31/10/2013 This Week


31/10/2013

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Denied it is Halloween, and This Week presents a political fright

:00:09.:00:13.

night! -- tonight. Not ghost trains but high-speed

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trains are causing Ed Miliband and Tory backbenchers to tremble with

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fear, but one Conservative and father of Boris Johnson thinks David

:00:30.:00:32.

Cameron will scare off his own supporters with his plans for HS2.

:00:33.:00:38.

The Government has lost its grip on high-speed rail, it is time to choke

:00:39.:00:45.

at off completely. Horrific scenes at Westminster as

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the big six energy monsters came to Parliament. The BBC's Emily Maitlis

:00:49.:00:56.

is doing a bit of ghostbusting. From these shadows, we promise you

:00:57.:01:00.

neither heat nor light, but don't think of it as gloomy darkness, we

:01:01.:01:05.

will call it shabby chic. And how frightened should we be of the

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secret state? More tales of spying on the public and mergers,

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terrifyingly smart journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell is here to

:01:15.:01:15.

startle us. It might sound spooky, but even the

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most powerful forces in the world can be defeated by an underdog.

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There is a nightmare on the This Week sofa!

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Evening, all, welcome to This Week, a show whose genius, like much of

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the Cabinet, is unproven. The good people of Kirkcaldy woke this

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morning to find themselves disenfranchised after the

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spectacular defenestration of their long-time Member of Parliament,

:02:02.:02:05.

yes, a certain Gordon Brown. Our former not so great leader and a

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shock resignation to a packed House of Commons, to a heartfelt cheers

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For He's A Jolly Good Fellow. Yeah, right! He was actually abroad, as

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usual, addressing not Parliament but the far more lucrative World

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Innovation Summit on Education in gas rich Qatar. Naturally! He

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declared himself an ex-politician. I know what you are thinking, that is

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not news, didn't the country make an ex-politician three years ago? Well,

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you would be wrong, because it turns out he is still on the Parliamentary

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payroll, trousering ?65,000 per year plus expenses as an MP. Although

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what he does for the dosh is a bit of a mystery, since he has made

:02:52.:02:56.

fewer appearances than the Loch Ness monster in off-season. Indeed, he

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has only been seen five times the election in 2010, and to put that

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into depressing perspective, Toby Young and Sally Bercow have sat on

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the This Week sofa more times than Gordon Brown has spoken in the House

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of Commons! We truly get the politics we deserve! Speaking of

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those clinging on by their bitten fingernails, I'm joined on the sofa

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denied by two people having an affair to remember, think of them as

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the Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks of late-night political chat, how

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did we get that through the lawyers?! I speak of

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#sadmanonatrain, Michael YouTube Portillo, and back as always, by

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absolutely no public demand whatsoever, Diane Abbott. -- Michael

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Choo-Choo Portillo. The international inspectors in Syria

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have announced that a significant quantity of chemical weapon making

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material has been destroyed. This process seems to be on track. It is

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quite a surprise to me, but it reminds us that the Russian

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initiative has had some success, but it also reminds me how much the news

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agenda has changed in such a short period of time. A few weeks ago we

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might have found ourselves at war in Syria, but David Cameron lost the

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vote in the House of Commons and seems to have lost his authority as

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Prime Minister. This seems a very long time ago. The poor people of

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Syria might reflect that the spotlight has moved on, and they are

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still dying in their thousands, but we don't seem to worry very much

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anymore because the chemical weapons are being dismantled. Do you believe

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it is happening? I do, because the international auditors are saying

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that. I think the Syrians have cartilage that they can do without

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chemical weapons. They will win anyway. Just look at the way that

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the West has backed off their opposition to the regime, because

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the focus is on chemical weapons, the wrong place to focus it, in my

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pew. Diane. Jeremy Hunt announced a big programme of hospital closures.

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I was in the House, four A in London, this will run and run, he

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has just lost in court over trying to lose one -- close one in

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Lewisham. It is not easy to close a hospital. It is not, for all parties

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. You would never know it was Halloween, but it was good of him to

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dress as a leprechaun! For train spotting anoraks right across the

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country, Michael Portillo's new series of railway journeys was more

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eagerly anticipated this week than the 8:14am or train from Sturminster

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Newton, and that is saying something. But in less important

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train use, MPs voted to approve funding for a new high-speed railing

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from London to Birmingham and then on to Manchester and Leeds, but is

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it value for money, and is it the right thing to do? We turned to

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Boris Johnson's dad Stanley, who just happens to live on the proposed

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route, so I think you can guess what his line will be. This is his take

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of the week. Like my model railway, the

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government's high-speed rail web project is, I think, bust. Can it be

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fixed? I very much doubt it. It was cooped up at the last minute by

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Labour to seem like an up to date party before the last election. --

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cooked. It is going to alienate Conservative voters up and down the

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country at a time when they are really under pressure, and the

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countryside is under pressure. We need to kill it now.

