:00:27. > :00:33.Good morning and welcome to The Big Questions. We're live from Jack
:00:33. > :00:35.Hunt School in Peterborough and I'm Nicky Campbell. Yesterday,
:00:36. > :00:40.revellers took over London's Trafalgar Square to celebrate the
:00:40. > :00:45.death of Baroness Thatcher. Our first Big Question: Is it ever
:00:46. > :00:47.right to celebrate someone's death? Professor Chris Knight, who dressed
:00:47. > :00:50.as an undertaker at yesterday's demonstration, says it is
:00:50. > :00:56.everyone's right to show how they felt about the former Prime
:00:56. > :00:59.Minister and her policies. Later this month, there is to be another
:00:59. > :01:01.protest - this time against plans to move Britain's fleet of unmanned
:01:02. > :01:05.aerial vehicles, or drones, to RAF Waddington from their current base
:01:05. > :01:15.in Nevada. Our next Big Question: Are drones an unethical step in
:01:15. > :01:16.
:01:16. > :01:18.warfare? Tonight, millions may tune in to the latest reality television
:01:18. > :01:20.show about gypsies. But, in the real world, people have been
:01:20. > :01:22.distinctly less enthusiastic about living next door to gypsy and
:01:22. > :01:32.traveller sites. Our last Big Question: Is opposition to gypsies
:01:32. > :01:36.
:01:36. > :01:38.racist? Welcome everybody to The Lady Thatcher never minded being a
:01:38. > :01:42.divisive politician in life. She saw it as an inevitable consequence
:01:42. > :01:45.of radical policies. And, in the many hours and pages of media
:01:45. > :01:52.coverage since her death, those who disagreed with her have rightly had
:01:52. > :01:55.their say. But some have taken dissent to a very different level,
:01:55. > :02:00.with street parties and a social media campaign to propel the song,
:02:00. > :02:07.Ding Dong the Witch is Dead to the top of the charts. Is it ever right
:02:07. > :02:14.to celebrate someone's death? Professor Chris Knight commit you
:02:14. > :02:23.can take your hat off, if you like. What were you celebrating? Why
:02:23. > :02:31.search jury? We were celebrating the death of a blood-sucking
:02:31. > :02:38.vampire. Those creatures are very difficult to kill. As far as
:02:38. > :02:42.millions of people - hard-working people - who had been thrown on to
:02:42. > :02:48.benefits, communities had been destroyed, this was an occasion to
:02:48. > :02:53.be celebrated. This event being planned for Wednesday, it is not a
:02:53. > :02:58.family funeral - this is the British ruling class, the great and
:02:58. > :03:06.the good, commemorating their victory over the miners and all of
:03:06. > :03:12.us and celebrating Thatcher's introduction of casino capitalism.
:03:12. > :03:17.Welfare for bankers. From which we are still suffering. You say she
:03:17. > :03:24.lacked compassion and humanity. I have heard all these arguments.
:03:24. > :03:27.is filled with hate. Aren't you filled with hate right now? She was
:03:27. > :03:36.filled with hatred. We are rejoicing that she has gone. The
:03:36. > :03:41.world as a better place without these people. -- is a better place.
:03:41. > :03:49.Have I would suggest you have become the thing you hate, by
:03:49. > :03:54.directing all that anger at her. That is very sad. I think the class
:03:54. > :04:02.divisions in society are regrettable. Margaret Thatcher was
:04:02. > :04:10.a politician. She was also an 87- year-old lady - a wife and mother.
:04:10. > :04:15.Human beings deserve dignity and respect. Sometimes in life, there
:04:15. > :04:22.are deaths worth celebrating. If this were 1945 and I heard Hitler
:04:22. > :04:28.had died, I would crack open a bottle of champagne. Margaret
:04:28. > :04:33.Thatcher privatised BT. He must be able to see There is a moral
:04:34. > :04:40.distinction. She was lucky she was able to live to 87. 700 young men
:04:40. > :04:46.involved in the war that she provoked... She did not provoke it.
:04:46. > :04:53.She was a warmonger. How did you feel when the IRA tried to kill
:04:53. > :05:00.her? War is war. She was waging war against the Irish. If you wage war,
:05:01. > :05:07.you have to expect that war will be waved back. I went to this court in
:05:07. > :05:12.the early 70s to the mid-70s and I can tell you things were pretty
:05:12. > :05:17.grim. -- I went to school. There were strikes and cancer patients
:05:17. > :05:23.could not be treated. Mrs Thatcher did not make people redundant. It
:05:23. > :05:31.was the undemocratic unions that had to be taken control of. We have
:05:31. > :05:35.week about her legacy and we will continue to hear them. Let's get to
:05:35. > :05:41.the issue of the morality of celebrating someone's death. Not
:05:41. > :05:44.just celebrating someone's death in the way that Dr Alan Billings of
:05:45. > :05:50.marking someone's death but revelling in it. You are the Deputy
:05:50. > :05:56.Leader of Sheffield Council. You hold no candle to Mrs Thatcher for
:05:56. > :06:00.her politics but, as a Christian, how you react to revellers? As a
:06:00. > :06:05.Christian and former politician, what they were doing was
:06:05. > :06:09.distasteful and disrespectful. That was the whole point of it. That is
:06:09. > :06:16.how they are going to make themselves known. My objection is
:06:16. > :06:20.that it is naive - it is gesture politics. All through the Thatcher
:06:20. > :06:24.period at Sheffield Council, we were faced with opposition from hat
:06:24. > :06:34.and the Government and from people on the extreme left. This was a
:06:34. > :06:34.
