14/09/2014 Sunday Politics Northern Ireland

Welcome to the Sunday Politics, coming to you live from Edinburgh.

Terrorists who use the name Islamic State have carried out

their threat to murder the British aid worker, David Haines.

They released a video late last night, showing a masked man

beheading Mr Haines, who was taken captive in Syria 18 months ago.

The jihadist group have already beheaded two American journalists.

Now it's threatening the life of a second British hostage.

David Cameron described the murder as an act of pure evil.

As we speak he's chairing a meeting of the Cabinet's COBRA

President Obama said the US stood shoulder to shoulder

Alex Salmond says Scotland "stands on the cusp of history" as

he predicts a historic and substantial victory in

As the latest polls show the two sides neck and neck,

I'll ask Yes campaigner and socialist Tommy Sheridan about his

And after last week's last-minute interventions from Gordon Brown,

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and big business, I'll ask

pro-unionist George Galloway whether it's enough to win over waverers.

And on Sunday Politics in Northern Ireland:

Ian Paisley's legacy, we hear from friend and foe

on their dealings with the political giant through both

tumultuous and more peaceful times. step closer back to Parliament. Is

Late last night, as most folk were preparing for bed, news broke that

Islamic State extremists had carried out their threat to murder the

The group released a video, similar to the ones in which two American

journalists were decapitated, showing a masked man apparently

beheading Mr Haines who was taken captive in Syria last year.

The terrorist, who has a southern British accent,

also threatened the life of a second hostage from the UK.

Mr Haines is the third Westerner to be killed

His family have paid tribute to his humanitarian work; they say he

David Cameron described the murder as an act of pure evil, and said

his heart went out to Mr Haines? family, who had shown extraordinary

Mr Cameron went on to say, "We will do everything in our power

to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice,

Mr Haines was born in England and brought up in Scotland.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond condemned the killing on the Marr

Well, it's an act of unspeakable barbarism that we have seen.

Obviously our condolences go to the family members of David Haynes who

have borne this with such fortitude in recent months -- David

Alex Salmond was also asked whether he supported military action

Haines there is no reason to believe whatsoever that China or Russia or

any country will see their will to deal with this barbarism. There is a

will for effective, international, legal action but it must come in

that fashion, and I would urge that to be a consideration to develop a

collective response to what is a threat to humanity.

Our security correspondent Gordon Corera joins me now

Gordon, as we speak, the Cobra emergency meeting is meeting yet

again. It meets a lot these days. I would suggest that the options

facing this committee and Mr Cameron are pretty limited. That's right. I

think they are extremely limited. They have been all along in these

hostage situations. We know, for instance, that British government

policy is not to pay ransom is to kidnappers. Other Europeans states

are thought to have done so to get hostages released, and also not to

make substantive policy concessions to the groups, so while there might

be contact, there won't be a lot of options left. We know the US in the

past has looked at rescue missions and in July on operation to free the

hostages, landing at the oil facility in Syria but finding no one

there. If you look at the options, they are not great. That is the

difficult situation which Cobra will have been discussing the last hour.

Does this make it more likely, because it might have the direction

the government was going in any way, that we join with the Americans in

perhaps the regional allies in air strikes against Islamic State, not

just in Iraq, but also in Syria. We heard from President Obama outlining

his strategy against Islamic State last week when he talked about

building a coalition, about authorising air strikes. And

training troops. We are still waiting to hear what exact role the

UK will play in that. We know it will play a role because it has been

arming the fishmonger forces but the question is, will it actually

conduct military strikes in Iraq -- arming the passion are there. We

have not got a clear answer from government and that is something

where they are ours to discuss what was around the table. It's possible

we might learn some more today as a result of the Cobra meeting, but I

think the government will be wanting to not be seen to suddenly rushed to

a completely different policy as a result of one incident, however

terrible it is. Whether it hardens their reserve -- resolved to play

more active role in the coalition, that's possible, but we have to wait

see to get the detail. -- wait and see. What the whole country would

like to see would be British and American special forces going in and

getting these guys. I think that would unite the nation. But that is

very difficult, isn't it? It is. As you saw with a rescue mission a few

months ago, the problem is getting actionable intelligence on the

ground at a particular moment. The theory is that the group of

kidnappers are moving the hostages may be even every or few days, so

you need intelligence and quickly and then you need to be able to get

the team onto the ground into that time frame. That is clearly a

possibility and something they will be looking at, but it certainly

challenging, particularly when you have a group like this operating

within its own state, effectively, and knowing that other people are

looking very hard for it and doing everything they can to hide. Gordon,

thank you very much. Clegg dropped everything and headed

to Scotland when a poll last Sunday gave the YES vote its first ever

lead in this prolonged referendum If their reaction looked

like panic, that's because it was. Until last weekend,

though the polls had been narrowing, the consensus was still that NO

would carry the day. The new consensus is that

it's too close to call. If we look back at the beginning of

the year, public opinion in Scotland was fairly settled. The no campaign

had a commanding lead across the opinion polls, excluding the

undecided voters. At one point, at the end of last year, an average of

63% backed the no campaign and only 37% supported a yes vote. As we move

into 2014 and up to this week, you can see a clear trend emerging as

the lead for the no campaign gets narrower and narrower and the

average of the most recent polls has the contest hanging in the balance.

