

by al-Muhajiroun.

It was in Crawley in 2004

that he came up on the security

services' radar for the first time.

The town was at the centre

of a plot using fertiliser,

stored here, to make home-made bombs

to blow up nightclubs

and bars in the south-east.

Masood's telephone number

was on the contacts list of someone

MI5 was investigating.

But he was on the periphery

and wasn't investigated.

Does a detail in the public records

provide a clue to his militant

Islamist mindset back then?

In 2004, Khalid Masood

married his second wife,

Farzana Malik, at this registry

office in Medway, in Kent.

I've got the certificate here,

and the date on it is very

interesting indeed.

The marriage took place

on the anniversary of the 9/11

attacks on New York,

the 11th of September, 2004.

We asked a former Jihadist

who infiltrated Al-Qaeda

and spied on the group for Britain's

secret intelligence service MI6

what he made of the choice of date.

Well, I mean, that is rather

shocking, and most likely speaks

volumes of how he viewed

that particular anniversary.

So most likely he thought

it was a joyous day.

He is not the only one,

unfortunately there are legions

of people who believe basically

it was a joyous day.

From 2005 to 2009, Masood spent time

in Saudi Arabia, teaching English.

First in Yanbu

and then at the government's

aviation school in Jeddah.

This man knows some of his fellow

students from those days.

Based on what the students

who attended his classes,

now they are professionals

in the aviation industry

in Saudi Arabia,

they describe someone

who was more on the path

of radicalism, in a sense.

He was serious, he wasn't someone

who would describe the Saudi society

as a true Islamic society.

He would say

that there are many

things about the Saudi

society that was wrong.

Especially the path they are taking

in terms of modernity.

When he was living in Jeddah,

British intelligence suspected

Masood was helping extremists join

Al-Qaeda in the Federally

Administered Tribal

Areas of Pakistan.

In London, MI5 later

assessed Masood had been

misidentified, they'd

got the wrong man.

Meanwhile, in Saudi,

his students saw a man

who was ultraconservative.

They were worried, basically,

that he was really more

conservative Muslim

than Saudi conservatives themselves!

There was no doubt that he was a

Salafist. But he went even beyond

that.

On his return to the UK, new

moved to Luton. He taught English at

the private language school, here at

the Britannia Centre. -- he moved to

Luton. At the time it was owned and

run by trustees of the is lamb

mosque.

Part-time teacher, would

come there, would disappear,

pleasant person to talk to.

Luton

Islamic State wallows fundamentalist

Salafist teachings and so did Khalid

Masood.

But the Imam has had street

confrontations with al-Muhajiroun in

the town, and has said that if the

lead Masuda had shown any signs of

supporting the group he would have

into means that he would have

intervened.

If he had the slightest

indication that he was adopting

radical beliefs, we would deal with

it on the spot, we would not give it

the opportunity to fester grow.

Did

Luton or the mosque or the

organisation have anything to do

with his radicalisation?

Absolutely

not, absolutely not, if you look at

where we come from, and you study

Luton Islamic State, we are the

forefront of refuting extremism.

But

security sources have told Newsnight

that the lead Masuda was associating

with extremists in Luton, once

again, picked up on MI5's radar

because he was in contact with these

men, convicted of plotting a terror

attack on a Territorial Army base in

the town. Khalid Masood lived a few

streets away from the plotters, at

this point, MI5 still classified him

as a subject of interest, but his

file was closed in October, 2012,

occurs there was no evidence that he

posed a direct threat the UK.

He was

coming in and out, if you like, the

surveillance that was going on at

the time, it would not mean that he

was caught, and that he was plotting

as such, but he may well have had

awareness of those who were

plotting. -- it would not mean that

he was core. He would be cognisant

of what was being planned and talked

about. He was well-known, but prior

to Westminster, he had never been a

central figure in the conspiracy to

carry out a terrorist attack.

SHOUTING

Between 2012 and 2016, Masood was in

contact with al-Muhajiroun

supporters who were being actively

investigated by MI5. He expressed

support for 9/11. MI5 has said that

neither of those facts warranted

reopening the investigation into

him. In 2016, he was living in

Birmingham, with his third wife.

