29/10/2015 Scotland 2015

The long-awaited inquiry into the UK's involvement

in the Iraq War won't be published until next summer.

There's anger from families of British soldiers killed in Iraq

that publication of the independent inquiry led

by Sir John Chilcot is still at least another eight months away.

And the US producer of the hit TV series, Outlander,

currently filming in Scotland, throws his weight behind calls

Seven years after it was first begun, now running to two million

words, the final report of the Chilcot Inquiry will at last

In a letter to the Prime Minister, the report's author,

Sir John Chilcot, today laid out his timetable for publication.

His inquiry into the UK's role in the Iraq War was established

by Gordon Brown back in 2009 when he was Prime Minister.

The last witness gave evidence five years ago

and questions have been mounting ever since about why it's taking

I am immensely frustrated by the slowness and amount of time it has

taken. I am not frustrated on my own behalf, I am frustrated for the

mothers and fathers who have lost loved ones and want to know what

happened and why it happened and want to make sure that lessons are

learned. It is totally unacceptable, disgraceful, another seven months,

that will mean seven years from the onset of the inquiry and told

publication and a further seven years of agony for the families of

the servicemen who died in that conflict, complete unacceptable. I

am very disappointed because I thought it would be published by the

end of this year. I did not think it would take another year. Will it be

published or is that just another date for him to release when it will

be published again? I feel for myself and my family. It is going on

and on. The longer it goes on the harder it gets for others. I am

getting angry. It gets harder for us the longer it goes on. I am hoping

at the end of the day something comes out. We're grieving families

at the moment. Joining me now from London studio is

James Cusick from The Independent. This inquiry was meant to look at

Iraq and the lead up to that war. It was meant to look at the

administration in Iraq itself and the lessons learned. Ever since I

think he finished questioning, John Tucknott and his team have been on

two fronts. We have been at war with Whitehall who have been reluctant to

release all that he wanted. He has been at war with Washington who

wanted to keep their part of any correspondence with any part of the

UK Government in the run-up to Iraq quiet and in the end he has let

himself at war with the lawyers. Anyone who was criticised in the

report, he has come to blows with. The Maxwellisation process, as it is

called, he has to legally right to everyone and tell them what the

position is. Listen to their replies back and then change the text

accordingly. If you or I were given those terms of reference, I think a

few years, three, four years, five years, you can see why this has

dragged on. We are told we will be able to read it in July or June next

year, is there any significance to that time? I think there has been

some choreography by Whitehall. Over the last few years I have heard

plenty of voices coming out of the inquiry themselves as to how

political they recognise this inquiry was going to be and that is

political sensitivity on both sides, those that won't be deported

to come out and those that know they are writing something that is highly

political. Sir John Cockell said today it would be June July plus six

or seven weeks for the security stuff. That means that he has safely

avoided both parliamentary elections in Scotland and the local elections.

-- Sir John Chilcot. He has tidied that be. July is the middle of the

convention season in the United States, both Republicans and

Democrats have conventions in July. We should not kept ourselves that

this is a report of only interested ourselves and the political media in

the UK. Americans are just as anxious and this could be

particularly damaging to the Republican Party. Choreography and

interpretation on both sides of the Atlantic. What is the impact with

our relationship with America over all of this? There has been a lot of

touring and froing between Whitehall and the White House itself. As far

as the Americans are concerned, any dialogue there was between Tony

Blair and George Bush, the Americans have said that the wound is just as

much as Downing Street, and that has meant huge difficulties. What I

understand is that the conclusion to this, there will probably be some

heavy reductions from the United States' end of things. That means

that they could end up with these 2 million words and a large amount of

answers from the UK site, not knowing fully what the question were

to the States. This will be an enormous amount of decoding, a vast

amount of trying to understand exactly what is at stake here. To be

honest, most of the UK media have made up their minds what is

contained within this report. We have been told the date for the

script, that in the back of many minds, the script has already been

written. There we must be that, thank you for joining us this

evening, James Cusick. Perth plays host to Labour delegates

this weekend for their first Scottish Conference since the

near wipeout of their Scottish MPs And there's plenty more to discuss

because they also have a new national leader and internal

divisions over Trident. Their new Scottish Leader has made

it clear that she wants more autonomy for Scottish Labour

though it's expected that would stop well short of any unilateral

declaration of independence. Our political editor

Brian Taylor is there. It is not exactly UDI but Kezia

Dugdale, the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, wants to be to just