There was a poll a week ago that put the Yes campaign in the lead for the

first time, 51% against 49%, but that lead was not reflected in the

other polls last week. For polls were published last night, one by

Salvation, for the macro-2 campaign -- Better Together campaign, and

there was another that gave a one percentage point different. ICM have

the yes campaign back in the lead at 54% and the no campaign at 46%, but

their sample size was 705 Scottish adults, smaller than usual. Another

suggests that the contest remains on a knife edge with 49.4% against

50.6%. When fed into the poll of polls the figures average out with

yes at 49% and polls -- no at 51%. But some people think 18% are

undecided, and it is how they vote gets -- when they get to the polling

booths that could make all the difference.

campaigner and Respect Party MP, George Galloway.

Welcome to the Sunday Politics. Big business, big oil, big banks, the

Tories, the Orange order, all against Scottish independence. You

sure you are on right side? Yes, because the interests of working

people are in staying together. This is a troubled moment in a marriage,

a very long marriage, in which some good things and bad things have been

achieved together. And there is no doubt that the crockery is being

thrown around the house of the minute. But I believe that the

underlying interests of working people are on working on the

relationship rather than divorce. I have been divorced. It's a very

messy, acrimonious, bitter affair and it's particularly bad for the

children will stop that's why I am here. You talk about working people,

and particularly Scottish working people, they seem to have concluded

that the social democracy they want to create cannot now be done in a UK

context. Why should they not have a shot of going it alone? Because the

opposite will happen. Separation will cause a race to the bottom in

taxation. Alex Salmond has already announced he will cut the taxes on

companies, corporation tax, down to 3% hello whatever it is in the rest

of these islands. And business will only be attracted to come here,

country of 5 million people on if there is low regulation, low public

expenditure, low levels of taxation for them will stop you cannot have

Scandinavian social democracy on Texan levels of taxation. The

British government, as will be, the rest of the UK, they will race Alex

Salmond to the bottom. If he cuts it by three, they will cut it by four.

And so on. So whether some people cannot see it clearly yet or not,

the interests of the working people on both sides of the border would be

gravely damaged by separation. Let's take the interest of the working

people. As you know, as well as anyone, the coalition is in

fermenting both a series of cuts and reforms in welfare, and labour,

Westminster Labour, has only limited plans to reverse any of that. Surely

if you want to preserve the welfare state as it is, independence is the

way to do it. For the reasons I just explain, I don't believe that. But

Ed Miliband will be along in a minute. He will be along in May. The

polls indicate... They say he is only four or 5%, that is the

average. Like the referendum, the next general election could be nip

and tuck. I don't, myself, think that the time of David Cameron as

Prime Minister is for much longer. I think there will be a Labour

government in the spring and the Labour government in London and a

stronger Scottish Parliament, super Devo Max, that is now on the table.

That is the best arrangement of people in the country. But the

people of Scotland surely cannot base a decision on independence on

your feeling that Labour might win the next general election. It is my

feeling. When the Tories were beaten on the bedroom tax last week in the

house, it was written all over the faces of the government side not

only that they were headed for defeat, but probably a massive fishy

-- Fisher. I think the race to the bottom that I have proper size will

mean that the welfare state will be a distant memory quite soon. The

cuts and the run on the Scottish economy here in Edinburgh, the

financial services industry, that will be gravely damage. The Ministry

of Defence jobs in Scotland decimated, probably ended, more or

less. It will be a time of cuts and austerity, maybe super austerity in

an independent Scotland. You mentioned defence. What about

nuclear weapons? The Tories and Labour will keep them. You are

against them. Surely the only way to be rid of them in Scotland is by

independence. But you are not rid of them by telling them down the river.

The danger would be the same -- telling them down the river. The

danger would be the same. Nuclear radiation does not respect Alex

Salmond's national boundaries. They would be committed to immediately

joining NATO, which is bristling with nuclear weapons and is what --

involved in wars across the Atlantic. So anyone looking for a

peace option will have to elect a government in Britain as a whole

that will get rid of nuclear weapons and get out of military

entanglements. We are in one again now. I have been up the whole night,

till 5am, dealing with some of the consequences and implications of the

grave international matter that you opened the show with. David Haines

and the fate of the hostage still in their hands. There are many other

hostages as well. And there are many people dying who are neither British

nor American. I have, somehow, been drawn into this matter. And it

showed me, again, that the world is interdependent. It is absolutely

riven with division and hatred, and this is the worst possible time to

be opting out of the world to set up a small mini-state on the promises

of Alex Salmond of social democracy funded by Texan taxes. Let's, for

the sake of the next question, assume that everything you have told

us is true. Why is your side squandering a 20 point lead?

I will have a great deal to say about that, whatever the result.

This is very much a Scottish Labour project, is that not a condemnation

of Scottish Labour? It is potentially on its deathbed. The

country breaking up, the principal responsibility will be on them. And

the pitiful, absolutely pitiful job that has been made of defending a

300-year-old relationship in this island by the Scottish Labour

leadership is really terrible for me to behold, even though I'm no longer

one of them. I don't know how they are going to get out of this

deathbed. Do you agree that if this referendum is lost by your side, it

will be because traditional working-class Labour voters,

particularly in the west of Scotland, have abundant Labour and

decided to vote for independence? Without a doubt, the number of

Labour voters intending to vote yes is disturbingly high. Even just

months ago during the European Parliament elections, swathes of

people who didn't vote SNP will be voting yes on Thursday. That is a

grave squandering of a great legacy of Scottish Labour history, which

history will decree as unforgivable. If Labour is to get

out of its deathbed in Scotland, it will have to become Labour again.