Masood is believed to have been

running a private tutoring business

here. He joined an established

Salafist community but was already

planning his next move, this time,

overseas, to Saudi Arabia. In May,

2016, we understand that he was

stopped from travelling to Jeddah,

to start a new job, could this have

been the trigger for the attack? Is

this why he called his farewell

document Retaliation? New research

suggests denial of travel can be a

key risk factor for terror attacks.

He was in touch with a

transportation company, in Jeddah,

in Saudi Arabia, which specialises

in transporting pilgrims who are

visiting Mecca, Medina, the holy

cities. Why did the Saudi

authorities refused his work Visa?

We understand... The understanding,

based on the confidential source

from Saudi Arabia, the understanding

is that his name was on a list

provided, without saying who

provided the list, but it was

provided to them.

By British

intelligence, I would imagine?

Most

likely, most likely it was provided

by the authorities here.

A key

question, then, for the police and

MI5, was Saudi Arabia his end

destination or did Masood have an

ambition to go to a jihadist Theatre

of war? Counterterrorism sources say

they found no evidence that he was

trying to fight in Syria but he had

been linked to people trying to get

to the Afghan border, in the past.

If he was going to be more less in

the service of pilgrims, coming into

Mecca and Medina, that is not

extremists me to if he was using

that as a pretext to go into Syria,

then yes, that was extreme. -- that

is not extremist; if he was using

that as a pretext, that was extreme.

His Visa was refused, could that be

significant?

I think it could be

significant, like many of his kind,

like many Islamist extremists, at

some stage, they often have an

aspiration to travel to one of the

theatres of, where jihadis is going

on, whether that be in Afghanistan,

in the early 2000s, or laterally,

Islamic State, Syria and Iraq, it

looks on the face of it that that

could have been the trigger. If

something is put in the way the

aspiration go overseas. -- latterly.

Then they decide to carry out an

attack here.

Research carried out by

Canada's Secret Service, after two

attacks there, lends to this theory.

100,000 intelligence reports were

analysed, looking for factors that

turn ideological extremists into

attackers, it is called mobilisation

to violence.

I'm proud to say our work has been

ground-breaking. The analysts have

been inspired by the fact we had two

attacks in Canada. We never had

attacks like that before and they

want to make sure that we were being

as effective as possible, it was

their contribution to it.

In October

2014, a man deliberately mowed down

soldiers in Quebec. One was killed.

He'd had his passport seized three

months before the attack. He was

denied travel.

There can be a

variety of factors that lead them to

switch parts but it is a fluid

process we see a switching back and

forth. It's not a surprise we would

see them go from a denial of travel,

where travel was the objective, to

subsequently plotting an attack.

This is so-called Islamic State's

cheap propagandist. He released a

video in 2014 telling his supporters

explicitly that if you can't get to

the caliphate, then attack at home

with knives and cars. That is what

Masood did. From his family home in

this well-kept suburban estate in

Birmingham he started downloading

extremist material in 2016,

searching so-called Islamic State

and planning to travel. It is now

believed he started to plan the

Westminster bridge attack from here.

In the months before the attack, he

told his family he was planning to

move abroad for a second time.

Newsnight understands that the

police investigation after the

attack found he was on the verge of

travelling overseas with another

man. We don't know to wear. I also

understand the police investigation

suspected Masood was radicalising a

third man, by giving him religious

instruction. It seems he was making

final preparations for the attack

and in December 2016, moved into

this small bedsit in Hackney Road,

Central Birmingham. We spoke to a

former flatmate.

He was a different person, I can see

that, because of his clothing, his

beard, his style was different. He

was wearing, always, a cloth that is

just one piece from his shoulders to

his feet. I wasn't scared of him.

You weren't scared?

No, because as I

say, he was very calm. He was

minding his own business, and my

expression was... Sorry, my

impression of him was he was more

like a spiritual guide.

On the 22nd of March, he thought

Callard missed dude was in his room

when the police raided hours after

the attack.

I saw a couple of police

cars. I went to the stairs and I saw

fully armoured police offers.

How

many, roughly?

Just on the stairs

there were four or five of them.

With guns?

