Episode 15 The Big Questions

Good morning. Welcome to The Big Questions, live from Ashton Park

School in Bristol. I'm Nicky Campbell. Anders Behring Breivik's

testimony at his trial in Oslo, where he calmly set out his reasons

for killing 77 people by bullet and bomber, has shocked the world. Our

first big question: do some crimes deserve the death penalty? Peter

Hitchens says anyone who takes a life with evil intent or violence

should receive the same in return. "After the scandals of recent years,

people have lost faith in politics and politicians. It is our duty to

restore their trust." those are David Cameron's words from the

foreword to the ministerial code. He goes on: "transparent about what

we do and how we do it". But he is less keen to sanction ministers who

seem to fall short of the sentence. Our next big question: is there

something rotten at the heart of British politics? The Labour MP

Paul Flynn says a culture has been created where backdoor Ritz and

secret conversations have become the norm.

And as President Sarkozy raises the labelling of halal meat as an

election issue in France, our last big question: should halal and

kosher meat be labelled? This campaigners as labelling is the

only way of avoiding meat from animals that have received a non-

Christian blessing. Welcome to The Big Questions.

Anders Behring Breivik has said "There are only two just and fair

outcomes of this trial - acquittal or capital punishment. I consider

21 years of prison as a pathetic punishment. "and one of the

original judges assigned to his trial agreed with him. Thomas

Indrebo was dismissed on day one when it came to light that he had

tweeted that "the death penalty is the only just sentence in this

case". But 21 years of imprisonment is the maximum sentence available

in Norway since the death penalty for war crimes and treason was

abolished in 1979. Do some crimes deserve the death penalty? Michael,

you work with the innocence network, those who are in prison and should

not have been imprisoned according to you. Some crimes are so beyond

the pale, whether it is a mass killer like Breivik or a child

killer like Robert Black. Do those cases not test your liberal

principles? No. They are clearly emotive cases. I am a parent myself.

You often think that if someone harmed one of your children, you

wonder what you might do to protect your loved one. Or to seek

vengeance? That is the society we are brought up in, that is how we

think we would write that wrong. But we have to decide what our

values are as a people, our identity. We abolished capital

punishment in this country in the 1960s because the British public

could not stomach the reality that an innocent person had been

executed wrongly. Once you start to go down a path of saying that we

want to reintroduce capital punishment, even into conversations

in this country, you will be inevitably executing innocent

people. And one life lost is not worth it for the rest who are

guilty? People on this side of the debate clearly think it is, because

before we came on air, we were discussing over coffee. People

think that we have a system which will make mistakes, some innocent

people will be killed, and that is OK. But it is not their lives.

Judicial error stone trouble people in the judiciary. So it is OK if an

innocent life is lost? Of course not. Nobody says it is OK. Every

step should be taken to ensure that no innocent life is lost. But only

a total pacifist can honestly used that as an argument against a

policy of the death penalty if you have other was accepted that it is

a good thing. In many cases, there would be people in this room who

supported the bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo episode. Almost

anybody here would believe that our conduct in the Second World War was

correct. In both cases, we pursued what we believed to be a good end.

And we accepted that in the cause of that, innocent people would die.

Therefore, if you are going to say that you cannot accept even the

faintest possibility of an innocent death as a reason for not having

the death penalty, you have to declare that you would not have

fought the Second World War. That is not correct. You are mixing

different things together and trying to come out with a

conclusion. I do not agree that we should go to these wars, but that

is separate. You have missed my point already. This argument is

heard it so many times. People do not listen to what the other is

saying. If you are going to argue that the death penalty is never

justified, that is one thing. But if you are going to argue that the

danger of innocent life being lost Israel the all-consuming veto over

the death penalty, that is a different question. Many would say,

I support the death penalty, but I am against it because of the

problem of innocent life. I am saying that that as an argument

says that you are also unable to adopt all kinds of other policies

which most would see as desirable. If that is your argument, you have

to abandon a lot of other things. You are a criminal barrister, but

you are both Christians. Surely the death penalty is vetoed by the fact

that you are holding out the possibility of redemption thigh and

for a soul ultimately to be saved? That should argue against your

position. It concentrates the mind. If you know you are going to face a

higher court, the original basis for the death penalty came out of

Noah's Ark. I know some people will not accept that. When I came out of

the Arc, he was told that god said if any man sheds blood, then by man

shall his blood be shed, because man is made in the image of God.

There are 35 things in the Old Testament which you are not

supposed to do, including to be rude to your parents. Thigh Christ

died on the cross force. But if you believe that Jesus would have

supported the death penalty, do you think Jesus Christ, who preached

love and forgiveness, would have been capable of pulling the lever?