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You know, the business case just not add up. If it did, this would be a

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primarily private-sector project. Mrs Thatcher said there would be no

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public sector money for the Channel Tunnel, but here taxpayers are being

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asked to put up 50 billion and counting. This should be largely

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financed by the private sector, the private sector is running away, and

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that is the acid test. I have been an environmentalist all my life,

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don't let anyone tell you this is an environmental project. It is going

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to have a devastating effect on ancient woodlands and areas of

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outstanding national beauty, and even in towns, the little bits of

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green are going to go. Socially, this project is going to

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be catastrophic. There are 500,000 houses which are going to be

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blighted one way or another by the project. What is the government

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proposing? Derisory compensation affecting 2% of that total. And what

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is more, this is a project which, in terms of noise and disruption and

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general shambles, is going to go on for decades. The right course now is

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to devote a fraction of the money we are going to spend on HS2 into

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improving the existing networks. It can be done, and we have got to stop

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these high-speed train before it leaves the station, stop, stop! It

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has not stopped. Damn! Nul points... Is quick on the uptake, it

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did not stop! From the model railway club in King's Cross. They broken

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collection of toys that nobody wants to play within Westminster, Stan

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joins us. Let me go through to Choo-Choo, he says it has no

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economic or environmental case, no social case, what say you? I say

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that all the leading economies of the world have gone for high-speed

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rail, France, Italy, China, Japan, Korea. It would be ridiculous of

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Britain to think that we, uniquely, can get by without it. The most

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important reason for having high-speed rail is that the North

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and the south of the country needs to be linked. I think that the north

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of this country faces a perilous future without it, and the growth

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that is happening at the moment is basically happening in the

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south-east of England, and unless we link Manchester and London,

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particularly, the growth will continue to be in the south-east.

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All the leaders of the big northern cities are all calling for it. And

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all the businesses there, most of them. Can I be the minority here?

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You are the minority! The business case is not made. If it was,

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businesses would be lining to get in and invest. Think of the Channel

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Tunnel. The truth of the matter is that the business case is not made,

:10:03.:10:08.

and if it was truly made, it would be absolutely made, because if it

:10:09.:10:12.

counted in the cost of compensation for those 500,000 houses, that would

:10:13.:10:18.

put another ?40 billion on it. Since the earliest days of Victorian

:10:19.:10:22.

railways, they have not made money for the people who build or run

:10:23.:10:26.

them. So much of what the railways do for the economy is external to

:10:27.:10:30.

the railway. In other words, you cannot make passengers pay for it,

:10:31.:10:33.

but not the less it has these effects. You might as well say, why

:10:34.:10:37.

should we ever have had any railways? The development of Britain

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would have been unimaginable without railways, the development of any

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country without roads. We are 40 years behind Spain now. We do not

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have the huge expanses that Spain has... We do, the distance from

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London to Inverness... This will not go anywhere near Inverness. I want

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to make a point. Let him speak! The point I want to make is, really, why

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should the general public pay so that the fairly rich businessman,

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with his laptop, can save 20 minutes going from Birmingham to London? It

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does not seem fair. It will transform our economy. The reason

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that people ought to be willing to pay is, at the moment we have three

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high-speed trains per hour to Manchester, and in order to have

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that kind of service we have to take them away from Northampton and

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Milton Keynes. There is such limited capacity that every time more people

:11:35.:11:38.

want to travel to Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, you have to

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destroy the suburban services and people are travelling on crowded

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trains, they are having to spend more to get on them. He is right,

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you know! I think that it is a little bit naughty of Ed Balls,

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brilliant although he is, to play politics with this. This was a

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scheme which Labour launched, all of those Labour local authorities are

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in favour of it. What Ed is doing is a naughty new Labour thing, looking

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at the next day's headlines. What he says that cannot be for that is that

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you cannot write a blank check for it. Nobody has asked for a blank

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cheque. You have to bear down on the contingencies, they do seem a bit

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high. ?15 billion contingencies! Could you explain the Labour

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position on HS2? We support HS2, but obviously we want to be careful

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about the money. You launch this project, you see it is going over 50

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billion, how will you stop it? It is not going over 50 billion. People

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will say it would go over budget... They think they can do it within 17

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billion for the first stage. We delivered the limpets on time and to

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budget. And Terminal 5 and so on. We are talking about the West Coast

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Main Line, which already had a massive overbudget upgrade which did