Fully equipped, with all

the body armour, with machine guns,

with the green lasers pointing at

me. It was like I was in a movie.

It

must've been massive shock?

Yes,

yes, I was in shock when I found out

the guy living next to me murdered

innocent people.

The police and MI5 were racing to

find out if Masood was part of a

wider cell or if he'd entered alone.

12 people were arrested. They were

all later released without charge.

Ultimately, the police and MI5

concluded that Masood acted alone,

but this was not a random attack by

any means. Newsnight has charted his

long-standing connections to

extremism. What triggered him to

strike at Westminster bridge

question why did he blamed the

British state for disrupting his

travel plans? It is hard to get

inside the head of such a violent

and volatile man, and

counterterrorism experts argue his

precise motivations died with him.

Richard Watts and reporting there.

"We have a responsibility

to protect your data",

Mark Zuckerberg shared in an update

this evening.

"And if we can't, then we don't

deserve to serve you.

I've been working to understand

exactly what happened

and how to make sure this

doesn't happen again.

The good news is that the most

important actions to prevent this

from happening again today we have

already taken years ago.

But we also made mistakes,

there's more to do, and we need

to step up and do it".

His Chief Operating Officer

at Facebook added her own statement.

"I deeply regret

we didn't do enough".

Said Sheryl Sandberg.

So tonight, we ask

how much is enough -

and what Facebook knew

about what it had got wrong.

Dipayan Ghosh worked

for Facebook in the Privacy

and Public Policy Team.

He's now a fellow at

the Harvard Kennedy

School of Government.

Eileen Burbidge is a partner

at Passion Capital, early stage

tech, who previously worked

at Apple.

Lovely to have you both. Your scale

of, your assessment of the scale of

the problems now at Facebook and

weather tonight's apology mitigates

at all?

It is a tremendous scale,

this issue. This is a matter that is

beyond just user privacy. Obviously,

50 million people's data, over that,

was breached, in a sense, and this

is a massive user privacy issue. It

is also a major issue for the

National security, and for the

integrity of democratic institutions

around the world.

So tremendous

scale. When you worked at Facebook

in the private policy, how important

did it feel that was to them?

It's

hugely important for the company.

Privacy is the bread-and-butter for

the company, and if it gets privacy

wrong, its stock price drops. There

is a direct correlation there, as we

had seen. It is the company's

responsibility to protect user

privacy. In this case, there were

certain breaches and I think the

company needs to assess what has

happened and try to take positive

action going forward.

Do you

understand how they let it happen?

If it's as important as you say, how

did they allow an academic to

download those apps without any

checks and balances to see how

widely they were being shared?

Well,

I think this is a very difficult

situation, because academics are

always clamouring to get access to

the data that tech companies hold.

Facebook's data is, of course,

extremely valuable for academic

study and to the extent the company

can be transparent about it. It is a

net positive for society. In this

case, the academic clearly breached

his policy with the company and that

is a tremendously egregious action.

That is what has been reported, at

least.

So who do you think made the

biggest breach of trust in all of

this? Who has let down who the most?

Well, I think that what we have do

remember here is that Facebook

operates no differently from any

other major Internat company,

Google, Twitter, Snapchat. The

entire industry operates on the

premise that we collect a lot of

data, were going to try and monetise

that in the digital advertising

ecosystem. So I don't see the

practices of this particular company

is any different to any other. I

think what we really need to try and

understand is the checks and

balances that companies like

Facebook Place an academics and

other third parties they share data

with, as well as the way that these

companies enforce the agreement they

said with third parties who receive

data. Which, of course in this case,

we have seen harm the public.

You

don't think in future they will

collect less data, do you?

Well, I

think that remains to be seen. I

think a lot of this is going to

depend on the way that Washington,

DC and the rest of the regulatory

community around the world starts

thinking about this burgeoning

industry. There may be checks placed

on the way that these kinds of

companies, like Facebook, can

collect data, which may or may not

have positive effects for consumers

at the end of the day.

Just stay

there for a second if you can.

Alexander Nix told me on Monday, he

was the boss of Cambridge Analytica,

of course, that he felt the media

had been out to get it. One of the

questions we just do not know is how

helpful Facebook word to the Donald

Trump campaign and whether there

would have been the same interest if

Hillary Clinton had won.