Jesus Christ would judge us all. Would you have been capable of

pulling the lever? He came as our saviour. But you say he supported

the death penalty. He suffered the death penalty for us. In the New

Testament, he said, I have done The New Testament is love. Jesus

said, do not judge, or you will be judged. Since they have made this

intervention, you must here These people story. You lost your son 11

years ago? Our son was murdered by a gang 11 years ago. When we went

to court, we got a total lies from them. I was raging and angry and I

wanted to kill 'em. A year after that, I decided to move on and

forgive them because it was destroying me. After that, we

decided we wanted to meet them and get the truth. We met one of the

boys who killed our son last year. If he had had the death penalty, we

would not have met him and I would not have heard him say, I was a

coward and I killed your son. And I went on a restorative justice

course, and suddenly I saw Christopher for the first time. I

realised who my victim was and I admitted it. We would not have got

all that if we had had the death penalty. If you bring the death

penalty in, people like us will get forgotten. We are victims, and you

are not putting us first. In court, the victims don't get a voice. For

the past eight years, we have been going around prisons and schools,

teaching restorative justice. We have seen a lot of people change.

What did it mean to you, looking into the eyes of one of the boys

who killed Christopher and for him to address you? It meant an end. We

were able to move on. Peter, sorry to have interrupted you. I have a

simple point here. You can't apologised to a dead person. You

can apologise to the relatives. I am not speaking for you. Please

don't interrupt me. I am not attempting to speak for you. I am

attempting to speak for a society which the taking of life is the

single most serious crime, and against which there must be some

defence. If people can take another life and get away with it, as they

do, and they are increasingly not charged with murder, but convicted

of manslaughter and then out on the streets in a few years, if that

happens, there will be more murder. So if you kill the boy who killed

my son, what about his family? What about the boys who killed our son,

do you want them and their families to suffer the way we did? I want

there to be justice. Justice is served by the law. James is

desperate to come in. Form an orderly queue. Peter is doing our

workforce. Firstly, he says you can't apologise to a dead person,

and then contends that incidences of killing their people by accident

should not be a fly in the ointment of his support for state-sanctioned

murder. You can't say sorry to someone who has been executed

despite being innocent. I wish to prevent innocent death. You have a

parallel with war. Any justice system am aware of recognises self-

defence. For you to equate state- sanctioned murder of someone who

has already been captured and convicted with a nation seeking to

repel Nazism or combat the excesses of Slobodan Milosevic is an

argument so fatuous that it is beneath you. Michael, you were in

prison for a murder that you did not do for 11 years? I did 11 years

and 43 days because dishonest people, including people in

authority, decided to use me as a scapegoat for a crime I did not do.

Mr Flynn knows about my case. I would have been executed if you had

had your way. The Birmingham Six, the Guildford four, where does it

stop? May I answer that? The abolition of the death penalty has

cheapened the trial of murder in this country. How? Very simply. How

much more seriously do you take a trial where your verdict could send

someone to the galleon must -- the gallows if you are on a jury? The

penalty for murder in this country is now a number of years in prison,

often quite a brief number of years. That is not correct. I want to hear

from Bruce Anderson. Firstly, I find the parents of the murdered

boy profoundly moving, but you can't determine the criminal law.