:06:34. > :16:12.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 577 seconds
:16:12. > :16:17.time of militants in the Labour through, everybody took their. You
:16:17. > :16:23.could have paid their guts, whatever, but as a mark of respect,
:16:23. > :16:27.everybody stopped on the street and took their. There is something in
:16:27. > :16:31.the Bible, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. We should
:16:31. > :16:36.leave her legacy to history. I know what I think of her, but that is
:16:36. > :16:42.irrelevant. The time we are now, people should at least doff their
:16:42. > :16:49.cap, even if they hated her, out of respect, because when you go, I like
:16:49. > :16:58.to think we would. Our cap for anybody else. But we did not respect
:16:58. > :17:01.her when she was alive. People celebrated when Saddam Hussein
:17:01. > :17:05.died, people celebrated when other... Venezuelans in Florida
:17:05. > :17:10.celebrated when Hugo Chavez died. You know, what do you think about
:17:10. > :17:19.the celebrations about this? Do not think it is a bit distasteful? Tell
:17:19. > :17:24.a we should not be hypocritical. think it is just a spectacle on the
:17:24. > :17:30.news. You said about respect for Thatcher. The thing is, she is
:17:30. > :17:36.dead, and she did not respect us when we were dying. I do not want to
:17:36. > :17:41.dwell on the past, but I just want to say this. Personally, I could not
:17:41. > :17:45.walk the streets of London and Birmingham when Thatcher was around.
:17:45. > :17:49.We had the law of suspicion, which the police used to stop black
:17:49. > :17:56.people, I remember being stopped four Times in one night, I said to
:17:56. > :18:03.the police officer, how can we do this? He said, this is what we have
:18:03. > :18:07.been told to do by Hatcher. When the Hillsborough people died, she knew
:18:07. > :18:13.the police were lying, and she cooperated in the cover-up. We do
:18:13. > :18:16.not know that, that is an allegation. The biggest legacy, as
:18:16. > :18:23.stated by his supporters, is privatisation, it is privatisation.
:18:23. > :18:33.Now, it is not a state funeral, but it is as near as you can get. If you
:18:33. > :18:37.
:18:37. > :18:42.really want to honour her, why don't you privatise the funeral? Can use
:18:43. > :18:46.understand this anger and hatred and gloating about her death? I can
:18:46. > :18:52.understand that people do not respect Margaret Thatcher, but you
:18:52. > :18:56.still respect a human being. If you dance on somebody's grave, you are
:18:56. > :19:06.diminishing the importance of the sanctity of human life. I think that
:19:06. > :19:06.is very regrettable. People may have had lots of disagreements with
:19:06. > :19:08.Margaret Thatcher, and I hear the anger very much, but she loved power
:19:08. > :19:12.a long time ago now, nearly a quarter of a century ago, and a lot
:19:12. > :19:18.of other things have happened. shows you how much anger there was.
:19:18. > :19:25.It is bad to have this anger still with people. Above all, the sanctity
:19:25. > :19:33.of human life means we should respect everybody who dies. What
:19:33. > :19:36.about initiate? What about Jimmy Savile? I was deputy leader of
:19:36. > :19:41.Sheffield City Council throughout this period, including the miners'
:19:41. > :19:45.strike, I was an inner-city priest, for a working class, mining
:19:45. > :19:51.community, and I saw the division and visceral hatred that was created
:19:52. > :19:58.at that time, and I regretted it, I did -- it's did terrible things, the
:19:58. > :20:07.legacy of that is still there. In my congregation, the policeman, the
:20:07. > :20:08.striking miner, the nonstriking miner, the pit deputy, and the anger
:20:08. > :20:11.that was generated at that time continues to this day. Families are
:20:11. > :20:16.still divided, the legacy will be there for a very long time. I
:20:16. > :20:26.disagree with those who say we are just blaming Mrs Thatcher for the
:20:26. > :20:27.
:20:27. > :20:31.ills of coal. I recognise that international is meant that many
:20:31. > :20:37.heavy industries were going to be devastated, that was happening. --
:20:37. > :20:47.international is. It was not the fact that there had to be
:20:47. > :20:51.
:20:51. > :20:55.restructuring of the unions. It does not justify dancing on grades, but I
:20:55. > :20:59.can understand the anger. I think if you have such a funeral, which is
:20:59. > :21:04.over the top by anybody's calculation, I would have thought,
:21:04. > :21:10.that really does rub it in the noses of people who are suffering. Nadine
:21:10. > :21:16.Dorries, she was a champion of freedom according to President
:21:16. > :21:20.Obama. Let me finish my sentence and pose my question, if I may,
:21:20. > :21:24.formulate my thoughts! She fought for the freedom of people in Eastern
:21:24. > :21:30.Europe to protest, that is all they are doing, following what she wanted
:21:30. > :21:32.for people across the world. That is absolutely right, and what they
:21:33. > :21:42.should probably do is respect the fact that she fought for your
:21:42. > :21:51.ability to protest. Tell that to the people in Chile! She was a close
:21:51. > :21:57.friend of General Pinochet. He was a torture and murder. Actually, what
:21:57. > :22:01.we should be talking about... taste in friends, like General
:22:01. > :22:11.initiate and Jimmy Savile! Bernard Ingham, the man referred to as has
:22:11. > :22:13.