that, he Scottish Labour Party with an emphasis on autonomy and Connie

on candidate selection and particularly over policy. It is

policy in particular that draws controversy around the issue. Kezia

Dugdale spoke earlier this week to the parliamentary Labour Party at

Westminster and I understand she faced some sceptical questions as to

how that will work in practice. A Labour peer, a former Scottish

Cabinet Minister has said that he expects this policy could develop

into something approaching a mess unless it is handled carefully. I

spoke earlier to Kezia Dugdale and she was adamant that this had to go

ahead because there had been a big problem for the Scottish Labour

Party regarding this indeed elections at the UK Parliament in

the month of May. We had a devastating result in the May

election. One MP, I do not underestimate the size of a

challenge. The message I heard from the electorate was that too many

people in Scotland got the Scottish Labour Party was run in London, at

Westminster. Not in Scotland. For me the centre of Scottish political

life is at the Scottish Parliament. Decisions about the future of the

Labour Party will be made here by me and the people around me. We need an

economist Scottish Labour Party fit for the future to meet people's

aspirations. How would that policy of Aughton may work in practice? It

is not just regarding devolved issues like health and education, it

would also look at the macro economy and defence. What if, for example,

the Scottish party has won policy on defence, for example, Trident, and

the UK party has a different one? Kezia Dugdale accepts a common

manifesto must be agreed for contesting a UK General Election.

She has said that will come through negotiations and discussions with

the various wings of the party. They are looking at this in detail as to

how this would work with Tom Watson, the depth of leader of the

party. He will play a big role in that. Brian Taylor there.

Creative Scotland has announced a new fund to attract film and TV

They hope to lure more international productions like

the TV series Outlander, currently filming its second series here.

Earlier I caught up with executive producer and writer of the series,

I try and remember. My husband. Based on the successful Outlander

books, the novel 's formal the married nurse, clear, and she

travels back in time. She meets a Highland warrior, Jane Fraser, and

becomes involved in the Jacobite uprisings. The TV series was filmed

throughout Scotland for the first series and continues the summer in

the country for season two. Ron Moore, you made your name with

the likes of Star Ron Moore, you made your name with

Star Galactica, what was the appeal of Outlander?