About 1000 years ago, it was decided in England that crime was

not an offence against the victim, it was an offence against the

king's piece. I don't think you should be entitled to demand a

reprieve for your son's killers any more than you should be entitled to

demand the death penalty. If we end a few of the worse murders every

year, I am sure it would not have included that, the public demand

for vengeance, which is not an unhealthy demand, would cease and

it would be more merciful to the generality of murders. Ilott of

boys of 20 now are being sentenced Either they commit more crimes or

there's something wrong with the American system of justice. It is

not an analogy here. The fact is that our system is a much more

civilised on, I think. Is it more civilised? When you look at the

victims of wrongful convictions, what you see is the same kind of

demographic. Working-class people, ethnic minorities. I want to say

one final thing to this, you talk about short prison sentences, but

prisoners to maintain innocence in this country may never get out. We

do not officially have a life without parole, but the cases that

we work on our people who are given a ten-year tariff, they are still

in prison after 40 years because they will not admit to a crime they

said they did not do. You say that you care about innocent people in

prison, but what do you do? You have to be alive to the reality of

the numbers of innocent people in prison before you can do anything

about it. You are heartless and you are immoral. I make no personal

point of view, and I think he should do the same for me. You

should accept that my views... do not accept that his motives are

good? He is saying what he knows he has to save. He does not believe it,

because he is not prepared to do anything about it. You cannot say

you care about the innocent but then say you want the death penalty,

the two things do not fit together. You have little idea what I think

and have not read my book on the subject, so you are shooting off

arose in the dark against what I think. Don't do it, I am addressing

what you save. The simple point as this. Since the death penalty was

abolished, the amount of violence capable of killing people in this

country has increased enormously. The only reason our murder rate is

not immensely high is because at the same time, the quality of

medical treatment, particularly of trauma surgery, has increased

immensely. The number of attempted murders and assaults with intent to

kill his enormous each year. If we did not have superb trauma

treatment, our murder rate would appear at the level of the United

States. In the audience, you, sir, in the blazer. A surely the problem

with the death penalty, we have talked about practical problems but

not the moral question. Do we think that people who commit terrible

crimes should be punished? If we do, don't we think that murder is a

peculiarly terrible crime and should be punished in a particular

way? It seems that the idea that people are responsible for what

they do has disappeared and it has been replaced by the idea that

criminals are victims themselves. That is why we do not have the

death penalty and criminals are treated so soft in the first place.

I confess to being a total as a first, in the De's words Parma but

the death penalty is not justice but revenge. -- In Peter's words.

We should not have to resort to something that a criminal would do

in order to stop a criminal. don't we do more about why they do

these things? Why don't we deal with that and talk more about that?

Why they killed my son, rather than after. Did those boys say why they

killed Chris. They were high on drink and drugs. Is it worth

spending time to work out why Anders Breivik did it or not? Is it

worth the time? He is a very sick man and needs help. He is a very

sick man. He was playing games. He said that he played video games and

taught himself how to do this. What does that say about our six society,

about games? The boys that killed my son said that. They said that to

the QC in court. We were playing games. Bruce Anderson. I find the

smug expression on Breivik's face intolerable. I would like to

adjusted with 100 lashes for a few goes on the waterboard. There is an

argument for sentencing him to death and keeping him alive for the

psychiatrists and people to examine and come to the conclusions. What

if, Mark Mullins, somewhere down the line he turns around and says,

do you know what, I have tried to talk your language, what if he says,

I have got all this wrong, Christ is the answer? You are cutting off

that possibility. No, well, first of all, I'm glad we recognise is

not a Christian. Some people have said he is a fundamental. Do not

hold out hope that he will find God? It is amazing how the debt and

of the concentrates the mind. are not answering my question.

is his time to repent. If you leave it, the sentence is prolonged and

people harden their hearts against the consequences. Many people

convert in prison. Somebody who knows they will face the death

penalty has an opportunity to repent, and many take it. They

deserve what they get, but they go to heaven at the end because they

repent. They repent of their sins and trust in Christ, and that is

far more important. He cannot have a view on the death penalty and

less to have read Peter's book, astonishing! -- unless you have

read. The Christian faith in which I am raising my children is

represented by these people, not by you. From the Islamic Party of

Britain, the support the death penalty? Yes, I do. For what?

the right reasons. It should be down to the families to decide. As

I mentioned earlier, the Ten Commandments have been overtaken by

rules and regulations that have failed as. It should not be

eliminated. It should be allowed. I remember the Moors murderers, and I

met people who have lived with that. Likewise, year. Absolutely awful.

But they would not have found out why the body was buried had she not

been kept alive. There was information that came later, was it

there? There was, but the fact that Myra Hindley, Lord Longford was

wanting her released. Do you think Breivik should die? I think so, yes.

If one of the 7/7 bombers had been caught, should he have been put to

death? Yes, but we know that 9/11 and 7/7 were not done by... O, I

see! We know that, do we? I cannot argue with the man with the crystal

ball, I am terribly sorry. We go around the country, two schools and

youth clubs, and we work with a lot of young people. We teach the Judd

to put down their knife, put down the gun and stop revenge. One we

are talking about his revenge. are we teaching our young children

out there? We are talking about justice. No, sir, justice is about

government... Should he be dead? This man should not be dead, no.

would have been dead! If it was down to the victim's family, they

wanted me dead! As soon as you are convicted... Address him on that.

You can never justify the death penalty. We are supposed to live in

a civilised society. I can justify it. You cannot justify it! What

about the youngsters of today? What kind of message is that sending? It

is OK to kill kill the Pope if you are in government? We are the

government, you killed him, I am going to kill you. -- it is OK to

kill him guilty folk. The one caricaturing me. You cannot justify

the death penalty, innocent people have already been murdered.

should try... Or Ray Gilbert has done 30 years, and is still trying

to clear his name. He has had his latest appeal turned down. There

are people in prison who have done these crimes. Oh, of course. I know

a few of them. Michael! There are guilty people in society who

escaped justice because innocent people are serving their sentences.