I think

that is really difficult to say but

I suspect other parties would be

complaining if it had been the other

way, but I do think there are a

number of issues that are being

conflated, which makes this a

situation which is not going away. I

think there is one issue about

Facebook and about third parties

that use its data and then violate

its terms of services. There is

another issue about Facebook's lack

of disclosure and lack of

transparency about when those

violations happened and how it

behaves in response to that. Then

there is another issue yet about

what is being done with that data.

So I don't think there would be

quite so much backlash, for example,

if it turned out to be a clothing

retailer who had used data servicing

adverts for clothing.

This is the

question, if we know our data is

being used and shared, do we mind?

Is it about the transparency more

than anything is?

For me, I think

it's all about the transparency,

disclosure. Even things that have

come out that maybe Facebook tried

to suppress the news about this,

tried to deny... I think they played

this badly and their acted very

poorly. They probably felt they had

a defensive position because they

had changed their terms of services

in 2014, since all this happened

that Mayport, we have got of this,

we know how to manage this. I think

that response is what was poor.

I

want to bring up the front of

tomorrow's Times which has a story

saying advertisers are threatening

to pull out of Facebook. Even talk

of putting it on and on ethical

investment list, which clearly would

be a major blow to a company that

thought it was all about sharing the

good. Do you think they will or is

this just a threat?

I think it's

being considered and is a viable

threat. My prediction is it wouldn't

come to that. I think Facebook will

continue to insist it is a platform,

as was said earlier, it does need to

monitor and make sure that it is

adhering to its terms of service,

terms and conditions. I think

advertisers and even investors just

want to see Facebook leadership

leading from the front and being

more transparent and more genuine

and sincere about that.

Facebook is

a domain, the Giants, but this is an

industrywide problem, as far as we

can say?

Yes, and that is what he

was saying earlier, this is not just

Facebook. Every technology company

uses big data and that is one of the

promises of technology, that you can

have bespoke custom tailored

solutions.

I know you are not and

might as any kind of Facebook

spokesman. You left the company and

I'm wondering why, was a sense of

discomfort with what they did?

Well, my career is varied, before

Facebook I was in the bomber White

House, working on privacy and

Internet policy issues. -- Obama

White House. Long story short, I

wanted to have an impact in public

policy-making, and so I'm doing what

I'm doing out to try to think about

how this industry can reshape

itself, and mould into a space that

can limit the negative externalities

that we are seeing from political

misinformation to foreign

interference in elections, to hate

speech.

Yeah. Limit the negative is

a very delicate phrase...! Is that

where we are, can it come back now?

No, no, I think it is going to come

back, all of this is unprecedented,

all of this is unintentional, there

is consequence that come about of

having great market force and impact

but Mark Zuckerberg, with all of his

naivete, and reaction over the last

few days, he is well intended, he

wants to see the platform used for

good, wants to remain somewhat

neutral, and wants to have a

framework which can support the

monitoring and the policing of that.

But in an altruistic, a beneficial

way, I think that is the intention.

I don't think he started the company

thinking, this can be used as a

weapon or a tool, for nefarious

purposes.

Thank you very much, both

of you.

The war of words between Russia

and the UK is at boiling point

this evening,

as the Foreign

Secretary compared the likened

Russia's use of the forthcoming

World Cup to Hitler's use

of the 1936 Olympics.

Tomorrow's European summit was meant

to be dominated by Brexit

but the Prime Minister

has other ideas.

Our political editor

Nick Watt

is here.