Real Labour again. I am ready to help them with that. My goodness,

they need help with it. I wonder if it isn't just a failure of Labour in

Scotland. People all over Britain are increasingly fed up with the

Westminster system, but it is only the Scots who currently have the

chance to break free from it, so why shouldn't they? That is exactly

right. They see a parliament of expenses cheats led by Lord snooty

and the Bullingdon club elite, carrying through austerity for many

but not for themselves and they are repulsed by it. They need change,

but you can go backwards and call it change but it will be worse than the

situation you have now. A lot of Scottish people don't buy that. It

is a big gamble. If I were poised to put my family's life savings on the

roulette table in Las Vegas, my wife would not be scaremongering if she

pointed out the potential consequences if I'd lost. She would

not be negative by telling me that is my children's money I am risking.

If I jumped off this roof it would change my point of view, but it

would be worse than the point of view I have now. There is another

issue here because the Scots are being asked to gamble on the

Westminster parties, which they are already suspicious of, of delivering

home rule. Alistair Darling could not even tell me if Ed Balls had

signed off on more income tax powers for Scotland, so that is a gamble

for the Scots. I feel the British state has had such a shake out of

all this that they would be beyond idiots, they would be insane now to

risk all of this flaring up again because whatever happens, if we win

on Thursday, it is going to be narrowly. It will be a severe

fissure in Scotland. A great deal of unpleasantness that we are already

aware of. That could turn but we're still. It would be dicing with

death, playing with fire, to let Scottish people down after Thursday

if we narrowly win. If you narrowly win, and if there are moves to this

home rule Mr Brown has been talking about, England hasn't spoken yet on

this. Whilst England would probably not want to stop -- stop Scotland

getting this, they would say, what about us? It could delay the whole

procedure. It is necessary, you are right. England should have home

rule, and I screamed at Scottish Labour MPs going into the vote to

introduce tuition fees in England. I told them this was a constitutional

monstrosity, as well as a crime against young people in England. It

was risking everything. We are led by idiots. Our leaders are not James

Bonds, they are Austin powers. We need to change the leadership, not

rip up a 300-year-old marriage. Thank you.

It's been one of the longest and hardest fought political campaigns

in history, with Alex Salmond firing the starting gun on the referendum

Adam's been stitching together the key moments of the campaign.

It is the other thing drawing people to the Scottish parliament, the new

great tapestry of Scotland. It is the story of battles won and lost,

Scottish moments, British moments, famous Scots, and not so famous

Scots. There is even a panel dedicated to the rise of the SNP.

Alex Salmond's majority in the elections in 2011 made the

referendum inevitable. It became reality when he and David Cameron

did a deal in Edinburgh one year later. The Scottish Government set

out its plans for independence in this book, just a wish list to some,

a sacred text to others. This White Paper is the most detailed

improvements that any people have ever been offered in the world as a

basis for becoming an independent country. The no campaign, called

Better Together, united the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems under the

leadership of Alistair Darling. Then the Scottish people were bombarded

with two years of photo opportunities and a lot of

campaigning. For the no campaign, Jim Murphy went on tour but took a

break when he was egged and his events were often hijacked by yes

campaigners who were accused of being intimidating. In turn, they

accused the no campaign of using scare tactics. Things heated up when

the TV dinner -- during the TV debate. Fever pitch was reached one

week ago when one poll suggested the yes campaign was in the lead for the

first time. The three main Westminster leaders ditched PMQs to

head north. I think people can feel it is like a general election, that

you make a decision and five years later you can make another decision

if you are fed up with the Tories, give them a kick... This is totally

different. And Labour shelved not quite 100 MPs onto the train, Alex

Salmond took a helicopter instead. This is about the formation of the

NHS. A big theme of the yes campaign is that changes to the NHS in Linden

-- in England would lead to privatisation in Scotland. Alex

Salmond's plan to share the pound was trashed by big names. There were

other big question is, what would happen to military hardware like

Trident based on the Clyde? Would an independent Scotland be able to join

the EU? And how much oil was left underneath the North Sea?

This panel is about famous Scots, we have Annie Lennox, Stephen Hendry,

Sean Connery. I cannot see Gordon Brown. These are big changes we are

proposing to strengthen the Scottish parliament, but at the same time to

stay as part of the UK. A regular on the campaign, he was front and

centre when things got close, unveiling a timetable for more

devolution. People wondered whether Ed Miliband was able to reach the

parts of Scotland Labour leader should reach, and at Westminster

some Tories pondered whether David Cameron could stay as prime minister

if there was a yes vote. This tapestry is nonpartisan so it is a

good place to get away from it all but it is crystallising voters'

views. Look at what we have contributed to Great Britain, and I

am British and I hope to be staying British. This is what people from

Scotland have done, taken to the rest of the world in many cases and

I think I am going to vote yes. I am so inspired by it. It has certainly

inspired me to have a go at stitching. How long do you think it

would take to do the whole thing? I would say to put aside maybe 30

hours of stitching. Maybe by the time I am done, we will know more

about how the fabric of the nation might be changing.

And I've been joined by yes campaigner and convenor

of Scotland's Solidarity socialist party, Tommy Sheridan.

An economy dependent on oil, the Queen as head of state, membership

of the world 's premier nuclear alliance of capitalist nations - is

that the socialist Scotland you are fighting for? No, that is the SNP's

prospectus and they are entitled to put forward their vision, but it is

not mine or that of the majority of Scotland. We will find out in two

years. On Thursday we are not voting for a political party, we are voting

for our freedom as a country. That is why people are going to vote yes

on Thursday. A lot of people are voting for what you call freedom

because they think it will be more Scotland. You have already got free

prescriptions, no tuition fees, free care for the elderly. You might not

in future have that if public spending is overdependent on the

price of oil, over which you have no control. We don't have to worry

about one single resource, we already have 20% of the fishing

stock in Europe. We already have 25% of the wind, wave and solar power

generation. We, as an independent country, have huge resources,

natural resources but also people resources. We have five first-class

universities, food and beverages industry which is the envy of the

world. We have the ability to produce the resources on the

revenues that won't just maintain the health service and education but

it will develop health and education. I don't want to stand

still, I want to redistribute wealth. But all of the projections

of public spending for an independent Scotland show that to

keep spending at the current level you need a strong price of oil and

you are dependent on this commodity which goes up and down and sideways.