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not do much for it. Overbudget and underachievement. The lines into

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Euston, which is where this will go, will already have the most

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capacity of any lines coming in, even in peak time capacity is only

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60%. So where is the capacity element? In the mid-1990s, there

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were half as many people travelling by train as there are today. 700

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million journeys then, 1.5 billion now, and it is going up by 2% per

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year. Victoria has capacity problems, Paddington has problems,

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Waterloo has capacity problems, Euston, which is where high speed

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will go to, does not have a capacity problem. But the lines do. You are

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asking people were the Milton Keynes services are going, the Northampton

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services are going, they have been reduced because we are running a

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Metro service between London and Manchester. You probably would

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oppose the railways when Stevenson was building Rocket, how could you

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put those iron machines on the rails. Used to walk in front with a

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red flag. That was a c It was a car. HS1 is way, way under capacity now.

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It connects London and Paris, but otherwise - HS2 isn't going to

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connect with HS1, there will be no link. HS1 does not connect cities in

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Britain. HS2 does, it connects all the cities. We are sympathetic to

:14:43.:14:46.

people like you who are worried about it going close to your back

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garden if the compensation isn't good enough, we should look at it.

:14:53.:14:56.

You cannot stand in the way of the development of the north of England.

:14:57.:15:03.

I'm for a man who does not believe in growth, for a - this constant

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filling demand because demand is there. We have to cut back on

:15:07.:15:10.

demand. That is what I think. I'm sorry to here that. What depressed

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me about your film was the fact that it would cost Tory votes so Cameron

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ought not to do. David Cameron thinks about being Prime Minister

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and doing the things that are proper to do as Prime Minister. The

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private-sector will build if it was allowed to a new runway at Heathrow.

:15:31.:15:35.

It wouldn't be Government money it would be private-sector. Actually.

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They won't go near HS2, doesn't that make you think? O no, they aren't

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economic. It has to be done by the state. Every high-speed railway

:15:52.:15:54.

system in the world, I think I'm right in saying, was built by the

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state. Yes. Most I think have been a financial and economic kiss

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disaster. Really? Haven't they opened regions in Spain and parts of

:16:04.:16:07.

France? If you look at France - If you are saying that the amount of

:16:08.:16:11.

money they cost has not been recouped from the fare paid, that is

:16:12.:16:15.

true, they transformed the economies. You can't take such a

:16:16.:16:19.

narrow view of what the railway is for. I'm perfectly happy to take a

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narrow view of almost anything. That is why you're not a member of

:16:27.:16:31.

parliament. That is why we have happy with a Cameron Government than

:16:32.:16:40.

an Johnson Government The money spent on the French railway system

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has deprived other parts of the French really way system. HS2 will

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deprive other parts of the rail network of crucial investment. It's

:16:53.:16:56.

bound to. Nonsense. We are planning to pay ?56 billion on transport on

:16:57.:17:04.

top of the ?50 billion for HS2 These are all astronomical figures. We

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have to cut back on public spending. This is a very good chance. Last

:17:10.:17:15.

word to you. Regardless of your view on whether we should do it or not,

:17:16.:17:20.

will it happen? Yes. Will it happen? Nope. There you go. Are you sure you

:17:21.:17:25.

are not being influenced by your view. Don't answer that. We ran out

:17:26.:17:33.

of time. Lovely to be here. It's late, very late, Diane doesn't

:17:34.:17:37.

have to get up in the morning anymore and can stay for as she

:17:38.:17:41.

likes in her scratcher late. But don't retire to the boudoir just

:17:42.:17:45.

yet because waiting in the wings, after years of pathetic begging

:17:46.:17:47.

letters, journalist, author, intellectual adventurer, Malcom

:17:48.:17:49.

Gladwell is here to explain why underdogs shouldn't be

:17:50.:18:01.

underestimated. I'm not sure he is right

:18:02.:18:03.

Don't forget to power-up your PC that smells of cat pee, get

:18:04.:18:07.

messaging just for the joy of being ignored by us on the infantile

:18:08.:18:09.

Twitter, the useless Fleecebook and the good old missionary position

:18:10.:18:14.

Interweb. Have you locked all the windows?

:18:15.:18:17.

Checked the back door? Well, pour yourself a glass of the

:18:18.:18:23.

blue stuff and come closer. Over the last few days, former Prime

:18:24.:18:26.

Ministers have been rising from the grave.

:18:27.:18:31.

Yes, the spectres of Major, Blair and now Brown have all come back to

:18:32.:18:36.

haunt us. Out vile spirits, the power of the

:18:37.:18:38.