Last word! We do not live in a perfect society. You cannot make an

emotional case, citing again and again the horrible things which

happen to people who are murdered. I could do that, but I'm not,

because I think there is a rational case for the death are the which

you need to consider. No, there is not. The last word. Is this

emotional? It is not emotional. I needed answers. We both needed

answers. Do you respect people who do not take your course, who say,

actually, I would like the person who killed my little Bill... I feel

terribly sad for them. I understand where they are coming from, I have

been there, but I have chosen to move on, and there are many like as

though know that now and are moving on. We want to help other people.

This takes time. Meeting the boys who killed our son was part of that.

It was part of getting the answers. The process goes on. It is one more

thing, everyone keeps quoting the Old Testament. Gandhi said, if we

start looking for an eye for eye, three-quarters of the world would

be blind. Thank you very much for your contributions. If you would

like to have your say about that debate, go to the website. We are

also debating live from the Ashton Park School in Bristol, is there

something rotten at the heart of British politics? And should have

and kosher meat be labelled? Tell us what to think about those topics,

send us your ideas for future debates for any general comments

Toulouse one Cabinet minister, Mr Cameron, may be regarded as a

misfortune. To lose two may be regarded as carelessness. What

would Oscar Wilde have made of the relationship between Jeremy Hunt

and Adam Smith? Who said what to whom has all the makings of a long-

running Whitehall farce. Is there something rotten at the heart of

British politics? James O'Brien, where did it all go wrong? What is

at fault? It is sanction, the idea that when you are caught out with

your fingers in the till or wherever else it may be, in bed

with Rupert Murdoch, metaphorically speaking, you can wriggle your way

out, get out of trouble. It is not confined to the Conservative Party.

Peter Mandelson could give Jeremy Hunt a master class in evading

responsibility. I'm afraid, if you behave like schoolchildren, you

need to be treated like schoolchildren, and you need a

strict set of guidelines which is enforced independently from above,

not in the Prime Minister's gift, because he is passing the buck out

of sheer terror that he will be next in the firing line, and not

out of a politically appointed person. It needs to be an

independent Inquirer who can impose what is already there, a fairly

robust ministerial code which is apparently treated with contempt by

any politician even close to power. First of all, the government wanted

Jeremy Hunt to be cross-examined as quickly as possible by Robert Jay...

You are not supposed to choose who does it! He is a formidable cross

examiner. Can I take you out of the particular and taking to the

general a little bit before we focus in, Bruce? Never has the

public been so disillusioned with the political process. I have a

quote here, in our political system, too much power is concentrated in

the hands of the elite and denied to the man and woman on the street.

We have been seen the symptoms of that for years, decisions made

behind closed doors. Our politics is broken. First of all, who said

that? It is obviously a trick question, probably David Cameron.

Absolutely right! Is he right? I think he was not right. We have a

very robust democracy in this country, a democratic temperament,

we have newspapers who neither fear nor favour, who scrutinise

inexhaustibly. I think we also have... We have newspapers who

neither fear nor favour? Newspapers who do not favour them? We have

newspapers who actually are prepared to scrutinise any

government of any party. No government has had an easy ride

from the press for years. Secondly, most MPs are decent people, and

that is true of all parties. They work hard, they came to public

service with high motives. Certainly, mistakes have been made,

but if David Cameron had a devil's bargain with Rupert Murdoch, why on

earth was Vince Cable initially in charge of this? It was only an

accident that threw it on Jeremy Hunt. Now, Jeremy Hunt told me at

the time, I asked him what was going on, I was not expecting an

answer and I did not get one. Be said, he is taking the role very

seriously. Did he say, this is a trick question! I imagine he will

emerge with his reputation unsullied. If things are so

wonderful, why is it in the Bradford by-election a fringe

candidate got 56% of the vote? Why is it that we hear that it is

possible to buy access to the Prime Minister? Access to the Prime

Minister, we know through Mrs Thatcher and John Major and Tony

Blair and Gordon Brown at David Cameron, they dropped everything to

see Rupert Murdoch at his best. Why can't that be the case for the

We know why Rupert Murdoch can see the Prime Minister, because he

owned several newspapers. The Sun in particular does what he tells

them. By the way, Rupert Murdoch at one stage also seemed to be above

the law. He now knows different. I do not think there will be another

newspaper proprietor like Rupert Murdoch in the next century. He has

paid the price for his behaviour. So David Cameron opens his door to

the newspaper proprietors who are in charge of the newspapers that

neither fear nor favour any politician? That is ridiculous.