:22:13. > :22:13.Ben Doctor, he said she was indifferent to criticism. -- Ben
:22:14. > :22:23.Doctor. Yes, what she would say is that they were only having their
:22:24. > :22:24.
:22:24. > :22:28.say, exercising freedom of speech. Freedom of speech was not given to
:22:28. > :22:37.us by Margaret Thatcher. Working-class people have fought
:22:37. > :22:39.over the centuries to get those rights. She gave my family... We
:22:39. > :22:49.were not given the welfare state. We fought, in our unions, over the
:22:49. > :22:53.years, to get those rights. We got the vote by campaigning for the
:22:53. > :22:59.right to vote. We celebrated those workers in the opening of the
:22:59. > :23:07.Olympic Games. Those workers build our country. We fought for the
:23:07. > :23:17.welfare state. Tim Stanley, from a religious point of view. We were
:23:17. > :23:18.
:23:18. > :23:27.called the enemy within, I am not the enemy within. What is very
:23:27. > :23:31.troubling is the lack of empathy. I understand the pain. People who, for
:23:31. > :23:35.example, whose children were not buried in the winter of discontent,
:23:35. > :23:42.they were glad to see union power broken. But a lack of empathy for
:23:42. > :23:49.the family of a woman who has died. No-one can deny that she was a
:23:49. > :23:57.divisive figure. I feel enormous pain for the people who are left
:23:57. > :24:04.behind. Why is there not a correlating sympathy for her?
:24:04. > :24:12.ask a question. Last word!Her daughter thinks people like me are
:24:12. > :24:20.golly walks, her son is an arms trader. That is not worthy of you,
:24:20. > :24:28.that is rubbish. She used that word. That is so not worthy of you, you
:24:28. > :24:34.are better than that. Is it not true?! Is it not true?! Do you know
:24:34. > :24:43.what? Carol Thatcher grew up in the same era as you or I did. Yes, she
:24:43. > :24:49.did say it... Thank you!She did not say it. Ladies and gentlemen, where
:24:49. > :24:52.there is then scored, we did not bring harmony! -- where there is
:24:52. > :25:00.discord. But thank you all very much for coming and taking part in
:25:00. > :25:04.Adelaide, thank you much indeed. -- taking part in that debate. If you
:25:04. > :25:10.would like to take part, follow the link to where you can join in
:25:10. > :25:15.online, or follow the discussion on Twitter. Our drones and an ethical
:25:15. > :25:25.step in warfare? And is opposition to Gypsies racist? Tell us what you
:25:25. > :25:26.think about those topics. As well as your ideas for any future debates or
:25:26. > :25:30.general comments you would like to make about the programme.
:25:30. > :25:33.For the past five years, drones have been used by the British and
:25:33. > :25:38.American air forces in Iraq and Afghanistan on surveillance missions
:25:38. > :25:44.and to deliver missiles and bombs, and the CIA has targeted sites in
:25:44. > :25:49.Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, one of which are in a state of war with the
:25:49. > :25:55.USA. Directed by pilots in Nevada or preprogrammed to fly alone, it is
:25:55. > :26:00.estimated they have killed up to 3500 people, including hundreds of
:26:00. > :26:06.civilians. Are they an ethical step in warfare? Andrew Brookes, it is
:26:06. > :26:11.said that... A former RAF commander, of course, it is said that they are
:26:11. > :26:21.more precise and therefore more ethical by those who argue in their
:26:21. > :26:30.
:26:30. > :26:30.favour. Why are so many innocent people die? The bombs that it drops,
:26:30. > :26:40.we used to fire them from a manned aeroplane. You can argue, are they
:26:40. > :26:43.
:26:43. > :26:48.is literally fired by a person like me. It can so they'll fall 16 hours,
:26:48. > :26:53.so it is better able to detect what is going on in the ground than me
:26:53. > :26:57.going past at 600 mph. But if you are going to argue, should anyone be
:26:57. > :27:01.using weapons like this to kill anyone in Mali or Yemen, that is a
:27:01. > :27:05.different thing, a moral issue that the United States has to address.
:27:05. > :27:13.Because it feels it is at war, it has every right under international
:27:13. > :27:18.law to prevent another 9/11. Article 51. So the question is, does it make
:27:18. > :27:28.it easier to wage war, so does it encourage war? We have seen this
:27:28. > :27:28.with Tony Blair, you get the impression that in the old days,
:27:28. > :27:30.going to war was the ultimate because you put your own men and
:27:30. > :27:36.women at risk. Now it is a first step, because you are not putting
:27:36. > :27:41.people at risk. Does this unmanned business make war easier? Since
:27:41. > :27:44.about 2000, there is a case for saying that, but it is not the fault
:27:44. > :27:52.of the drone. The fact that you are not putting people at danger should
:27:52. > :27:58.not be the point. It is the fact that politicians are using that.
:27:58. > :28:05.have lectured on this, can you make a moral case? Yes, I think you can.
:28:05. > :28:09.I agree with the point that has been made. There is a myth from Plato,
:28:09. > :28:14.the man who put the ring on became invisible, so he thought he could do
:28:14. > :28:18.anything he liked. There is a danger, with the drone, as Peter was
:28:18. > :28:28.saying, that it might lead people into saying that they can take steps
:28:28. > :28:33.