Blue Nun compels you. We asked Newsnight's Emily Maitlis

:18:39.:18:42.

to brave the political house of horror for a political round up of

:18:43.:18:45.

the week and those of a nervous disposition be warned.

:18:46.:18:51.

Michael, you can hold my hand. . Just my hand!

:18:52.:19:16.

It's Hallowe'en, OK, Hallowe'en. If you encounter spooky tortured

:19:17.:19:26.

analogies or phraseology, references to the lights going off, at least

:19:27.:19:31.

you will know why. On this week we have searched high and low for

:19:32.:19:37.

derelict buildings, but as you know, property in the south-east is at a

:19:38.:19:39.

premium right now and the really good, the really derelict buildings

:19:40.:19:44.

have all been snatched up by American hedge funds for their hall

:19:45.:19:48.

between-themed roadshows. Still, we found one, and it's definitely cold.

:19:49.:19:52.

The reason it's cold has got nothing to do with the former, let us call

:19:53.:19:56.

them, headless occupants of this place, no, the reason it's cold is

:19:57.:20:00.

because it costs a lot to heat a room this size and, let us be crude,

:20:01.:20:07.

it is going to cost nearly 10% in the coming months. The major energy

:20:08.:20:11.

companies appeared before the Select Committee to explain why they are

:20:12.:20:15.

not horrid and we should like them before. They are referred to as the

:20:16.:20:23.

Big Six as if they were safari game. Inside they want to tell us they

:20:24.:20:30.

were furry Lynn chin chill yas. I acknowledge we are not trusted. . We

:20:31.:20:35.

need a thorough Competition Commission investigation, supported

:20:36.:20:40.

by Ofgem. The six say they are the victims of rising wholesale energy

:20:41.:20:44.

price, bye all sounds quite convincing until rather like the

:20:45.:20:50.

baddie hiding in the monks outfit on the staircase they were rumbled by

:20:51.:21:02.

one Scooby Do. We don't see nearly the same impact, specially on

:21:03.:21:08.

wholesale comodity costs. Ed Miliband hit the and custody hard.

:21:09.:21:13.

He is so on the side of the energy companies we should call them the

:21:14.:21:17.

Big Seven, the Prime Minister and the Big Six energy companies. He

:21:18.:21:24.

switched his supplier. Yes. He went for one of these insurgent companies

:21:25.:21:29.

to cut his bills. Isn't it typical, he comes here every week and attacks

:21:30.:21:34.

Tory policy, he goes home and he adopts Tory policy to help his own

:21:35.:21:36.

family. It's state intervention of another

:21:37.:21:49.

kind that is freaking the newspapers right now. Last night, a Royal

:21:50.:21:53.

Charter on press regulation was granted by the Privy Council after

:21:54.:21:58.

the industry lost its last-minute court battle. The editor of the

:21:59.:22:03.

Daily Telegraph took to Twitter where the 140 character limit leaves

:22:04.:22:09.

little room for ambiguitiy. Stances of us signing up for state

:22:10.:22:16.

interference, zero, he wrote. Of course, committing things

:22:17.:22:19.

electronically, let alone to paper, is a mugs' game these days. Spooks,

:22:20.:22:25.

as you know are everywhere. The US spy chiefs hit back insisting they

:22:26.:22:30.

work within the spirit and intent of the law. Just to clarify, that is

:22:31.:22:35.

American law, covering American citizens. Nothing that has been

:22:36.:22:41.

released has shown that we're trying to do something illegal or

:22:42.:22:50.

unprofessional. Ah, the Hallowe'en chestnuts, national security. Maybe

:22:51.:22:59.

they are right. Maybe Angela Merkel is knitting together a troops day

:23:00.:23:07.

plot that is going to kick off in Nebraska. Thank God for the NSA.

:23:08.:23:11.

Well, we are nearing the end. Less of a rollercoaster ride more of a

:23:12.:23:15.

creaky old ghost train. Before we go, we leave you with a few spirits

:23:16.:23:22.

of the past. Last week John Major rose from the meadows of Huntingdon

:23:23.:23:26.

to call for a windfall tax on energy companies. This week, it was the

:23:27.:23:31.

turn of Labour's most successfully electoral ghost ever, one Tony

:23:32.:23:36.