That is a gamble. I have got to laugh because I have been told the

most pessimistic is that in 40 years the oil is running out, panic

stations! If you were told by the BBC you could only guarantee

employment for the next 40 years you would be over the moon. I am talking

about in the next five. You need 50% of your revenues to come from oil to

continue spending and that is not a guarantee. Of course it is, the

minimum survival of the oil is 40 years. Please get your viewers to go

onto the Internet and look at the website called oilandgas.com. The

West Coast has 100 years of oil to be extracted. It hasn't been done

because in 1981 Michael Heseltine said we cannot extract the oil

because we have Trident going up and down there. Let's get rid of Trident

and extract the oil. You are a trot right, why have you failed to learn

his famous dictum, socialism in one country is impossible. Revolutions

and change are not just single event. What will happen here on

Thursday is a democratic revolution. The people are fed up of being

patronised and lied to by this mob in Westminster who have used and

abused us for far too long. The smaller people now have a voice.

What about socialism in one country? Mr Trotsky warned you

against that. The no campaign represents the past. The yes

campaign represents the future. That is the truth of the matter. What we

are going to do in an independent Scotland is tackle inequality and a

scourge of low pay. If we vote no on Thursday, there will be more low pay

on Friday, more poverty and food banks on Friday. I'm not going to be

lectured by these big banks, you vote less -- yes and we will leave

the country! The food banks will be the ones closing. If you got your

way, for the type of Scotland you would like to see, state control of

business, nationalisation of the Manx, the roads to Carlisle will be

clogged with people Yes, hoping to come into Scotland,

because in their hearts, the Scottish people know that England

want to see the people having the bottle. The working class people in

Liverpool, Newcastle, outside of London, they are saying good on the

jocks that are taking on big business. When we are independent

and investing in social housing, the people of England will say, we can

do that as well, and they will rediscover the radical tradition. In

wanting to build socialism in one country, it really means you are

fighting for the few, rather than the many. You are bailing out of the

socialist Battle for Britain. You think it will be easier to make it

work. Think globally, act locally and we will build socialism in

Scotland but I wanted across the world. I won my brothers and sisters

in England and Wales to be encouraged by what we do so they can

reject the Westminster consensus as well -- I want. We had the three

Stooges coming up to London, three millionaires united on one thing,

austerity. Doesn't matter whether Ed Miliband wins the next election, he

said he would stick to the story spending cuts. Why vote for Ed

Miliband? You wouldn't trust him to run a bath, not a country. Let's see

if this is realistic, this great socialist vision. At the last

Scottish election, the Socialist party got 8000 votes. The

Conservatives got 30 times more votes. Where is the appetite in

Scotland for your Marxist ideology question we might not win it. But do

you know what, see in two years time. See when we have the Scottish

general election. You won't -- you are saying you might win and you

went to the Holyrood election and got 8000 Pope -- votes. The SNP won

a democratic election and then won the 2011 election and you know why

they won? Because they picked up the clothes that the Labour Party has

thrown away. They picked up the close of social democracy and

protecting the health service was -- service. There are people in the SNP

who believe in public ownership and people in the SNP who believe in the

NHS should be written into a constitution as never for sale

people in the the SNP that think the Royal mail should return to public

ownership. That is there in black and white. Do you agree with George

Galloway that this is potentially a crisis for Scottish Labour? Scottish

Labour is finished. They are absolutely finished. George is right

in that. Scottish Labour is finished. The irony of ironies is,

Labour in Scotland has more chance of recovery in an independent

Scotland that they have in a no vote. Labour in Scotland in an

independent country will have to rediscover the traditions of Keir

Hardie, the ideas of Jimmy Maxon, because right now, they are to the

right of the SNP as a political party. I understand the socialist

vision, but it is where the appetite is. And you look at the independence

people in Scotland. One of your colleagues, Brian Souter, a man who

fought against the appeal -- repeal of homosexual rights in Scotland.

Another of your allies would seem to be Rupert Murdoch, the man who

engineered your downfall. You say he engineered your downfall, but I'm

still here and his newspaper has closed. Whether it Rupert Murdoch,

Brian Souter, or any other millionaire supporting independence,

I couldn't care less. This boat on Thursday is not about millionaires,

it is about the millions. -- this vote. We will not be abused any

young -- longer. Would you rather not have their support? I couldn't

care about the support. You know who is supporting the union. It is the

unions of the big businesses, the BNP, UKIP, they are the ones who

support it. You are giving me a stray that has wandered into the

campaign and are you seriously going to argue with me that the

establishment isn't united to try and save the union? That is what

they are trying to be. The BBC, you have been a disgrace in your

coverage of the campaign. Not you personally. You don't have editorial

control. The BBC coverage, generally, has been a disgrace and

the people. Oil and gas, go and look at that, why is that not feature.

Why is the idea of 100 years of oil not featured in the campaign.

Because the BBC does not want to see it. Are you getting in your excuses

if you lose? You better be kidding. Is this the face of somebody looking

to lose. We are going to win, 60/40. Absolutely. There is a momentum that

you guys are not seeing on the working-class housing estates.

Working class people are fed up being taken for granted fed up with

the lives of people dragging us into tax cuts, bedroom tax for the poor.