Star Galactica, what was the appeal Europe day to day reality. There is

an interesting challenge to producing a show like that. Creating

the world that we do not get to live in. It is an escape this type of

thing. That was very appealing to me. Also, when I read the first book

I was taken by the central character. I really like the

historical side. I did not know very much about the Jacobite rebellion

and the history of Scotland. And Britain in this period of time. I

like Britain in this period of time. I

factory. It was a bit of a wreck. We had to bring in the power, there

were holes in the ceiling. There was no heat and most of the interior

walls were missing, there was rubble everywhere. That took a significant

effort of time, money and resources to create. And to get off of the

facilities that go along with shooting a TV show. If it had been a

full on production facility available to us, that would have

been immediately attractive to us because it is cheaper and faster and

easier to go and and set up shop. And yet, it did not put you off. No,

it did not. If this was not a show that was about Scotland so

intrinsically, it might have just been something that we kept looking

around. If it was a medieval piece or something set in Britain, any

comparable period of time, we might have kept looking at the likes of

Highland, the South of England and Wales, but because our show was so

specifically about Scotland, we wanted to shoot it in Scotland. Your

mixes and, I believe, is set in Paris and you will film in Prague

for some of the exterior. But you're still doing the studio work here, is

that correct? That is right. The story is about half in Paris and the

second half of the season returns to Scotland, so for the Paris section

what we did was built as many of the interiors as we could at our

soundstages in Cumbernauld, so there are Paris apartments in salons and

that kind of thing that we built. We looked around the surrounding area

to see what other houses or historical buildings might have

interiors that we could use at a stretch. But for all the exteriors,

carriages along the streets in Paris, there is nothing like that

here and even Paris does not look like that any more, so we went to

Prague, we shot there for almost two weeks. It just looks like Paris and

it is easier to set it up and make people believe. So it is called

Cross boarding, we took all of this seems, for exterior streets in

Paris, and shot them all together in those two weeks in Prague. What has

it been like filming here? Is there anything you would change, as their

team challenges? The most challenging thing is the weather!

For a show like others, we are at a location for quite a bit. The crew

is out in the elements of the time. The cast have to endure the brain,

they called, the wind, a lot of late nights walking in the mud. A camera

crew is hauling up equipment update sometimes snowy or muddy banks. It

is difficult and very challenging. Outside of that, it is really easy

to shoot. The people are lovely, a supporter film community, there is a

deep depth and pool of talent here. A lot of people that had less

Scotland, they could not find work up here and went down to London,

they were happy to work closer to home and come back. It was easy to

find a lot of local craftspeople that could make everything from

baskets to furniture to, you know, model equipment. There was a big

infrastructure they could draw on for this show. That is really great

to film and it has been a great experience. We just wish it was

warmer. It has not been broadcast heard yet, are there any plans for

it to be shown here? It is available on Amazon. It became the distributor

for the entire United Kingdom. If you have Amazon Prime, that is where

the shore is available. I believe it will be on DVD soon or relatively

soon. Does it matter to you how it is broadcast? Not really. The

distinction between how a show is distributed as breaking down all the

time. We are moving quickly into a world where I do not think the

audience to how they get it on their phone or on their computer, a

big-screen TV, as long as they can get it in their house and see it in

some way, that is the bottom line. I think some areas have had greater

access to broadband and Internet, other areas geographically here,

perhaps they are more dependent on satellite or traditional cable, but

all of that is kind of changing, I think. More and more, in the future

people do not care about how we get it into our houses. And will there

be a third season? I am very hopeful, I am pretty sure we will

get it, I will be shocked if we do not. At Juniper now until they

actually do it. How have you found a living and working here? My wife

loves Sir full time and she is a costume designer on the show and she

loves it. She is enamoured with living in Scotland. She has her

picture and gross and she knows all of the various people. We have our

neighbours, we love it. The people are great and that has been a

wonderful place for us to shoot and work and when we are not here we are

based in Los Angeles. We are tired of Los Angeles, it can be too hot.

He spent all of your time in the car. It is a different way of living

here and we have really enjoyed it. It has been a pleasure talking to

you, thank you for coming on. Thank you for having me.

The Smith Commission on Scotland's constitutional future has been

But have you ever heard it described as art?

Well, one writer has taken submissions to

the Commission from some of the 12,000 or so members of the public

who took part, and turned them into what he calls a found poem.

Huw Williams reports from the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow.

Good morning, Lord Smith. I understand that I am eligible to

make a submission to your Commission. The work is on shore as

an exhibition here at CCA. Talk me through the process of putting this

together. For some of us the referendum does not end on the 18th

of September, it ended with the Smith Commission. The passionate

voices of the referendum period were put into the sausage kind of Smith

and what came out was party political sausage as you would

expect. specific politic all-purpose. What

makes this a work of poetry? It is an interesting question. One of the

things that fascinated me about Smith was ordinarily people having

confidence to write to a lord and they are struggling with how to

address him. The job of the poet is to listen as well as to write. There

are always memorable phrases coming out in speech. Speech has always

invigorated what poetry is. My job was to look through all of the

submissions I could and find those memorable phrases and give them

value, give them space in which they could be read and respected. And

feeling that they carried something that the experts, that the

politicians, did not necessarily. At the newly reopened Scottish

poetry library in Edinburgh as sense that this work stands in a long

established tradition of what is called phoned poetry.