Blair. Then today an intervention from one, we might call, politically

:23:37.:23:41.

the living dead. The former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, described

:23:42.:23:45.

himself as an "ex-politician" news that may come as a surprise to his

:23:46.:23:50.

constituents. For Ed Miliband, there is probably no greater Hallowe'en

:23:51.:23:54.

treat than this. A former leader who is more than happy to quietly nail

:23:55.:24:01.

down his own coffin. Thank you. Goodbye. Oh, spooky. Miranda is

:24:02.:24:11.

here. Welcome back. How was that Select Committee on energy so

:24:12.:24:17.

useless? They did seem inadequate to the task. Yeah, useless? A serious

:24:18.:24:22.

one, which is trying to ask these Big Six companies quite why they

:24:23.:24:27.

have the consumer over a barrel to such an extent. It was enjoyable, I

:24:28.:24:32.

thought, to watch OVO man steal the show completely and get at least

:24:33.:24:39.

48-hours fantastic pub publicity for his own company. These committees,

:24:40.:24:43.

some of them are quite good. This one wasn't. They don't seem to do

:24:44.:24:46.

their homework in advance. They don't seem to say, right, here are

:24:47.:24:50.

the three lines we agree to take. You start with this questions, I

:24:51.:24:54.

will pick up. You will take over the other one. Don't let them go. They

:24:55.:25:02.

don't do any prep? When a committee is weak like that. They haven't read

:25:03.:25:07.

their brief. You get a wonderful brief from the clerks and can you

:25:08.:25:12.

can do your own research on this. The keen thing is to hunt as a pack.

:25:13.:25:20.

I say a, you a plus one and a plus three? They start out knowing what

:25:21.:25:24.

their questions will be. They don't listen what are the previous

:25:25.:25:28.

questions. They want a killer line to get on the telly and let the

:25:29.:25:31.

witness off the hook. That happens. It's a problem for the coalition

:25:32.:25:34.

because, you saw this at Question Time, the Tory backbenches, and the

:25:35.:25:38.

Lib Dems too, they had been prepped to raise questions about the

:25:39.:25:42.

economy. The there was plenty question after plenty question about

:25:43.:25:46.

jobs are up, growth is getting better, living standards, all that,

:25:47.:25:51.

but it kept being dragged back to energy prices. It is getting in the

:25:52.:25:55.

way of the coalition' narrative. They can't get it onto their ground?

:25:56.:25:59.

Absolutely. It's not just about the issue of energy prices important

:26:00.:26:04.

that those are, that issue speaks to a wider point about cost of living.

:26:05.:26:08.

It is this line from Ed Miliband that this particular recovery, this

:26:09.:26:13.

in coming tide won't lift everyone's boat. That is a huge problem for the

:26:14.:26:16.

Government. Lots of stuff next week about wage levels as well. That is

:26:17.:26:19.

another huge problem for the story of the recovery and whether it is

:26:20.:26:26.

helping the population as a whole. The Government each week has a

:26:27.:26:29.

different response. Last week it was about removing green taxes. This

:26:30.:26:33.

week it is about having a year-long inquiry as to what is going on with

:26:34.:26:38.

the energy companies and quicker switching, they are keeping the

:26:39.:26:47.

story going. It this notion that Cameron isn't in touch with people's

:26:48.:26:53.

lives. That was a John Major's point. Since Ed Miliband made the

:26:54.:26:57.

speech at the Labour conference he set the political weather on this.

:26:58.:27:00.

He could be trumped if the coalition get its act together, they could

:27:01.:27:05.

announce at the Autumn Statement in the first week in December, we will

:27:06.:27:09.

not freeze your bills, we will put levies on to general taxation. We

:27:10.:27:13.

will get rid of others, we will cut your bills? Yeah. George Osborne

:27:14.:27:18.

could shoot his fox and George Osborne is up to that, a lot of

:27:19.:27:23.

these levies they can't get out of them legally. Some of them came in

:27:24.:27:28.

with the Climate Change Act, others they would have to change the law.

:27:29.:27:32.

You are quite right. The Lib Dems aren't keen to go down this route?

:27:33.:27:36.

They aren't, the green agenda is very important for the Lib Dems.

:27:37.:27:40.

They think it is a key part of being a responsible Government, planning

:27:41.:27:45.

are for the future and maintaining a diversified - They have to cling to

:27:46.:27:49.

something having dumped to many other issues. I don't know what made

:27:50.:27:55.

me say that. Unkind. A saucer of milk for my friend. What do you make

:27:56.:28:01.

about your friends in Unite targeting people's homes,

:28:02.:28:06.

Grangemouth? I don't know the truth of this. We have pictures showing

:28:07.:28:10.

them outside a manager's home. We haven't got them to show now. We

:28:11.:28:17.

will when I interview - Where do you buy a blowup rat. It's about the

:28:18.:28:22.

size of a house. It's not even Rowland Rat. It's not a nice rat.

:28:23.:28:28.

That is not proper behaviour, is it? People are entitled to demonstrate.

:28:29.:28:36.