:28:33. > :28:33.to far. I think that, given the nature of modern warfare, it is
:28:33. > :28:33.quite different, we are not talking about conventional battlefield,
:28:33. > :28:36.people clearly defined with uniforms, a bounded area where they
:28:36. > :28:44.are doing their fighting. Much of modern warfare where is in an urban
:28:44. > :28:47.context, people who do not wear a uniform. They slip in and out of the
:28:47. > :28:51.population. The point about the drone is that it enables you to
:28:52. > :28:57.target those people in a much more, to use the awful language, in a much
:28:57. > :29:03.more smart way, so you can take out a particular building or vehicle, so
:29:03. > :29:07.it reduces casualties. But that is also on your own site, because you
:29:07. > :29:13.do not take a large number of troops into battle. It enables you to get
:29:13. > :29:18.over difficult terrain. In terms of the proportionality of the force
:29:18. > :29:22.that is used, it can mean both that you have savings on your own side
:29:22. > :29:26.and you reduce the casualties, particularly civilian casualties, on
:29:26. > :29:34.the other side. There are strong ethical arguments that can be made
:29:34. > :29:44.for drones. We have got an expert on drones on the other side of the
:29:44. > :29:56.
:29:57. > :30:05.Populations can hear them. They call them a buzzing Wasps. They are
:30:05. > :30:11.varieties of this. The ones we took about at 25,000 ft, nobody hears or
:30:12. > :30:16.seize them. It has been documented by various organisations. It has
:30:16. > :30:21.been documented in Afghanistan that multiple communities and reporting
:30:21. > :30:24.constant buzzing from the drones. They can be heard by the
:30:24. > :30:32.communities. You are not telling them who is being targeted and when
:30:32. > :30:37.the drone is going to fire. For days on end, they have a drone
:30:37. > :30:41.hovering above than and it fires on people below with no warning, no
:30:41. > :30:47.justification and no follow up as to who you have killed. We had
:30:47. > :30:50.intelligence leaks from the US last week saying that classified CIA
:30:50. > :30:58.documents are labouring people militants and foreign fighters
:30:58. > :31:02.because they do not know who they are killing. -- labelling. For me
:31:02. > :31:09.here this is based on intelligence, doesn't that ring alarm bells with
:31:10. > :31:15.you, based on previous failures? is entirely different. If you are
:31:15. > :31:19.looking at whether it is an ethical type of warfare, worries about new
:31:19. > :31:26.weapons are centuries old. When the crossbow came in, people were
:31:26. > :31:31.worried about firing in this way. It is a technical platform. If you
:31:31. > :31:38.are looking at the strategy itself, that is the question - the strategy,
:31:38. > :31:41.legality and morality of this. I would argue that absolutely it is
:31:41. > :31:51.legal and morally acceptable and it makes sense. We haven't had another
:31:51. > :31:51.
:31:51. > :31:56.attack in the West since 7/7. It happened because of excellent work,
:31:56. > :32:01.they were not thanked... The Taliban is trying to kill us and
:32:01. > :32:04.they are trying to kill our children. That is a very been
:32:04. > :32:10.appropriate thing to say. The security services get no thanks for
:32:10. > :32:14.the work they have done. The people in the CIA get no thanks for the
:32:14. > :32:19.work they have done. When you take out, in this new type of warfare,
:32:19. > :32:23.which we have to imagine as a network, there are some keynotes.
:32:23. > :32:29.It is true there have been all sorts of challenges and it is good
:32:29. > :32:37.we are having a debate about it. When the keynotes are taken out, it
:32:37. > :32:41.makes a huge difference and it works. It is legal and it is the
:32:41. > :32:46.way to go. Noel Sharkey, it works, it is effective and lessens the
:32:46. > :32:52.death toll. I guess I would share the view there is nothing immoral
:32:52. > :32:57.in a piece of equipment, it is how it is used. The next stage we are
:32:57. > :33:02.moving to with more automated drones... It let me not go with
:33:02. > :33:08.that one. If it is more precise than conventional bombing, is it
:33:08. > :33:18.not more ethical? The problem is it leads to an expansion of the battle
:33:18. > :33:18.
:33:18. > :33:23.space. There is an illusion of accuracy. A lot of the time, it is
:33:23. > :33:29.using infrared signature is, so you can see temperature inside the
:33:29. > :33:33.building and you strike that building on the basis of
:33:33. > :33:39.intelligence as we know from the Vietnam War. If you strike a
:33:40. > :33:44.building, you do not know who is inside. Even when I spoke to the
:33:44. > :33:48.CIA and played devil's advocate, I said, it is more accurate than be
:33:48. > :33:53.fitted to bomb us. He said, you do not understand, we cannot fly the
:33:53. > :34:03.bombers into countries we are not at war with. The United States has
:34:03. > :34:07.
:34:07. > :34:12.permission to strike anywhere it likes. That is absolutely incorrect.