Either they do favour politicians, which is why Rupert Murdoch sees

them, or they don't. It is a journalist's job to push the

envelope, we can't blame them. It is a politician's job to say no, I

don't want to come to your party or have a ride on the horse that you

borrowed. If you don't want to holiday on their yacht, does that

mean there is no such thing as a free launch?! I am wary of the idea

that we live in the best possible world with all these nice

politicians who only ever make mistakes. Forgive me for being

cynical, but haven't we got to the point where it is clear that the

vested interests, be they lobby groups or the established parties,

have been so long in this little dance with each other that we need

something new and fit for purpose? We need to get beyond the point

where these guys deign to say, I would consider resigning. This

might amuse you. We asked a lot of lobbyists to come on, and none were

particularly keen. One of them said, get real. Lobbyists were denounced

by David Cameron two years ago. He said, this is the next major

scandal. And he is right. This to until then had not finished. David

Cameron has refused to use the ministerial code. It was used only

once under the last government against Shahid Malik, and he was

found not guilty. It should have been used in the Adam Werritty and

Liam Fox case, and should also have been used against Eric Pickles.

finish your point. We must surely deserve as a society a system that

enshrined in law that these deals are not going on behind closed

doors. I will reveal my sources is not enough. I might resign is not

enough. It should be a criminal offence to have that level of venal

complicity. There is no venal complicity. But we are talking

about the entire culture. Peter, is it rotten? Yes, it is rotten at the

heart for his simple reason. Political parties have long ago

departed from having anything to do with what most people think. It

happened mainly during the 1960s. We have developed in this country a

political elite which is almost entirely disconnected from the

concerns, fears and worries of most people. And that a leak is only

sustained because the political parties are twin corpses with

vigour mortis propping each other up. If one fell, the other would

fall. But they probably each other up in this farce of five-year

elections in which millions don't participate and others vote because

they can't think of anything better to do. And they can't vote for one

of the others because of many of the rules and a huge preponderance

of millionaires contributing prevent any outsiders coming into

our political system. You have to be immensely rich to run a

political campaign, and you would then have to go to the BBC and say,

when the election comes up, even though I did not exist at the last

election, you have to give me coverage. Under broadcasting rules,

they will not. You have to change the rules and exclude the dodgy

millionaires. Under those circumstances, we might develop

political parties which actually represent my point of view and your

point of view, both of which at the moment are not represented. People

should stop voting the parties which despise them. At the moment,

the main issue for the people of Bradford West was to bring our

troops home from Afghanistan. People are dying in a war which

virtually nobody believes in any more. We can't even debate it in

the House of Commons. I have been trying for eight weeks to vote on

this subject. There is a dislocation. We have great strength

in our democracy, though, and we should not throw it out. You have

looked at democracies all over the world. What do we have to

celebrate? We need a bit of perspective. The British system is

one of the healthiest democracies in the world. Things like the

Leveson inquiry proved that, the fact that every day, you can switch

on your TV and see people being questioned. Unlike Russia? They

would never have the Leveson inquiry in Russia. How about

France? It is debatable. They did not have it in Greece. It is

unthinkable here that we could get to a situation where we would find

that corruption is endemic, the country was bankrupt and the social

order would then break down. Are we a beacon of excellence? We are in a

worse position than two years ago. Other countries are learning from

us. Of course, it is not perfect. Politics is a messy business. There

are many demands on politicians. Two years ago, we had a nightmare

over the expenses scandal. Most people thought this was rock bottom.