They will have power on Thursday, and they will use it and vote for

freedom. Are you happy with the way the BBC has treated you today? So

far, yes. I have still not been offered a Coffey, but that might

happen. That is an obvious example of our bias. Tommy, we will speak to

you later with George Galloway. Hello,

and welcome to Sunday Politics. Courageous, controversial,

a colossus, uncompromising... Just some

of the terms used to describe In this extended edition

of the programme, I'll be assessing his career with former colleagues

and political opponents. As the Orange Order appeals to

Scottish voters not to go it alone, we get the latest news

on the referendum campaign. And with their thoughts,

the Irish News columnist Brian Feeney and Ballymena Guardian

editor, Jim Flanagan. He was a defining, dividing figure

in Northern Ireland's history and that legacy is writ large

across the newspaper headlines this weekend as we look back at

the life and legacy of Ian Paisley. The former DUP leader who died

on Friday will be buried It will mark the end

of a remarkable journey from the defiance and protest

of the firebrand preacher to the compromise and accommodation of the

First Minister who shared power with Where are you from?

The BBC. What BBC? The BBC. If this is the way they want to play yet we

declare our attention is that we will organise massive

demonstrations. A great mentor and a great friend,

the words of Edwin Poots paying The Health Minister's father stood

alongside Dr Paisley in 1969 as a Protestant Unionist candidate

and it was a relationship that For you this is personal

and political. We'll talk about the political

in a moment but your family and How difficult have the past few

days been for you personally? well, we knew him quite well and I

think things were coming to an end. It has been a sad time for the

Paisley family who have been very close to Ian Paisley through the

years despite his very public life, they have had a very personal

relationship. The relationship that Italy between him and his wife

Eileen was one that we could all look to. The love between them

whatsoever that and it was something we could all aspire to. Politically

we all know that he went on a remarkable journey in the latter

days of his career. What's your family entirely comfortable with

that? We have stood with Ian Paisley from right back in the late 1960s

until he passed away and we absolutely stood with him all of the

way. There was no issue there. Ian Paisley has been quite wrongly

described over the years. He was a lot more pragmatic than people give

him credit for. In 1981 when the Atkins talks took place in the

Ulster Unionist did not take part and then later the SDLP opted out

and then in further talks Peter Robinson did some negotiations and

went back to Ian Paisley and sold it to him. The reality is that over the

period of the 1980s and into the 1990s it was not Ian Paisley that

was the blockage about moving forward. He always stood against

compromise. There was no question of that. He said in one sermon that if

you compromise God will curse you but he pulled off the most

remarkable compromise that this state has ever seen, how did he do

that? I think if you are mixing the religious and the political, on the

religious side of things he did not compromise and that is very clear.

His preaching was uncompromising that salvation was through the blood

of Jesus Christ alone and he had no truck with those who sought to do

things by work so he was on compromising in his preaching. In

his politics you always have to recognise that you have to have a

degree of pragmatism and their work principles that could not be

compromised on one could not be compromised was that Sinn Fein had

to accept the rule of law and except the police. Everybody said that

would never happen and Ian Paisley made it happen. He destroyed other

Unionist leaders who were looking for pragmatic solutions to problems

in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and 1990s and he was dead fast Lee

opposed to that. He saw a whole list of Ulster Unionist leaders including

David Trimble because they were prepared to compromise. You say he

was pragmatic. He was a man of his time. He was a contradiction and an

enigma! Very much so. In the 1970s the IRA killed many people. In 1972

and 1973 300 or 400 people were getting killed in those years. They

were awful full time that politics was not going to be the solution at

that period. There had to be a bringing the IRA to heal in

particular and the security forces had a job to do and there would

never be a political settlement that the IRA would accept so it was

almost impossible for any unionist to accept a settlement that would

allow the IRA to continue to engage. There are those who feel he

caused a lot of hurt and indeed fanned the flames during the darkest

days of the trouble is, do you access to that? No. Why not? There

is evidence to suggest that is the case. There is also evidence to

suggest something different. I was a man growing up during the troubles

and I would have been very angry at what was seeing on the television

screens and I was angry about hearing men in the Ulster defence

Regiment being killed and police officers being killed on our

streets. It was largely through Ian Paisley that young men like me did

not end up in paramilitary organisations. We saw a strong

leader who would fight our case politically. There is the

contradiction because others went down the paramilitary road because

they said they did it because of what Ian Paisley said. Yesterday a

woman in the Times said many who ended up in prison ruefully pointed

to Ian Paisley as their recruiting Sergeant. And yet I was the

opposite, I saw him as a strong voice in politics and I did not need

to engage in some fight back. If he had given the rubber-stamp to map --

paramilitaries and he had given the rubber stamp to go out and take the

IRA on in any means... But he flirted with the paramilitaries. His

critics called him the grand old Duke of York. By what ever means,

many of us who would have ended up in Paola military organisations did

not because of him. But some people did and that is part of the tragedy

of Northern Ireland. Many of those would have ended up in paramilitary

organisations despite of Ian Paisley. What you think of people

who chose to forget his past actions and focus only on the last few years

of his career where he was in government and he befriended Martin

McGuinness and went through his chuckle Brothers base. I find him a

more attractive figure in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s. He was strong,