:34:12. > :34:19.You are conflicting a whole number of issues in an emotive display
:34:19. > :34:26.which is incorrect. You're being very Calder and cynical about the
:34:26. > :34:31.deaths. Let's hear the argument. -- very cold. Being colt about the
:34:31. > :34:38.death of children does not help. It is not free to strike anywhere it
:34:38. > :34:45.wants. It is by the invitation of the Government, for example, in
:34:45. > :34:53.Yemen. The legality is absolutely sound. Secondly, the intelligence
:34:53. > :34:58.is excellent. It is true that occasion a mistakes are made.
:34:58. > :35:07.Somebody else can say, President Obama, we invite you to come and
:35:07. > :35:12.kill our citizens. We do not say that. President Obama and the CIA...
:35:12. > :35:18.Let me hear from some people in the audience. What are you going to
:35:18. > :35:24.say? I think the question is may be misguided. People have said it is
:35:24. > :35:30.just a piece of equipment. It is just a different way for us to
:35:30. > :35:34.carry out war. The ethical question is, is it ethical to go to war?
:35:34. > :35:38.have done that one before. I suppose you would argue that
:35:38. > :35:46.sometimes it is absolutely necessary. The prime job of any
:35:46. > :35:54.leader is to safeguard its people. The number one job is to protect
:35:54. > :36:01.your people. Barack Obama, George W Bush, after 9/11, the primary job
:36:01. > :36:07.is to breed a recurrence of that. They are doing it. Barack Obama,
:36:07. > :36:13.for everything he is doing, he is sending 10 times as many drones as
:36:13. > :36:18.George W Bush. When Eddie Mair says, you are a nasty piece of work, I
:36:18. > :36:23.realise the BBC is taking that seriously. President Obama is
:36:23. > :36:28.getting away with it because of who he is. He must also run certain
:36:28. > :36:36.tests of legal and moral culpability. There have been 3500
:36:36. > :36:41.drone strikes. Children have been killed. They take had areas when a
:36:41. > :36:45.strike. Innocent lives are lost as a result. The effect is that it may
:36:45. > :36:50.give the illusion of being more protected but it creates a new
:36:50. > :36:56.generation of terrorists. People living in a peaceful village who
:36:56. > :37:01.find family members murdered in the part of award they are not part of.
:37:01. > :37:07.-- a war. There is a civil, libertarian angle to this. The
:37:07. > :37:14.writer states has killed two of its own citizens. -- the United States.
:37:14. > :37:22.It is true that war is hell. It is always help. It is our moral
:37:22. > :37:29.responsibility to make it a bit less hellish. I think it is
:37:29. > :37:35.absolutely immoral to go into war in the first place. More civilians
:37:36. > :37:41.have been killed. They have been bombed by these drones. In the
:37:41. > :37:47.George Bush era, 60 drone strikes were conducted. After that in the
:37:47. > :37:53.Obama era, the champion of change, he bombed 400 drone strikes in
:37:53. > :38:01.Pakistan. He is killing civilians and it is creating anger, as you
:38:01. > :38:07.are right to saying. The thing is, it is done with the support of the
:38:07. > :38:14.Pakistani state. By allowing these drones to happen, it is creating
:38:14. > :38:19.anger in people. Elections are going on right now. If it was 60
:38:19. > :38:29.years ago, could to have taken at the Nazi leadership? If you go to
:38:29. > :38:30.
:38:30. > :38:37.Berlin now, the lift that her headquarters is still intact. It is
:38:37. > :38:43.a bank headquarters. What as a president should you do? You can
:38:43. > :38:48.either do-nothing and sit and wait for the next 9/11, send the police
:38:48. > :38:57.then but it is not that sort of terrain. If you do not want to use
:38:57. > :39:02.trains, what answer should you give? -- drones. That is the very
:39:02. > :39:09.inaccurate thing to say. Article 51 is what they are trying to use.
:39:09. > :39:13.That is from the Geneva Convention. It says you can attack another
:39:13. > :39:17.country if it is an imminent threat to your state. Some foot soldier,
:39:17. > :39:21.who has just joined Al-Qaeda because his parents were killed or
:39:21. > :39:29.some other people were killed, is he really an imminent threat the
:39:29. > :39:32.United States? Is it worth killing civilians? There is a lot of talk
:39:32. > :39:38.about children and civilians dying. This happened throughout the war.
:39:38. > :39:43.But anyone who lived in the Blitz, fire rockets and menacing London,
:39:43. > :39:48.it does not make it right. If we are going to use technology, used
:39:48. > :39:55.it to its best advantage, that it as the least effect and kills the
:39:55. > :40:00.least people. It is targeted. Mistakes do happen. This is not a
:40:00. > :40:07.new occurrence. I do not personally believe that we or the Americans
:40:07. > :40:12.are at war, we are defending our states. We saw this boy the first
:40:12. > :40:19.time - the manifestation of this - with the Gulf War for the first
:40:19. > :40:23.time. Is this not a step further on in that rather frightening
:40:23. > :40:28.progression towards be complete association with those waging war,
:40:28. > :40:32.with the effects that war is having? All changes in technology,
:40:32. > :40:36.including the technology of warfare will show up these sorts of
:40:36. > :40:42.questions. The development of the nuclear bomb is not at all targeted
:40:42. > :40:47.and precise. It wipes out millions. In terms of an argument against the
:40:47. > :40:51.weapons, that is the one that all these kinds of arguments mostly
:40:51. > :40:56.applied to. The drone is much more targeted. Something else about the
:40:56. > :41:00.drone. It does not have a human emotions. As long as your
:41:00. > :41:04.intelligence is correct and people are making the right decisions
:41:04. > :41:14.about what to attack, it will not flip in the middle of the battle
:41:14. > :41:14.