But we are now subterranean. Peter is getting frustrated. A load of

sycophancy is the last thing we need. You are constantly telling us

what a wonderful man this ghastly creature is, Cameron. It is a dirty

job, someone has to do it, but in this country almost everything is

broken. The schools don't educate, the police don't tackle crime, the

streets are disorderly, the transport system doesn't work. We

don't make or export anything substantial. We are increasingly

declining in national status and in our economy. Almost nothing which

any of us actually has to use, apart from very rich people in

London, almost nothing works. me tell you one thing which is

fantastic. To sit there smugly and say we are one of the best

democracies in the world can only be said by a member of an out-of-

touch elite. There is one fantastic thing in this country. We are

having this debate. It is being had at the Leveson inquiry and in

Parliament. This is not the case in other countries. When we had the

expenses scandal, it revealed that a lot of individuals had been

crossing the line and have brought the reputation of Parliament into

disrepute. But at the same time, with an address that. We introduced

new institutions and a new cohort of MPs came in. There will always

be problems with politics, but we need to learn. Some of the things

that have been most wrong in Britain have been education and

welfare. Our school system was failing. Our welfare system

encouraged illness. This Government has brought about the biggest

education reform since 1944 and the biggest welfare reform since

Beveridge. Two massive bills that will influence this country for the

years to come. Let me come to the audience. Good morning. Firstly,

you can win a political campaign without loads of money, because we

did it in Brighton last year. When I was canvassing, I came across

young people being incredibly turned off politics. They said, I

don't think I will bother voting. Clearly, there is something wrong

with the way it is being done at the moment, if young people do not

want to engage. We all accept that people are getting disengaged from

politics and have been for a long time, especially the younger

generation. Everyone is looking for who is responsible. We have got

media inquiries and politicians blaming the media. What about the

electorate? We have a responsibility ourselves. In this

country, we get the press we deserve, the leaders we deserve. If

we don't like it, it is time this country stood up and started doing

more about it. Last year, as a mama four who knows little about

politics and had little interest, I decide to stand in my local council.

I did not get in, but got quite a number of votes, which I was

pleased about. It was such an experience. But I agree that we

have to educate our children about how important it is to voice their

needs. Don't grumble about anything. Politics is about them. It should

be, and it would be great if the people in government reflected

society as a whole, not white middle-class men and very few women

and ethnic minorities. White middle-class men are part of

society, aren't you? I have grown a beard to defy the stereotype. But

there is some common ground which will accommodate almost everybody

except Bruce. And the common ground is that the institutions are indeed

sound. The mechanisms we have in place in this country are the envy

of the free world. But the people populating those institutions are

now increasingly pygmies. Paul has mentioned his age today. Forgive me,

but you mark the end of an era. The people of my generation, I am 40,

are doing so because they could not get a job in a more glamourous

career. George Osborne fell to get her on the Times as a trainee.

Boris Johnson got the elbow from another graduate training scheme on

newspapers. They went into politics because it was the only avenue left

open to them that fits their image of themselves. Bruce, you think

that MPs don't get paid enough? think they should be paid �100,000

a year. So that you get better candidates? I agree. Some MPs are

no doubt paid too much. But the hard-working ones are paid far too

little. Politics is not a career. people need to make a living.

People should not be allowed to go into politics until they have done

something and had some experience. People have been special advisers

and not been sacked by their ministers. We will have to conclude

this, but Paul Flynn, I give you the last word. If all the MPs have

prayed and meant it at the beginning of each day, that might

improve things. Are you allowed to pray? We do pray at the start of

each day. The most trenchant comment was made by an octogenarian

last week, he talked about the posh boy sacking his servant. But the

prayer we say, which would be a great model if everyone believed it

in the House of Commons, may we never lead the nation wrongly

through love of power, desire to please awkwardly ideals, but laying

aside or private interests or prejudices, keep in mind the

responsibility to seek, to improve the condition of all humankind.

Empty benches at prayer time, unfortunately, but will Jeremy Hunt

last the week? No. Thank you all very much. You can continue that

discussion online. Send us your views about the last big question:

should halal and kosher meat be labelled? Silence on the front

benches, please. If you would like to be in the audience at a future

show, you can e-mail us. Next week, a pre-recorded special from Bristol

will be on, debating just one big question: is religion good for

children? We will be back live from Northolt in west London on May 30th

and recording a special edition on cults over there in the afternoon.

And the last show of the series will come from Glasgow on June 3rd.

This week, the House of Commons narrowly voted against the

compulsory labelling of ritually slaughtered meat, but the campaign

to get halal and kosher meat clearly labelled and supermarkets

and restaurants continues both here and on the other side of the

Channel. It was a big issue in the French election, thanks to

President Sarkozy. Is this a concern for animal welfare or

reform of anti-Islamic or anti- Semitic prejudice? Should halal and

kosher meat be labelled? You have a real problem with this, Alistair

Kirk from the Barnabas fund. You think a lot of Christians would

have a problem eating a bit of chicken or whatever which has had a

We are not opposed to religious groups having access to food which

has been prepared in accordance with their requirements. Tell me

about the blessing point. There are many reasons why people might be

concerned about religiously slaughtered meat, but particularly

halal, the cars over the past few years there is an instruction --

because over the past three years there has been an introduction of

halal and many Christians are concerned about the Islamic

blessing as the meat is prepared, facing Mecca, which is in fact

Sharia compliance. The compliance is always through the entire

process. If you say grace, does that not kind of...? Well,

absolutely, but many Christians are concerned about that. The blessing?