D's not a question, did it happen, Mr McCluskey defended what happened

:28:37.:28:40.

they called it leveraging tactics? There is such a thing as freedom of

:28:41.:28:46.

expression. I think the demonisation of ewe night and Len McCluskey has

:28:47.:28:51.

gone too far. You think it's all right to turn at a manager's home

:28:52.:28:55.

and demonstrate outside the home where the wife and the kids are

:28:56.:29:00.

there and the manager is not? We don't know what happened, do we?

:29:01.:29:05.

McCluskey said that is all right. You can take the fight to the

:29:06.:29:09.

managers, they shouldn't be allowed to go back to their cosy homes. That

:29:10.:29:14.

is the Unite position. If it's legal. No-one is saying they did

:29:15.:29:19.

anything illegal? No, unpleasant. Well... If I turned outside your

:29:20.:29:25.

home and started shouting at you through the window it may be legal,

:29:26.:29:28.

it wouldn't be pleasant. We would assume you were a member of the

:29:29.:29:35.

press. Yes. You may wonder why we aren't talking about the hacking

:29:36.:29:38.

trial, under the law, as it is in Britain, with contempt of court and

:29:39.:29:42.

so on, the media is only allowed to report the actual factual statements

:29:43.:29:48.

that were made,, we cannot comment in anyway. As much as we would love

:29:49.:29:53.

to. I will interview Len McCluskey on the Sunday Politics this week and

:29:54.:29:57.

see if I can get answers out of him, unlike you.

:29:58.:30:04.

David Cameron returns to the Unite theme at PMQs, he will keep doing

:30:05.:30:11.

it. He has got nothing else to say, it is not cutting through with the

:30:12.:30:16.

general public. The Grangemouth crisis was a serious industrial

:30:17.:30:19.

policy disaster looming, and now it has been solved, it has just turned

:30:20.:30:25.

into more ammunition for David Cameron's campaign against the

:30:26.:30:29.

Labour links. What did you make of your former hero, the former great

:30:30.:30:35.

leader of this nation with his description of himself as an

:30:36.:30:41.

ex-politician? A bit difficult. The truth is it reminded me that, since

:30:42.:30:45.

2010, I have only seen him in Parliament three times, you say he

:30:46.:30:49.

has been there five times. We think he has spoken five times. I think it

:30:50.:30:55.

gives a psychological insight, he was destroyed by having lost the

:30:56.:31:00.

premiership. When I lost my seat, I used to describe myself as the

:31:01.:31:04.

former Michael Portillo. Your world has collapsed. But other leaders...

:31:05.:31:09.

I remember Edward Heath, he was very bitter, God knows, the great silk,

:31:10.:31:15.

they called him, but he was always there, he took part in debates. John

:31:16.:31:20.

Major, after 1987, he took part in debates. Tony Blair walked out and

:31:21.:31:27.

was never seen again. That is another way of doing it, not on the

:31:28.:31:33.

public payroll. I think Gordon Brown will be treated better by history

:31:34.:31:36.

than his contemporaries, but it would help that he contributed in

:31:37.:31:39.

Parliament. Not when Alistair Campbell publishes the whole of his

:31:40.:31:43.

book. What do you know about that book? I think there is more to come.

:31:44.:31:49.

You heard it here first. Should he stand down? I think so, don't you? I

:31:50.:31:55.

agree with Michael that this is yet another psychological insight into

:31:56.:31:58.

this really rather fascinating but deeply flawed individual who...

:31:59.:32:05.

Should he stand-down? It is not for me to say what he should do, it is

:32:06.:32:09.

for the people of Dunfermline. Or Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath! I suspect

:32:10.:32:15.

he will, too, because he's not showing enough interest to want to

:32:16.:32:20.

bother. OK, we believe it there for now. Miranda, thank you. As a

:32:21.:32:26.

regular pundit on This Week and a regular candidate for leader of the

:32:27.:32:29.

Labour Party and a former leading light in the crack public health

:32:30.:32:37.

team... Sorry, Diane is well used to being a big fish in a stagnant pond!

:32:38.:32:43.

What about the also-rans like Michael who never reached the

:32:44.:32:49.

dizzying heights of Diane? Never to appear on Celebrity Come Dine With

:32:50.:32:52.

Me, do they still have a chance to make it big? We're not sure, that is

:32:53.:32:55.

why we are putting underdogs in the spotlight.

:32:56.:33:11.

It appears David and Goliath still exist in the Middle East. After a

:33:12.:33:16.

handful of women hits the road this week to take a stand against the

:33:17.:33:22.