:41:15. > :41:23.like the massacres in Vietnam where soldiers massacred an entire
:41:23. > :41:29.village. We are trying to stand back and have the kind of debate
:41:29. > :41:34.like I have with those in the military. War is horrible. We're
:41:35. > :41:42.trying to find ways in which we can protect our own soldiers, our own
:41:42. > :41:45.troops as far as we can and hit the enemy and not innocent people -
:41:45. > :41:50.non-combatants and civilians. This is a form of technology which
:41:50. > :41:55.enables you to operate much more smartly in that sense. Thank you
:41:55. > :41:58.for that. If you have something to say about that debate, log on to
:41:58. > :42:02.the website and follow the link to the online discussion. Or send us
:42:02. > :42:07.your views about our last Big Question, is opposition to gypsies
:42:07. > :42:11.racist? And, if you would like to be in the audience at a future show,
:42:11. > :42:15.you can e-mail. We are not on next week because of the London Marathon
:42:15. > :42:19.but we're back from Birmingham on April 28th to make two programmes -
:42:19. > :42:27.one a pre-recorded special. Then we are in Edinburgh on May 12th and in
:42:27. > :42:32.Here in Cambridgeshire, travellers and gypsies have been hitting the
:42:32. > :42:40.headlines. This week, 11 travellers set up camp on a rugby pitch, in
:42:40. > :42:43.protest at the lack of official camp sites around Peterborough. And
:42:43. > :42:45.just north of Cambridge, local residents are up in arms about the
:42:45. > :42:53.council's decision to authorise 55 pitches, some on a formerly illegal
:42:53. > :42:58.site in the green belt. Is opposition to gypsies racist? Len
:42:58. > :43:04.Gridley of Dale Farm committee were fighting against gypsy encampments.
:43:04. > :43:09.They have their way of life and so two years. What is your problem
:43:09. > :43:14.with their way of life? They moved into the bottom of my garden,
:43:14. > :43:18.devalued by property by 300,000 and I said I would fight them the legal
:43:19. > :43:24.way through all the court in the land to remove them. I have not
:43:24. > :43:28.broken the law, they have come and built on green belt. The first
:43:28. > :43:33.eight travellers moved there and the rest of them came along and
:43:33. > :43:39.made it to 52. They knew they were breaking the law. We need to uphold
:43:39. > :43:44.the law in this country. They were not breaking the law at the time,
:43:44. > :43:49.were they? They were going through the planning system. They used the
:43:49. > :43:53.planning system. It is totally separate for the Gypsy and
:43:53. > :43:59.travelling community. We were using that system to gain access to
:43:59. > :44:04.accommodation because of the lack of accommodation. The problem is
:44:04. > :44:10.the councils. Central government gives policy. There is plenty of
:44:10. > :44:16.policy out there to build and provide sides. In the caravans Act,
:44:17. > :44:22.we were forcibly settled into places we did not want to be. We
:44:22. > :44:28.had apartheid. We were forcibly settled where we did not want to be.
:44:28. > :44:32.In 1994, the Conservative Party said, let's not provide for these
:44:32. > :44:37.gypsies. Let them provide for themselves. In 1994, they said to
:44:37. > :44:43.councils, what we would like you to do is identify land suitable for
:44:43. > :44:49.gypsy and traveller occupation. That never happened. From 1994, as
:44:49. > :44:59.gypsies have been identified our own land quite rightly or wrongly.
:44:59. > :45:01.
:45:01. > :45:07.Do you think some of the opposition is racist? No. There are certain
:45:07. > :45:15.factions who use the planning system in a racial way. There is a racial
:45:15. > :45:19.undertone, very much so. Middle England, everyone else, it was
:45:19. > :45:23.like, it is an anti-Gypsy campaign, not on my doorstep. I have heard it
:45:23. > :45:31.all my life. I will pull in somewhere, the police come up, the
:45:31. > :45:39.council, what are you doing? Why are people like that? I haven't got a
:45:39. > :45:45.clue! It has fed down from the top. It is not racism, but there is
:45:45. > :45:49.opposition. I will give you an example in Bedfordshire, where you
:45:49. > :45:57.have got Bedford and Luton on either end. My council are being forced to
:45:57. > :46:04.provide pitches for Gypsies and Travellers. Forced? It is required
:46:04. > :46:09.by law, isn't it? If nobody has any opposition, I fully support that, I
:46:09. > :46:14.think it is a better lifestyle, we know what your health outcomes are.
:46:14. > :46:21.You need access to healthcare, hospitals, public transport,
:46:21. > :46:23.employment, all the things you nude when you want to settle. Now, in
:46:23. > :46:28.Bedfordshire, those things are found in Bedford and Luton, not the rural
:46:28. > :46:32.villages in between the small towns. But the problem is that the Gypsy
:46:32. > :46:39.and Traveller community do not want to settle in Bedford or Luton. They
:46:39. > :46:46.want to settle in the very expensive small towns and villages. It is only
:46:46. > :46:51.exclusive to the rich, is it? The countryside... It is exclusive to
:46:51. > :46:56.the rich, is it? Actually, the people who live in those towns and
:46:57. > :47:03.villages have worked hard all their lives. Don't you think we have
:47:03. > :47:10.worked hard? Why are you expecting me... Why are you making yourself
:47:10. > :47:20.better than me? Jozsef, thank you, I want to hear from the audience. Are
:47:20. > :47:27.