resolute and he was forceful. His pragmatism, which I indicated was

already existing in those years when others have just whitewashed that

and said he was a blockage when it was actually the Ulster Unionists

and John Hume who were the biggest blockage. If you talk to senior

civil servants they will tell you that John Hume was more of a

blockage to progress than Ian Paisley ever was. I am just stating

a fact. The negotiations took place and they could not do it. Let me ask

you about the way in which he ended his career, seemingly isolated,

divorced from the party he founded and the church that he founded. You

are free Presbyterians and a route leading member of the DUP, does it

sad anew that he was seemingly ostracised from the organisations in

the final stages of his life? -- sadden you. That is not quite

correct. He was invited to our annual dinner every year and he

attended every year. He spoke each year and we had great times

together. Look out what he said all stop I was at a funeral yesterday in

a free Presbyterian Church and the amount of affection that existed for

Ian Paisley there was absolutely phenomenal. Did exist the other way

around? Was the affection from him and his family for the church? His

family made the announcement and the party knew nothing about his death

until the media broadcast the news. That is quite right that the family

were the people who were with him at his death. He had a private life as

well and they were entitled to a private life. His family were very

close and a lot of us are very close to that family and it will always be

the case. In one sentence, what should be his lasting legacy? His

lasting legacy was a strong man who stood for the Ulster people, who saw

there was a deal to be done and had the courage to do it. Thank you very

much for joining us. Let's hear the thoughts

of my two guests of the day, Brian Feeney, a strongman who, at

the end of the day, did the deal. That is what Edwin Poots says his

legacy should be. Might that be part of his legacy? Yes, it is. If it had

not been for Ian Paisley there would not have been a deal because nobody

else could have carried the DUP with him and made that deal. The reason

for that was that Ian Paisley, throughout the whole of his career,

had concentrated on attacking the IRA and the Catholic church and

merging them together in some of his attacks. But really what his target

was was the Ulster Unionists party. The fact that some people say he

woke up every morning trying to work out what damage he could do to the

Ulster Unionists because he wanted to be top dog. He would not make a

deal until he was in a position to be top dog and that happened after

he became the leader of the largest party in 2003. That unsettled so

many of the people that made him top dog. Of course it did. He led them

to believe he would never compromise. The trouble with the

bridges that it goes over to the other side and all of the phrases

that he said, he spent his whole career attacking Ulster Unionist

leaders. As you mentioned, right from O'Neill and the whole way

through until David Trimble and then he settled for much the same as

David Trimble except you may note that one of the differences in the

St Andrews agreement was that the deal was that the First Minister

would be the leader of the largest party, not elected on a cross

community basis, because obviously he believed he would be the leader

of the largest party and it never occurred to him that it might be

Sinn Fein. North Antrim was his constituency for many decades and

Ballymena was at the heart of his power base. How will people there

come to terms with this news, his poor support? They will remember him

very fondly for all the work you did for that constituency. He took his

peerage title from the area. The most insightful interview I did with

him was actually at Stormont on the eve of his standing down as an MP

and he was in a reflective mood at that point. He had been

confrontational through his life and he was not everybody's cup of tea,

the firebrand of politics, what he said was that he had a lot to be

confrontational about in those days, not least a campaign by

terrorists to destroy Northern Ireland. He was very critical of the

intentions of the British government has well. It is the contradictions

and be enigmas that a lot of people are struggling to get their heads

around. It is not an enigma a contradiction. He is driven by

blazing ambition. He wanted us to be the leader of the Ulster Protestant

unionists. When he talks about the Ulster people, he talks about the

Protestant people of Ulster. When Edwin Poots says it is pragmatic, is

that in a nutshell? Ian Paisley in the early 1970s had visited Dublin

to see if there was any deal that could be done. He was even talking

in terms of the possibility of redesigning the constitution in

Northern Ireland, he was open to discussion. He was not in a position

to deliver anything until after 2003. He was an instinctive

politician and some of the mistakes he made in his career would have

been because he acted on gut instinct. That instinct got him most

of the right decisions as well. Would he have accepted that he made

mistakes and he was infallible? -- fallible. He has excepted that over

and over again. The truth is that we are in a better place in Northern

Ireland because we had someone strong to stand up to republicanism

-- republicanism over the years but he still had the courage to ensure

there was a deal to have peace in Northern Ireland. Ultimately his

career will be defined by the deal he did in Sinn Fein. Edwin Poots,

thank you very much indeed and we will hear from our guests later in

the programme. Among those who had serious

disagreements with Ian Paisley over the years were

direct rule Ministers. However, despite sometimes heated

disputes, many retained a degree of respect and even affection

for the former DUP leader. Among them one of Mrs Thatcher's

Secretaries of State, Peter Brooke. Our Political Reporter Stephen

Walker spoke to Baron Brooke When US Secretary of State, you

would have had had lots of dealings with Ian Paisley? I was asked by the

press how we could square the circle in terms of getting into talks when

it looked as though there was no way in which the circle could be

squared. And I used to reply then that politics is about human beings

and human beings, you know, they come in all shapes and sizes and

they have also is of different kinds of family. But the family is

important. And just as I think that those who are involved in Sinn Fein

IRA will have had families and will have wondered how long it was all

going to go on for their families, I was quite clear that, as a

grandfather, Ian Paisley was conscious of the future, and that in

the ultimate analysis, he did not want his descendants to go through

the same experiences or see the province go through the same

experiences that they before. And I was confident that when push came to

shove, he would in fact to make the right decisions. And there was a

moment, obviously, in his thinking when he decided, I am going to have

to share power with Sinn Fein? I've never talked to him about it but

that would appear to need to be the case. How do you think history will

judge Ian Paisley? Well, as I say, human beings and politicians come in

all shapes and sizes. And he believed very strongly in his

various causes. And I did periodically ask him to explain the

theology of particular parables. He was concerned about what was my own

doctrinal ancestry, and, in a sense, off duty we had some very, very good

conversations and I think he, in the ultimate analysis, exercised his

authority and responsibility well. Did you like Ian Paisley? I

personally liked him considerably. Did you find there were two Ian

Paisleys? One in private and one in public? Well, I'm very conscious

that when he was saying rude things about me, you were saying them for

his own political reasons! In any of the meetings you had with Ian

Paisley, where tempers ever frayed? I don't... I genuinely don't think

that. And I asked him once, was there ever an occasion when you

felt, I said to him, I had let you down? You know, and had deceived you

in any way? And he said, no. There are perhaps one or two occasions

when I had to give you the benefit of the doubt but, in principle, you

always behaved as you said you would. And you think history will be

kind to him? Yes, I do. The former Secretary of State Peter Brooke.