Yes, about the actual blessing. is just a bit of chicken at the end

of the day, isn't it? Well, I love chicken, but I do not needed to be

in compliance with Sharia. We just want it to be labelled. We want

there to be a choice so that people know, so that the Christian and, in

fact, many other groups as well, including six, who are

discriminated against in his area, can make an informed decision and

that there is also a choice, that it should be labelled. In halal,

they say the animal is made sure it has a good life and also a good

death. Also, should you not be more concerned perhaps with intensive

farming and factory farming issues than you are with the prayer that

is said at the time of death? there are many reasons, and the

prayer is just one. I know that there will be represented views

here of the animal welfare. I should also point out that the

issue is not quite the same with kosher, which is already adequately

labelled, and there is not quite the pressure for it to go into the

mainstream. Let's move it on. concern is that people need to know

where their money is going, and not many people may realise that a

proportion of the cost of the food does contribute towards halal

certification, and there are examples of those organisations

also been involved in other Islamic activities. People deserve the

right to know. Let's get his going, does this matter? In the great

scheme of things, I'm not sure I understand your argument. I respect

your sensitivities, but if I am a Christian poet halal chicken, are

my religious bits being trumped? Am I injuring my spiritual welfare?

That is a personal decision. What is yours? Am I? Look, with...

you believe all other religions are wrong... It is a conscience issue.

It is the right to know. This is about transparency. What should I

be worried about? We have labelling for absolutely everything else.

What are my risking by eating halal food? Can I answer that? In first

Corinthians, the reason we are advised not to eat labelled food is

that it might give the appearance to some, although I would say

Christians, some might think that I am in some way giving some credit

to the Muslim God, who has originally blessed this food.

not the same God? The God of the Bible and the Muslim God has no son.

Jesus Christ is the son of God. Actually, James, I agree with you.

For that reason, we do not have to, but welfare concerns may dictate

that we should, because some people may have objections. You are not

really answering my question. question is, will it endanger my

soul? What you are risking, if, in your heart, you have no issue about

it, you do not risk anything, but you may cause somebody else, a

weaker brother, to think that by you eating halal food, you are in

some way endorsing the Islamic God in his name it was killed? That is

the reason. David, what about the Islamic position? Should this be

labelled? Yes, it should, for the very good reason that if you see

the technical superiority of what happens when you slaughter an

animal according to either Jewish law or Islamic law, as compared

with stunning, and this was done in Germany, then you can see the

superiority. Let's Labour-led to show which animals suffered pain. -

- the label it. The culture and Islamic way shows that the animal

suffers no pain. Stunning happens in 80% of Islamic meat. Then it

cannot be halal. There has been a compromise, just before death, 80%

of halal has been stunned. You have endured the animal and inflicted

pain. So 80% of halal meat is not halal? So you are a purist. No, I

am correct. I have been a butcher, and it is a compromise. So it is

sold under false pretences? Absolutely. Is it cruel, cutting

the track here like that? The vet Mary profession's concern, we are

very focused on animal welfare. -- veterinary. Legislation requires

that animals be stunned before slaughter, which renders them

immediately unconscious, and then the unpleasant things that happen

afterwards happens to an animal that is insensible and incapable of

feeling that. What we support, other than stunning, is for food to

be labelled not necessarily according to whether it is halal or

kosher... We wanted to be labelled as to whether it is done or not,

because that is important because of the welfare risk that people are

increasingly concerned about. More and more people are concerned with

the welfare of animals, and, yes, if we look at the science, there

are at least three welfare risks. One is the delay to unconsciousness,

with the ritual slaughter. Because of that delay, it allows pain to be

felt, and there is scientific evidence to support that. He is a

vet. We have already done the trials, and we know from EEG and

ECG that animals do not feel the pain. Aside from the pain, which

was going to be my third point, animals slaughtered in this way

also as break some of their own blood, and that happens to a high

percentage. -- aspirate. If you can imagine water going down the wrong

way, there are two parts of the respiratory tract which are very

sensitive to that. That is associated with some of the pain

that you get in certain respiratory infections. Stunning is the best

way? I do not know who has witnessed it, but it is remarkable.