:47:27. > :47:33.you part of the community? We bought a piece of land in Peter Brett. The
:47:33. > :47:43.council objected against it. Why? There is no work, no shops, know
:47:43. > :47:44.
:47:44. > :47:49.this and that, nothing to do with planning. A young lady bought a
:47:49. > :47:54.paddock, next door is a lady of us been living there for 11 years. All
:47:54. > :47:59.the time, even with the council we get racism. Not all the council, but
:47:59. > :48:05.most of the council. I have got a council chap saying to this young
:48:05. > :48:15.lady, you have got to move, you are a Gypsy. She said, what about this
:48:15. > :48:17.
:48:17. > :48:24.lady? She is not a Gypsy, she can stay. Come on! One 2nd... Clive is
:48:24. > :48:28.editor at large of country life magazine. A lot of people feel there
:48:28. > :48:32.is an issue of fairness, because people who have applied through the
:48:32. > :48:37.planning system for an extension or turning their garage into a study or
:48:37. > :48:41.something like that, they have been turned down. They feel it is
:48:41. > :48:45.extremely unfair that another community buys a piece of land, it
:48:45. > :48:49.may be it the green belt, without any hope of getting conventional
:48:49. > :48:53.planning permission. There is a ruse by which they turn up on a bank
:48:53. > :49:03.holiday, they bring in diggers, and by the time it is finished, they can
:49:03. > :49:13.then claim... I can understand... No, but... We want to be treated
:49:13. > :49:13.
:49:13. > :49:19.fairly, the same as everybody else. Is there fair treatment? Gypsies are
:49:19. > :49:25.treated fairly, because we are very proud of that, and we have to
:49:25. > :49:30.balance all these competing interests. Let him finish.I have
:49:30. > :49:36.talked to some Gypsies, and I respected their point of view. The
:49:36. > :49:40.leader of the group at Meriden, he is a great guy, but he was saying
:49:40. > :49:45.that he feels very strongly that he cannot get through the planning
:49:45. > :49:50.system, he could not do anything because he was a Gypsy. I do not
:49:50. > :49:55.believe that is true. And enormous amount of effort goes into the
:49:55. > :50:02.planning system to make sure it is shared. The protest outside Noah
:50:02. > :50:07.Burton's place did not help the situation, did it? I talked to him,
:50:07. > :50:12.he knew it was wrong. They was doing wrong, but no matter what kind of
:50:12. > :50:17.money you have got, where you live, when you buy a property, you only by
:50:17. > :50:27.the boundary it sits in, no more, no less. That doesn't entitle anyone
:50:27. > :50:27.
:50:27. > :50:31.else to the rest of England. OK... Allow me to come back. Site
:50:31. > :50:34.instance, our road, Oak Road, residents want to build on the open
:50:34. > :50:40.fields they owned, they can't, the council say that it is not
:50:40. > :50:44.suitable, it is a narrow lane and everything. But the travellers think
:50:44. > :50:51.they can buy green fields cheaply, develop it without planning
:50:51. > :50:57.permission. I travel, Mick, I have travelled this country. Hold on,
:50:57. > :51:02.hold on... The shouting does not work, please be quiet. I have
:51:02. > :51:06.travelled all over the place, I was in Scotland a few years ago, just
:51:06. > :51:11.outside Glasgow. I pulled up at the side of the Road to have a walk,
:51:11. > :51:16.walked over a bank and found a Gypsy site, totally not used anymore. They
:51:16. > :51:23.had all their sheds, the hardstanding for 12 pitches. So I
:51:23. > :51:27.thought, why have they show that site? I ask that a nearby garage,
:51:27. > :51:30.and they said, we are not going to spend any more on that site, they
:51:30. > :51:34.keep wrecking it, and we told them we would not repair it, we would
:51:35. > :51:41.shut it. If they cannot look after the sites, why should we find them
:51:41. > :51:45.any more legal sites? Damian is from the travellers times, you don't have
:51:45. > :51:54.a microphone, so all we are hearing is a cutaway in the background. Are
:51:54. > :51:59.any people in the Gypsy communities doing themselves no favours?
:51:59. > :52:06.question that was being asked, is opposition to Gypsies racist, which
:52:07. > :52:11.aside from being simple to answer is almost comical. Is it?Whether it is
:52:11. > :52:15.Roman Gypsies or Irish travellers, recognised ethnic groups, it is
:52:15. > :52:21.racist. If you are opposed to them, you are a racist, that is not my
:52:21. > :52:25.fault all these people's fault. do you mean? It is a simple
:52:25. > :52:30.intellectual question. If you think it is OK to judge some people based
:52:30. > :52:37.on the actions of others because they share their ethnicity, you are
:52:37. > :52:39.wrong, and that is not my fault. live in South Lincolnshire, and when
:52:39. > :52:45.I first moved here, there was an incident in my village, and I called
:52:45. > :52:49.the police. One of the first things they said was, where they Gypsies? I
:52:49. > :52:54.thought to myself, if somebody call the police and they said, worth a
:52:54. > :53:00.black, I would be up in arms about it. And I do think a lot of the
:53:00. > :53:04.opposition to Gypsies is racist, even the tyranny is, they are not
:53:04. > :53:12.Egyptians! They originate in India, and so even the term is corrupted.