Joining me now are the former Alliance Party leader

and past Speaker of the Assembly, Lord Alderdice, and from Dublin,

the former MP, TD and civil rights leader Austin Currie.

You are both very welcome to the programme. Lord Alderdice, how will

you remember him? He could be charming and funny. The jokes are

almost always on somebody else rather than himself! And actually

was not bit of a court person to work with on a one-to-one basis in a

meeting. But the other side of it, which is more important, is that

effectively started out to undermine liberalism within the Protestant

community, particularly within the Presbyterian Church, and liberalism

within unionism, the people who wanted to move to and accommodation

with nationalism on the island. And he targeted both of those over the

years and with a very personal and sometimes nasty level. And in many

ways he was successful at destroying those elements of liberalism.

Ironically, of course, he came to realise that there was no future in

the approach he was taking, and the result wasn't to produce a

fundamentalist Protestantism of the kind he wanted but to see young

people leaving old churches, and it did not lead to the kind of them he

wanted, it let him going into government not with just

nationalists but with the IRA. -- the kind of unionism. So in the end

he got something even worse than he would have wanted and many of his

forebears realise the route he had taken was a disastrous mistake for

them and the country. Austin Currie, I wonder, do you think the actions

of Ian Paisley in latter years in anyway make up for some of what he

was involved with in some of his earlier days? He was vehemently

opposed to the civil rights movement and you were one of the leading

lights of that back in the 60s. Compromise certainly was not in his

vocabulary at that time. Well, certainly they were a very close

family and I wish to express my sincere sympathy to the family. I am

reluctant to speak ill of the dead. But I have to say that the comments

on Ian Paisley since his death have once again illustrated a rewriting

of Irish history which has been going on for some time. I knew Ian

Paisley very well. He and I were members of the 69 Stormont

Parliament. There were only 52 of us so we really got to know each other

very well. And in the mid-60s, I described Paisley as a bigoted

hangover from the 17th century. I believe that then and I have had

little reason to change my mind despite the most recent, almost

deathbed conversion. But Paisley was one who attacked your religion, he

talked about Catholics reading like rabbits, and multiplying like

vermin. -- breeding like rabbits. He attacked the leadership of not only

the Catholic Church but the Protestant churches. If the words

hate crime had been valid at that particular time, there's no doubt

Paisley would have been guilty of hate crime. Austin, you also said in

a statement released at the weekend, so let me just quote it, you said,

Paisley and the Provos share responsibility for the outbreak and

the intensity and outbreak of The Troubles. It is difficult to

separate their degrees of responsibility. Is that absolutely

fair? Yes, I think it is. And the reaction of certain Provos who have

talked about their love for Paisley indicates that they were involved in

parallel activity. I am reminded and have been reminded of O'Connell, who

was the former IRA chief of staff, and at a time when leading members

of the SDLP were described as legitimate targets, he was asked

whether Paisley should be shot, and he said no, because he was worth

dozens of recruiting sergeants for the Republican movement. On the

political front, I had two major disappointments with him. One, those

of us who were involved at the start of the civil rights movement

believed that we could attract Protestant support because

working-class Protestants were much the same position as working-class

Catholics. -- were in much the same decision. He ruined that possibility

of winning over that support. And then, of course, the power-sharing

executive, which, he, along with the IRA, was responsible for bringing

down, you do seem to realise it when he brought down in 1974 was almost

exactly the same thing he was claiming to support as chief

executive. -- he did not seem to realise. You were nodding

enthusiastically on that last point. Is that a key thing to understand in

the career of Ian Paisley? It is crucial to understand. Ian Stokes

these things up before there was IRA violence, long before. And even on

the political side, he was damaging and destroying those who wanted a

more creative approach to their faith. And there was a very

unpleasant personal attack which damaged people not just

professionally but personally. And they had lasting impact. I say that

as a Presbyterians. He was very opposed to the Presbyterian Church

and its move towards humanism. Exactly. Any openness to discussion

and engagement were bitterly attacked. And that is not to say

that he couldn't be a very pleasant companion and chat and all of those

kinds of things. My father knew him bury well, my uncle knew him very

well. I knew his background in Ballymena very well. -- knew him

very well. But because of his influence, use tipped up the trouble

and then later realised it did not bring the outcome that he sought and

turned turtle. -- he stoked up the trouble. What do you think things

would look like over the last 40 years of Ian Paisley had not been

part of that story? I cannot tell you what way it would have been but

I can say this. There were many leading people in the churches and

impolitic who were trying to move gradually towards the kind of

accommodation we are struggling to settle into now. -- in politics. And

his extraordinary ability and his extraordinary negative ability is

what destroyed those efforts and led to the loss of many lives are much

misery which we now, and he and his slate of years, found himself trying

to reconstruct. -- and he in his later years. So how will history

judge him for going into government with Martin McGuinness? We cannot

say. For the moment it is positive and later people will look at it and

they might not be as kind as my colleague Sir Peter Brooks suggests.

Thank you very much indeed for joining us.

To Scotland now, and the referendum campaign,

On Thursday, four million voters in Scotland will

decide either to become independent or to stay part of the UK.