Saudi Arabia ban on women drivers. Syrian rebels may have one less

:33:23.:33:26.

thing to be after the announcement that the regime's chemical weapons

:33:27.:33:30.

are finally being put out of action, allegedly. In London, the big six

:33:31.:33:35.

energy Goliaths appeared before a parliamentary select committee. The

:33:36.:33:41.

MPs' slings failed to find their target. How can these profits be

:33:42.:33:49.

fair? If I do not make a 5% profit in my business, I cannot afford to

:33:50.:33:53.

continue employing my 20,000 people, who are equally members of

:33:54.:33:58.

society, and I cannot afford to operate the company. In Washington,

:33:59.:34:02.

spy chiefs maintain they are defending US citizens by turning

:34:03.:34:06.

their American Eagle I on everyone else. It is invaluable to us to know

:34:07.:34:15.

where countries are coming from, what their policies are, how that

:34:16.:34:20.

would impact us across a whole range of issues. So in a world of

:34:21.:34:25.

invincible Goliaths, what chance do modern-day Davids have? Or is it a

:34:26.:34:29.

case that the underdog has more power than we might ever realise?

:34:30.:34:39.

David and Goliath, we are joined by Malcolm Gladwell to talk about

:34:40.:34:42.

this. Welcome to the programme. Why are we wrong to assume, as most of

:34:43.:34:46.

us due, that the Saudi women trying to get the right to drive won't? One

:34:47.:34:53.

of the big themes of my book is about the weapons of the spirit,

:34:54.:34:59.

about whether things like anger, persistence, motivation, shame me

:35:00.:35:06.

how well they stack up against material resources, formal

:35:07.:35:15.

authority, weapons, troops. And the central argument of the book is that

:35:16.:35:18.

those weapons of the spirit matter a good deal more than we sometimes

:35:19.:35:24.

assume, and so the fact that Saudi women can stage a protest and then

:35:25.:35:27.

can use social media to spread that around the world, and can bring an

:35:28.:35:32.

extraordinary amount of attention to this one issue, it matters. It is

:35:33.:35:37.

not a trivial thing at all. But will they end up being able to drive? I

:35:38.:35:42.

don't know. And you optimistic about it? I sort of an. Have you been to

:35:43.:35:48.

Saudi Arabia? I have never been. There is a world of difference, a

:35:49.:35:53.

bigger difference between Dubai and Saudi Arabia and there is between

:35:54.:36:00.

Alabama and New York. If you look at the recent history of social and

:36:01.:36:05.

political protest, what do we learn from Martin Luther King and Nelson

:36:06.:36:09.

Mandela and on and on? What we learn is that the ability to hold the

:36:10.:36:17.

abuses of power up to the world, and just get an emotional and

:36:18.:36:21.

psychological response to that, that can be extraordinarily effective in

:36:22.:36:24.

bringing that kind of power to heal. Is that what you mean when you

:36:25.:36:28.

talk about the advantages and disadvantages? That idea is

:36:29.:36:32.

something that I spent a lot of time on, which is that when people are

:36:33.:36:38.

robbed of formal authority, they are pushed towards certain kinds of

:36:39.:36:42.

strategies and approaches that they would never otherwise have

:36:43.:36:46.

considered. So I have a chapter about Martin Luther King and how he

:36:47.:36:51.

outwits his opponents in Birmingham, Alabama. He has no advantages over

:36:52.:37:01.

them. They control the courts, they control politics, they control all

:37:02.:37:05.

the resources. What does he have? He simply has his creativity and his

:37:06.:37:11.

intelligence. But he also had a big chunk of the federal government

:37:12.:37:16.

behind them. He had to use them, the chapter is about how artfully he

:37:17.:37:18.

manipulated public opinion. He played a trick, a magnificent,

:37:19.:37:27.

hilarious, brilliant trick that King plays on the media in Birmingham,

:37:28.:37:33.

Alabama. In Little Rock Arkansas, the governor would not let the black

:37:34.:37:37.

kids go to the high school in the centre of Little Rock, and

:37:38.:37:40.

Eisenhower it was then, not a Democrat, he federalised the

:37:41.:37:48.

National Guard. These people had... Nobody is fertilising the National

:37:49.:37:51.

Guard and Saudi Arabia! No, but the fascinating thing about the rise of

:37:52.:37:59.

social media and the digital revolution that we have seen is to

:38:00.:38:03.

what extent does it feed into these weapons of the spirit to give people

:38:04.:38:11.

who lack access to formal means of authority and power a voice, and the

:38:12.:38:17.

ability to shame? A lot of this, the whole Saudi protest is about shame.

:38:18.:38:23.