Has the Foreign Secretary helped or

hindered? As the biographer of

Winston Churchill, Boris Johnson

will understand the acute

sensitivities of drawing parallels

between Nazi Germany and Russia, to

be fair, needed not draw and sacked

parallel, but in answer to a

question from the former Labour

minister, Ian Austin, the Foreign

Secretary said that it was certainly

right. -- he did not draw an exact

parallel. He said it is right to say

that they will promote Russian

interests at the World Cup,

anti-competitive way that Adolf

Hitler did that in the 1936 Perlin

Olympics. -- and he compares that in

the way. -- the Berlin Olympic. The

danger is that this was tenth in the

hand of EU countries who believe

that Britain has overreacted to the

attack in Salisbury, and there will

be in intervention at the summit

tomorrow, and she is essentially

going to reflect the UK view that

Russia is now a strategic enemy, and

not a strategic partner of the

European Union. She is going to say

that the Salisbury attack was an

attended murder, using an illegal

chemical weapon, indiscriminate and

it was reckless. And she will say

that this was a challenge from

Russia that is going to India for

years, and as one number ten

official has said, the Russian

threat now does not respect borders

and as such we are all at risk. --

endure for years.

Is she actually

making a call to arms, is there an

action she wants to see?

Prime

Minister will tell EU leaders that

by expelling 23 undeclared Russian

intelligence officers, the UK has

dismantled the Russian espionage

network, in the UK, and she will

essentially say it could be you

next, she will say, to the 27

leaders, this was the first use of

chemical weapons on European soil

since the Second World War. And

there is a feeling in Whitehall that

the Prime Minister will use this to

move up to the next step, move up to

a multilateral level, and

essentially indicates to EU leaders,

maybe you want to follow our

example, in basically expelling

spies from your country. Important

to say, in Whitehall, they are

saying, this is not a big

confrontation with Russia, we are

not looking at regime change.

Thank

you very much.

Being an ex-Prime Minister,

Finland's Alexander Stubb told me,

is the best job in the world.

He gives few interviews at home,

because every intervention he says,

seems like criticism

of the current administration.

He calls himself an Anglophile,

indeed his wife is British,

and always forged a strong

alliance

between Finland and

Britain within the EU.

Ahead of the European Summit

tomorrow,

I sat down with him this

afternoon to talk about Brexit,

loyalty, and whether it was right

for the EU commission president

to congratulate President Putin.

I began by asking whether he agreed

with Jacob Rees-Mogg who told me

on Monday that as far

as the Withdrawal treaty went,

the government had rolled over,

without even getting

its tummy tickled.

I disagree.

I actually think the negotiations

are going quite well for both sides.

Usually in the EU, you have

three faces: crisis,

chaos and sub-optimal solution.

We've had the crisis,

when Brexit basically happened,

the vote took place,

but I think that negotiations have

been very smooth and I think

there are two reasons for it -

one is called Michel Barnier

and the other is called David Davis.

So I'm quite optimistic.

You don't see a problem

with the Irish border?

Well, I see a problem with Brexit

and Irish border is a symptom of it,

but if you look at the whole

package,

they have a financial settlement,

which was the 7th of

December,

so everyone knows what the bill

is going to be like.

They have a transition deal,

everyone knows for how long the UK

will be in after it's out.

I'm going to bring you

back to the border...

On the Irish border,

that is basically the symbol

of the problem,

because if you're not

part of a customs union,

if you're not part of the single

market,

someone has to try

and square the circle,

and the way in which they've done it

in the negotiations so far

is to say there are three options:

One, put as part of a big deal.

Two, do some technological stuff

and three, have a backstop,

and they still have to negotiate

and work on that.

Can it be solved?

Oof, I don't know.

I've been in EU negotiations

for the better part of 20 years.

Everything

is solvable.

You always find a solution

at the end of the day.

Whether it's going to be

a solution that the EU

likes or the UK likes,

I don't know,

but I think it's very,

very important to protect

the integrity of the single market

and make sure that

there's no hard border.

Is there any solution

that is obvious to you?

Well, the obvious solution

is to start thinking

along these lines of,

you know, customs union or some

form of a customs union.

The obvious thinking is to start

using modern technology,

and that will be the final deal.

They've said that can

take a decade, right?

It can take a long time

but I don't know how long.

To a certain extent,

you could also say

that the negotiations

on Ireland are the pretext

also for the future

relationship of the UK.

I personally think,

as an Anglophile,

married to a Brit and children

with dual-nationality,

that it's very important that the UK

has a special place in or out

from the European Union

in the future.

Would you see financial services

being included in a trade deal?

Philip Hammond has spoken

of the dangers of fragmenting

the market in the City of London.