Hugh McDermott, the great 20th-century Scottish poet, he was

interested in bringing language and ideas from other disciplines,

historic and scientific, and some of his poems include chunks from the

work of other writers discussing complex philosophical or scientific

ideas. He arranges them in the lines of verse and they become part of his

arguments. 12,000 people wrote letters and I

think that is interesting. Letters. How many of us actually write a

letter these days about our ideas, about our passions? That is what

made the speech, the rating, so valuable. That's people were

reaching to go into the vision of the future.

That exhibition runs until Sunday at the CCA in Glasgow.

Here with me now to discuss some of the other the journalists

Let us start with new figures from the Office of National Statistics

predicting a massive rise in UK population. Over the next 25 years

it is expected to draw from 64.6 million to 74.3 million. That is a

rise of almost 10 million. Scotland's share of that equates to

a population growth of only 350,000. Is that smaller rise agreed on a bad

thing for Scotland? Scotland needs to increase its population. Partly

because health health care. A lot of those people who might be in

Scotland are drifting South to London because of that pool of

economic activity there. A disproportionate amount of the

English population is also in London. The story is about how

London Eye tracks people from the UK and overseas. We do not have control

over immigration. Do you think that might be something that would help

Scotland plan for the future? Very definitely. The demographics

indicates that Scotland badly needs people. There are parts of Scotland

know where all the young have left, it has been a key populated by its

young, and it is only older people that idea. The demographic

projections for Scotland, the number of people of working age is expected

to flat line as well as a number of people over 65, over ET, over 100,

are predicted to draw exponentially. We need the tax take

off people who are going to come into this country and work and earn

the money to care for those of us that are going to be in that cohort

of older people. Is it inevitable that they will all go to London? How

many more people can London take? At the moment London shows no signs of

stopping. It has got phenomenal growth and phenomenal population

growth. Places like Reading and safe end, they are bigger than

Edinburgh. You are getting a mega city. Without significant UK

Government policy you will not see a shift in Scotland. It is about

making decisions. Depressing, really. This overpayment is going to

be as overcrowded as you predict Scotland has got a lot going for it

in attracting people. Moving onto another. The charity

Kids Company, revelations that it received ?46 million of taxpayers

money. The Prime Minister said he had no regrets in giving a final

grant of ?3 million three days before the charity went under. It

was worth giving it one more goal to be financially viable. It was not

possible so it has come to an end. What matters now is looking after

the children that it used to look after but it was right to give Kids

Company every chance of a sustainable and viable future. Do

you think this calls his judgment into question? It calls somebody's

judgment into question. There is a lot of claim and counterclaim. The

chief executive of the charity has denied that there was any

impropriety. I think very definitely with the information that is coming

out, I am pretty sure there will be more to come, it needs to have some

kind of fun independent appraisal of what the reality is. If civil

servants and ministers are saying they are not getting the information

to justify these grants, when there were so many other charities denied

money that was going there, we have 20 what was going on. There are

lessons here for governance rate across the board. This is not just

about that charity. What else has been going on and money has been

handed out on that sort of basis? There were some eye-popping facts

coming out today. Between 2011 in 2013 C is twice as much an glance as

by Nidal 's. The founder has defended that. Kids Company had

access to certain people within the machinery of the Government that's

not all charities enjoyed. But help them secure funding. David Cameron

is media Centre to it. It is the type of charity would want to be

connected with. There will be more to come out from this. The fact that

he has behaved the way he has is not that surprising when you look at

what he was trying to do. The Government came under fire for

awarding the money despite repeatedly expressed concerns from

civil servants who said other organisations appeared to offer

better value for money. Somebody somewhere in the echelons

of Government has ignored that and said they do not want to know and

has instructed that the glance be made. I would have thought that we

really ought to know who did it and whether it was a good decision, I am

sure they can produce the evidence and convince the rest of us.

Embarrassing for the Prime Minister? Potentially, yes. Running a

Government that emphasises saving money it seems irresponsible.

There we have to leave it for this evening.

That's all from us for this week, thanks for watching.