And shame is an incredibly powerful emotion it turns out, in political

:38:24.:38:28.

arenas. Do you buy this theory? Yes, I find is plausible. If you talk

:38:29.:38:33.

about David and Goliath, one theory is that David is small, but the

:38:34.:38:38.

other is that he is brave and pugnacious and audacious, all of

:38:39.:38:42.

those things. And you know, thinking about politics, you see that again

:38:43.:38:46.

and again, Margaret Thatcher came from nowhere, Ed Miliband defeated

:38:47.:38:51.

David Miliband. In this case, confusingly, the Goliath is called

:38:52.:38:56.

David... We are following you! OSHA media does make it easier for

:38:57.:39:00.

underdogs. My favourite is the Scottish schoolgirl who photographed

:39:01.:39:05.

her school dinners and it went all over the world. They tried to stop

:39:06.:39:11.

photographing the school dinner and it caused a pro, a little girl in

:39:12.:39:15.

Scotland who tried to block about dinner. The authority had to change,

:39:16.:39:21.

that is a good example. I bet that is not in the book! There's not

:39:22.:39:26.

another Scotland in my book. That could be said many books! We have

:39:27.:39:32.

always known the power of shame in local contexts, in a small town. It

:39:33.:39:38.

is an incredibly powerful emotion. What has happened now is that we

:39:39.:39:41.

have been able to take the same social dynamics that used to only

:39:42.:39:46.

operate in very small, tightly knit communities and magnify them.

:39:47.:39:49.

Because of the digital revolution. How does this work in Syria, then?

:39:50.:39:54.

Well, it is early to tell what is going to happen in Syria. The

:39:55.:40:00.

beginning of the whole thing, a man set fire to himself in June is

:40:01.:40:05.

here, and everything else followed from that, extraordinary. In

:40:06.:40:16.

Tunisia. The English love Eddie the Eagle Edwards and the Jamaican

:40:17.:40:21.

bobsleigh team we love the underdog. Do we share a little Jamaican... My

:40:22.:40:27.

mother is Jamaican. I was looking at your hair! Don't get carried away

:40:28.:40:36.

here. There has been examples, the velvet revolution may be one

:40:37.:40:40.

example, we have seen examples of people power, and we have seen

:40:41.:40:46.

Tiananmen Square. At no time in David and Goliath do I pretend that

:40:47.:40:51.

these kinds of... The weapons available to underdogs do not

:40:52.:40:55.

guarantee triumph. That is ridiculous. All I am saying is that

:40:56.:41:00.

there are, if we do a more sophisticated accounting of the

:41:01.:41:04.

advantages and disadvantages that each side has, we realise the

:41:05.:41:08.

battles are an awful lot more even than we would imagine. Nobody is

:41:09.:41:13.

saying that David always beats Goliath. He did one time! But at the

:41:14.:41:19.

beginning of the book, I read tell the story, the biblical story,

:41:20.:41:23.

pointing out that David's weapon, the slain, is one of the most

:41:24.:41:27.

devastating weapons available in ancient times. The stopping power of

:41:28.:41:33.

the rock that came from the sling is a bullet fired from a handgun, it is

:41:34.:41:40.

incredibly... When he decides to break the rules, he has superior

:41:41.:41:44.

technology. That is a very interesting fact to keep in mind.

:41:45.:41:48.

And it is not entirely new, even the digital, because in the wall, the

:41:49.:41:55.

role of the Wall coming down, the freeing up of Eastern Europe from

:41:56.:41:59.

Soviet supremacy, the fax machine played a role in that, mobile

:42:00.:42:03.

phones, satellite TV. That is always the case. It has always been the

:42:04.:42:07.

case that underdogs, by virtue of being shut out of the status quo,

:42:08.:42:12.

the first to exploit the next wave of technology. So we could go back

:42:13.:42:16.

to the French Revolution and the role of the printing press,

:42:17.:42:30.

pamphleteer... In politics the underdog can come through, the

:42:31.:42:33.

prospective Democratic candidate for mayor in New York, he went from

:42:34.:42:37.

being bottom to being the main contender. Underdogs can win. Very

:42:38.:42:43.

British, nothing more British than that. Malcolm Gladwell, thanks for

:42:44.:42:51.

being here. That is your lot for tonight, folks, but not for us. At

:42:52.:42:58.

Lulu's it is warm, cheaper than putting the heating on. It is

:42:59.:43:02.

Halloween, and people like to be scared, so we leave you tonight with

:43:03.:43:06.

some frankly terrifying footage that came to light this week. Apparently

:43:07.:43:15.

this is what passes for entertainment on BBC Two these days,

:43:16.:43:20.

no wonder nobody is watching. Night night, don't let your private dancer

:43:21.:43:24.

bite.

:43:25.:43:27.

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