He said it doesn't go to Europe,

if you try and punish Britain,

it just goes to Hong

Kong or Singapore.

So isn't it important that financial

services is part of that?

I think Philip Hammond

has been one of the voices of reason

in this whole debate.

I look at financial services

as obviously part of one

of the four freedoms,

if you will.

The free movement of money,

to a certain extent,

and I agree that financial services

in Europe should not be fragmented,

but having said that,

and as a banker nowadays,

I also fully understand

that if you don't have passporting

rights,

there is going to be movement

of financial services elsewhere.

Financial services are not

going to escape London,

but they will be more centralised

on the continent proper.

You've called yourself

an Anglophile personally.

Yeah.

There's probably been no closer

friend to Britain, within the EU,

than Finland to the UK.

Do you feel now that those

royalties are torn?

Is it more important to you to see

the UK flourish

or to see the EU

flourish without us?

Well...

Obviously, first and foremost,

I'm a Finn,

secondly I'm an European,

and thirdly I'm married to a Brit

and an Anglophile.

So the wife comes third!

No, wife comes number

one because she's also

a Finnish national nowadays!

No, but the bottom line

is that obviously for me

Brexit is sad and I still,

and I say this with a sunken heart,

that it's a lose-lose proposition,

but at the same time I'm a pragmatic

Finn,

so we had to make the best of it.

So I belong to the camp

who is trying to help the UK

to alleviate the pain,

at the same time, get a good deal

for the European Union.

And then whatever happens

in domestic politics in the UK,

that's something that is completely

out of our or my reach.

I want to turn to the words

of Jean-Claude Juncker today.

He congratulated Putin on his win.

Broke with the protocol

of a lot of Western leaders.

Was it a mistake?

It's not my job as former

Prime Minister,

Vice President of the

European Investment Bank,

to give advice to

Jean-Claude Juncker.

Every institution and,

actually, every state,

takes that decision,

and I do understand

the sensitivities on a lot

of players in this game.

Would you have said that

if you had been in his role?

Well, it's a hypothetical

question, isn't it...

Come on.

..Because I'm not.

I try to be diplomatic and discreet.

He congratulated President Putin.

He said, "Congratulations on your

re-election, President Putin".

I think there are a lot of European

leaders and others as well

who have congratulated,

and it is part of protocol.

There is no denying that.

Obviously, was it my choice?

And remember, Finland has 1300

kilometres of border with Russia.

I would like to see a more open,

more international,

more transparent Russia

than what we have today.

When you add those together,

we have seen incursions;

we've seen cyber incursions,

we've seen electoral meddling.

Do you worry about the country

on your doorstep?

Of course I worry, and I think

that nowadays, actually,

the line between war

and peace is blurred.

We see cyber attacks,

we see usage of chemical

weapons or nerve gases,

we see media manipulation...

You're talking about Salisbury?

Yes.

We're seeing different types

of things happen all over the place,

and I think we have to sort of put

a foot down

and start discussing these things

and try to make them

unavoidable in the future.

Alexander Stubb, thank you.

Thanks.

The front pages of the newspapers

before we go, the Daily Telegraph

there are, blue "Brexit" passports

to be made in Europe, Tory fury as

the contract goes to a Franco Dutch

company, poised to win the contract

to make the iconic blue British

passport, after Brexit. --

Franco-Dutch. In the Guardian,

police take days to respond to 999

incidents as budget cuts bite. The

school should be dealt with within

one hour, but significant stress

from smashed budgets and increased

demand. And pay rise hope for

millions after the £4 billion NHS

deal was agreed, public sector

workers and the government today.

That's about it, but before we go,

today, fittingly on World Poetry

Day,

the auction house Bonhams had

a sale of the personal effects

of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

Seeing the objects on offer,

it's hard not to summon up mental

images of their marriage,

in all its painful, poetic tragedy.

Here's a selection.

Goodnight.

# And maybe she'd take me to France

# Or maybe to Spain

and she'd ask me to dance

# In a mansion on the top of a hill

# She'd ash on the carpets

# And slip me a pill

# Then she'd get me

pretty loaded on gin

# And maybe she'd give me a bath

# How I wish I had a Sylvia Plath #.