:53:12. > :53:21.The term is not a problem? term, our leading counsel, our
:53:21. > :53:31.ethnicity is Romani. But the wider society cause us Gypsies. I am
:53:31. > :53:33.
:53:33. > :53:38.comfortable because it reminds us of the suffering... We look at nomads
:53:38. > :53:43.in Africa and Asia and think, isn't that romantic? Aren't that great? We
:53:43. > :53:47.have nomads in our own country and we will not accommodate them. We
:53:47. > :53:51.have to accommodate them, they are our native tribes, they live amongst
:53:51. > :54:00.us, and we should support them. All this stuff about planning
:54:00. > :54:05.permission, listen, they did what we were doing thousands of years ago.
:54:05. > :54:11.Benjamin makes a strong point, traditions going back 500 years, you
:54:11. > :54:18.know, ethnic minorities, and we are, in this civilised, multiracial
:54:18. > :54:24.society... We should give them every help we can do, to settle, can I
:54:24. > :54:29.speak? Can I say that actually you do not help yourselves all the
:54:29. > :54:32.time? We have heard many examples, let me give you another in my
:54:32. > :54:36.constituency. Travellers have taken over a piece of land, they put in
:54:36. > :54:42.their application to settle. Local people did some research, and guess
:54:42. > :54:45.what? The people who applied to have the pictures on the land are
:54:45. > :54:50.actually house owners in Leicestershire. So you do not do
:54:50. > :54:56.yourselves any favours all the time. That is where we have been forced,
:54:56. > :55:01.into accommodation we don't want. These beagle owned the houses in
:55:01. > :55:10.Leicester. -- these people. Do you want to allow them to settle or
:55:10. > :55:13.carry on travelling? I think people who own houses but say they are
:55:13. > :55:20.travellers to get a piece of land, by doing that, you should yourselves
:55:20. > :55:25.in the foot. We are going to hear from this gentleman. I think so,
:55:25. > :55:30.too. I live in a bungalow because my wife has got rheumatoid arthritis,
:55:30. > :55:40.right? Travelling is no longer a possibility for us. I spent many
:55:40. > :55:41.
:55:41. > :55:46.years living on a site in Peterboro. Actually, for 29 years. The reason I
:55:46. > :55:46.lived on a site is because I would not get a place somewhere else
:55:46. > :55:53.because we could not get planning patient because I am from the
:55:53. > :55:58.travelling community. The problem is, right, is that I do not want to
:55:58. > :56:05.be in a bungalow. I want to be on the road, I want to be in my
:56:05. > :56:11.caravan, because that is a home to me. Let me put that to Nadine, if I
:56:11. > :56:15.may, that is the way of life, being on the road. Be on the road, that is
:56:15. > :56:21.fantastic, you should be accommodated, but it is how you go
:56:21. > :56:25.about seeking your accommodation, that is the problem. What racism
:56:25. > :56:30.is, essentially, is over generalising to a group of people
:56:30. > :56:33.from particular examples. If I was to say... I don't care what
:56:33. > :56:37.everybody has been doing, I am telling you what racism is in an
:56:37. > :56:41.objective way. If I was to say that white Anglo-Saxons have committed
:56:41. > :56:46.murder, they are not doing themselves any good, should Gypsies
:56:46. > :56:51.say, they are useless? You are taking one little example, over
:56:51. > :57:01.generalising to a whole group of people, and that is called racism.
:57:01. > :57:02.
:57:02. > :57:04.No, I am not... That is a very good point. We cannot say, because one
:57:04. > :57:09.thing is happened, we can speak about the behaviour of an entire
:57:09. > :57:13.people. We want a society in which people have the freedom to be
:57:13. > :57:16.different and to roam if they wish to. However, we are also a society
:57:16. > :57:21.of laws, and we have to find a balance between different kinds of
:57:21. > :57:25.freedoms. When we ask, if there is racism, yes, there is a lot, no
:57:25. > :57:29.denying it. But if someone does something which breaks the law that
:57:29. > :57:36.affects you personally, it is not necessarily racist to oppose them
:57:36. > :57:38.doing that. We have to be careful about our language and respect the
:57:38. > :57:42.rights of people to be different, but also the entirely natural demand
:57:42. > :57:46.of homeowners that their lives should not be undermined or ruined
:57:46. > :57:50.by someone else's behaviour. see, the problem... I think what you
:57:50. > :57:58.will find is the majority of people that object to Gypsy sites know
:57:58. > :58:03.nothing about the circulars in planning law, right, that are
:58:03. > :58:10.actually affecting us personally. Because we are segregated, right? In
:58:10. > :58:14.1994, we were totally segregated under the circular of 1994, it was
:58:14. > :58:19.repealed and then put back in in 2006. Eric Pickles is flouting his
:58:19. > :58:23.mouth off about what he's going to do, criminalise it. Everything that
:58:23. > :58:30.he has tried to put in place is nothing but to criminalise,
:58:30. > :58:33.criminalise, criminalise. Are the law is racist? The laws are not
:58:33. > :58:36.themselves racist. You get a bunch of people together saying that we
:58:36. > :58:42.are breaking the laws. We have broken no laws when we applied for