It is a technology that is now available to us where a very large

beast, a cow, if you like, is touched on the forehead, in the

case of Captain Bold stunning, and it is like blown a candle out. It

is like switching off a light. They drop to the ground, instantly

insensible, and any argument about future pain, it is a humane death,

it is wrong. Rabbi. There have been two points discussed here. On the

cruelty point. On the cruelty point, one of the things we know about the

meat industry is that it is an industry, there is a lot of

pressure to make sure that it is run efficiently. The efficient

running of a slaughter house... kosher slaughter crawl?

efficient running of a slaughterhouse is not necessarily

in the best welfare of the animal. If you're trying to process many

animals under pressure of time, you are trying to get as many through

as possible, so inevitably there are problems. About 9% of animals

are badly stunned, so they have to be shot twice. The gassing of

animals, pigs are cast, 16% of them are not being gassed properly, and

they are suffering pain. So that a man's in total to approximately 3

million animals every year. -- amounts. The total amount of

animals which have kosher slaughter every year is 90,000. I think Shaun

should be more concerned about 3 million animals being badly stunned

or shot twice than 90,000 being slaughtered in kosher. There are

two ones that I'm keen to make. The religious texts which prescribe how

meat should be made available for the halal and kosher market, my

colleagues were correct me if I am wrong, but originally they are to

convey a sense of moral respect for animals. They were public health

and public safety benefits as well, but originally making a prayer or

saying a prayer at the time of death conveyed a sense of moral

respect. What has happened since those texts were written is that

science has advanced and technology has advanced, which allows us to

interpret those texts, hopefully that matter of they did not have

stunning back then. I would like to address that as well. Sorry, but

the in the issue, the issue is that the main lobby is the cartridge

manufacturers. This is a massive industry. Always look for the

earner, that is where you have to be looking. You think some of the

opposition is Islamophobia? course, it always has been. The

point is... The British Veterinary Association are not Islamophobic.

They should not be, but I have written for many years, and my

cousin was an inspector with the RSPCA, and they will not listen.

There is a very powerful lobby. would go to the audience. Everyone

should have a right to know what they are eating. People should have

the right to know, but if it causes allergies and things like that, but

it is just going to cause more racism and alienate the Muslim and

Christian relationship. You wanted to come in, didn't you? I think we

are missing the point. A lot of people right now in South Africa

are starving. Do you really think they care whether it is labelled or

not? You know? There are bigger issues here. This is a trivial

debate on this particular issue! People are dying in South Africa,

right? Why? Because they have got no prude! If you tell them they

cannot eat chicken because it has not been labelled or blessed or in

a certain weight, the first thing they will do is eat it. That is

more important than labelling. There is another point here that

people who are cruel to animals often go on to be cruel to people.

I take that point. A society that is not concerned about cruelty to

animals is a society that the cruel to animals, so that is why it is

worth discussing. Bruce. It does occur to me that it is not about

cruelty, halal and kosher, it is about religious tradition, and if

people want to keep up their tradition, I think they should be

allowed to. I see no harm in labelling, I do not see what the

problem is. We are very sensitive to Islamophobia. People may

complain about the matter of halal killing, but that does not mean

they are Islamophobic. President Sarkozy's motivations are extremely

questionable with one week to go before the election. There is a

disproportionate focus on labelling a certain kind of meat, so an

assumption that if it is being slaughtered in a kosher way, but

that is cruel to animals. There is no evidence to demonstrate that,

and leading scientists say that the experiments they have done show

that the animal when the throat has been cut does not react at all.

What is the scientific consensus? We could debate this... We are

doing the same tests under his jurisdiction. What is the

consensus? We are relying heavily on the behavioural and prey

measures. We have made very good use of BG, which give us a measure

of brain activity linked to pain, and we can look at the pathology of

the respiratory tract. But if we talk about it from the point of

view of consensus, this is a view shared by not only the British

Veterinary Association, the Federation of veterinarians of

Europe, representing 38 countries, the project which looked at 200

scientific references. A lot of people. The EU scientific panel on

animal welfare, the Farm Animal all welfare committee, which advises

the British government. We have all reached the same consensus. We have

overlooked the drive that Bruce mentioned, the Sarkozy business,

there is Islamophobia intrinsic to that. The Islamophobia is born of

the English Defence League and the far right rhetoric which says that

Muslims are trying to take over the world, creeping Sharia is the

phrase that they use. They are forcing us to eat their food, that

is part of the language and vocabulary of hate, and to bring us

back to where we began this morning, back to Anders Breivik in a

Norwegian courtroom, Voltaire said that those who can convince us of

absurdities will also convinces to commit atrocities. That is why the

Islamophobia angle is important. Last word, 20 seconds. The halal

Food Authority, the certifying body, a Muslim organisation, also