Yesterday in Edinburgh, Members of the Grand Orange Lodge

of Scotland paraded along the Royal Mile in the centre of

Among them, Orange Order members and bands from Northern Ireland.

Police estimated the turnout at around 15,000 in total,

and although the marchers were supporting a no vote, the official

Better Together campaign had refused to publicly support the event.

There have been warnings of possible economic catastrophe for Scotland if

it votes to go it alone, with comparisons to the Great

Depression, and financial institutions saying they will

relocate to London. But what about here? What might it mean for public

spending? These are the thoughts of John Campbell. The trade we do with

Scotland is substantial. Manufacturing is thought to be worth

about ?700 million a year. Some of our biggest construction firms do a

huge amount of business there. One has just started building an

extension to Tony Blair's old school in Edinburgh. An independent

Scotland could make all that trade a little trickier. For example, what

impact will different tax and regulatory systems have? And it is

still far from certain what currency will be used. Those factors would

not make things easier but we should not overstate them either. Tax on

currency things many firms deal with everyone -- everyday when they deal

cross-border into the Republic. And, remember, an independent Scotland

will have to be an open trading economy with as few barriers as

possible. But the real indications are around our public finances. At

the moment, public spending and distribution across different parts

of the UK is worked out using the Barnett formula. We do well under

that. If Scotland leaves, the whole system will have to change. It takes

a lot of optimism to imagine Stormont will get a better deal. And

with Scotland being offered more tax and spending powers if they reject

independence, that, too, will call into question the financial motion

ship between Westminster and other nations. -- the financial

relationship. Would our politicians be prepared to raise taxes to give

the health service more would they cut taxes and therefore services in

an attempt to spark entrepreneurial activity? These new responsibilities

may be coming with a Stormont wants them or not. John Campbell with his

thoughts on the possible economic consequences for us of Scottish

independence. New polls suggesting this weekend that the no vote will

carry the day but the campaign appears to have taken a nasty turn,

with warnings and threats coming from also hides. Let's get more from

Gerry Braiden from the Glasgow Herald. Only one of the polls, as I

understand it, has the yes vote in the lead, and I think I read it

saying it was commissioned by the Yes campaign. Today, it has yes on

54 compared to the no on 46. Another has yes on 51 and no on 49. It seems

a long time since the Better Together campaign. Labour was saying

they were expecting a vote of somewhere around 70-30 to put this

to bed. If you ask Better Together campaign now where they would take a

vote of 50.4%, they would bite your hand off for it! The poles are more

than snapshots in this campaign. They have been a catalyst. -- the

opinion polls. The reason why the UK political establishment and the

media are in Scotland and the reason the markets are getting jittery and

the reason the Yes campaign has the mental and confidence is all of

this. -- the momentum. There are no two ways about it. UK constitutional

position is on a knife edge as it has been since 1921, 22. The Better

Together campaign had a shock last week with the YouGov poll which put

the yes vote ahead. You saying it is not a given and it be as tight as

50.1%? I have seen comments that Alistair

Darling is confident of a win for his campaign. I buy into the theory

of a silent majority, the people that do not give that much of a damn

about the constitutional position of the United Kingdom will come out on

the day and they will vote for the No campaign. I am a bit less

confident that this morning than I was before. What about these

undecided people? We have the race on both sides to appeal to the

undecideds and I was wondering if people are trying to steal for the

other side, Labour voters who might vote for the No campaign they are

trying to get them over to vote for the Yes campaign and then they can

come back to Labour. There is apparently poaching and counter

poaching. The number of undecided people, and you will hear anything

from 5% to 15%, is a story in itself. It is an indication that

there are people who are probably not content with the constitutional

arrangements that we have at the moment and they might think they are

in favour of an independent Scotland but they have a bit of an issue with

it. You are right that the campaign does seem to be before the Labour --

does seem to be for the Labour vote. A recent poll says that in the last

month one third of people have been swayed by what they are hearing from

the Yes campaign but only 7% from the No campaign. That is

fascinating. Whatever happens it is clear it will be tight, as you have

it -- suggested and we now expect. When people in Scotland wake up on

Friday morning, whatever the result has been, is it a given that

Scotland is a divided nation? There is a real tangible political frisson

in coffee shops and buses and school playgrounds and everywhere. I do not

think Scotland will ever be the same again. There is this tangible desire

for political change that even Ed Miliband is talking about in the

Observer today that things can never go back to the way they these are

much promised a devolved powers. What happens on Friday is all down

to what the vote delivers. Certainly for the foreseeable future, given

the scenario is racking up front of us and the rise of UKIP, there is

certainly going to be a polarisation in the body politic in Scotland

unlike anything we have seen in -- since the 1980s.

We will now get the final comments from my studio guests. You are

political so I imagine you are following it closely. Should we

care? My daughter works in Glasgow so I have been following it closely.

It has become polarised debate with both sides making extravagant

claims. The Better Together camp warning the dangers and putting the

frighteners on people, my own opinion is that they do not know

group may be inclined to vote against it because you are inclined

to do that if you are not sure. I think the No campaign will shade

it. The evidence from places like Quebec is that as the last week

happens people go to be safe and go for the No campaign. It is very

divisive. The reaction of the No campaign in the last week has been

appalling. Peter Hitchens this morning has said the only thing they

haven't threatened the yes people with his exploding Agassiz. They

have done everything possible to try and scare the yes people with his

exploding Agassiz. They have done everything possible to try and scare

them and lot of changes they vote for the Yes campaign because it will

be like the Irish free State in 1922 who had the pound and coins and

notes and everything. We are going to have an intriguing time watching

the situation unfold. Thank you very much indeed.

everyone in the team for now, bye bye.