Episode 14 The Big Questions


Episode 14

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Good morning and welcome to The Big Questions. We're live from Jack

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Hunt School in Peterborough and I'm Nicky Campbell. Yesterday,

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revellers took over London's Trafalgar Square to celebrate the

:00:36.:00:40.

death of Baroness Thatcher. Our first Big Question: Is it ever

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right to celebrate someone's death? Professor Chris Knight, who dressed

:00:46.:00:47.

as an undertaker at yesterday's demonstration, says it is

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everyone's right to show how they felt about the former Prime

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Minister and her policies. Later this month, there is to be another

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protest - this time against plans to move Britain's fleet of unmanned

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aerial vehicles, or drones, to RAF Waddington from their current base

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in Nevada. Our next Big Question: Are drones an unethical step in

:01:05.:01:15.
:01:15.:01:16.

warfare? Tonight, millions may tune in to the latest reality television

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show about gypsies. But, in the real world, people have been

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distinctly less enthusiastic about living next door to gypsy and

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traveller sites. Our last Big Question: Is opposition to gypsies

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:01:32.:01:36.

racist? Welcome everybody to The Lady Thatcher never minded being a

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divisive politician in life. She saw it as an inevitable consequence

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of radical policies. And, in the many hours and pages of media

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coverage since her death, those who disagreed with her have rightly had

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their say. But some have taken dissent to a very different level,

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with street parties and a social media campaign to propel the song,

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Ding Dong the Witch is Dead to the top of the charts. Is it ever right

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to celebrate someone's death? Professor Chris Knight commit you

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can take your hat off, if you like. What were you celebrating? Why

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search jury? We were celebrating the death of a blood-sucking

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vampire. Those creatures are very difficult to kill. As far as

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millions of people - hard-working people - who had been thrown on to

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benefits, communities had been destroyed, this was an occasion to

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be celebrated. This event being planned for Wednesday, it is not a

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family funeral - this is the British ruling class, the great and

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the good, commemorating their victory over the miners and all of

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us and celebrating Thatcher's introduction of casino capitalism.

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Welfare for bankers. From which we are still suffering. You say she

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lacked compassion and humanity. I have heard all these arguments.

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is filled with hate. Aren't you filled with hate right now? She was

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filled with hatred. We are rejoicing that she has gone. The

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world as a better place without these people. -- is a better place.

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Have I would suggest you have become the thing you hate, by

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directing all that anger at her. That is very sad. I think the class

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divisions in society are regrettable. Margaret Thatcher was

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a politician. She was also an 87- year-old lady - a wife and mother.

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Human beings deserve dignity and respect. Sometimes in life, there

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are deaths worth celebrating. If this were 1945 and I heard Hitler

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had died, I would crack open a bottle of champagne. Margaret

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Thatcher privatised BT. He must be able to see There is a moral

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distinction. She was lucky she was able to live to 87. 700 young men

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involved in the war that she provoked... She did not provoke it.

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She was a warmonger. How did you feel when the IRA tried to kill

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her? War is war. She was waging war against the Irish. If you wage war,

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you have to expect that war will be waved back. I went to this court in

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the early 70s to the mid-70s and I can tell you things were pretty

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grim. -- I went to school. There were strikes and cancer patients

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could not be treated. Mrs Thatcher did not make people redundant. It

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was the undemocratic unions that had to be taken control of. We have

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week about her legacy and we will continue to hear them. Let's get to

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the issue of the morality of celebrating someone's death. Not

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just celebrating someone's death in the way that Dr Alan Billings of

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marking someone's death but revelling in it. You are the Deputy

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Leader of Sheffield Council. You hold no candle to Mrs Thatcher for

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her politics but, as a Christian, how you react to revellers? As a

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Christian and former politician, what they were doing was

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distasteful and disrespectful. That was the whole point of it. That is

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how they are going to make themselves known. My objection is

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that it is naive - it is gesture politics. All through the Thatcher

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period at Sheffield Council, we were faced with opposition from hat

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and the Government and from people on the extreme left. This was a

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:06:34.:06:34.

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 577 seconds

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time of militants in the Labour through, everybody took their. You

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could have paid their guts, whatever, but as a mark of respect,

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everybody stopped on the street and took their. There is something in

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the Bible, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. We should

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leave her legacy to history. I know what I think of her, but that is

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irrelevant. The time we are now, people should at least doff their

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cap, even if they hated her, out of respect, because when you go, I like

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to think we would. Our cap for anybody else. But we did not respect

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her when she was alive. People celebrated when Saddam Hussein

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died, people celebrated when other... Venezuelans in Florida

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celebrated when Hugo Chavez died. You know, what do you think about

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the celebrations about this? Do not think it is a bit distasteful? Tell

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a we should not be hypocritical. think it is just a spectacle on the

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news. You said about respect for Thatcher. The thing is, she is

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dead, and she did not respect us when we were dying. I do not want to

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dwell on the past, but I just want to say this. Personally, I could not

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walk the streets of London and Birmingham when Thatcher was around.

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We had the law of suspicion, which the police used to stop black

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people, I remember being stopped four Times in one night, I said to

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the police officer, how can we do this? He said, this is what we have

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been told to do by Hatcher. When the Hillsborough people died, she knew

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the police were lying, and she cooperated in the cover-up. We do

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not know that, that is an allegation. The biggest legacy, as

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stated by his supporters, is privatisation, it is privatisation.

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Now, it is not a state funeral, but it is as near as you can get. If you

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:18:33.:18:37.

really want to honour her, why don't you privatise the funeral? Can use

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understand this anger and hatred and gloating about her death? I can

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understand that people do not respect Margaret Thatcher, but you

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still respect a human being. If you dance on somebody's grave, you are

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diminishing the importance of the sanctity of human life. I think that

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is very regrettable. People may have had lots of disagreements with

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Margaret Thatcher, and I hear the anger very much, but she loved power

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a long time ago now, nearly a quarter of a century ago, and a lot

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of other things have happened. shows you how much anger there was.

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It is bad to have this anger still with people. Above all, the sanctity

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of human life means we should respect everybody who dies. What

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about initiate? What about Jimmy Savile? I was deputy leader of

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Sheffield City Council throughout this period, including the miners'

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strike, I was an inner-city priest, for a working class, mining

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community, and I saw the division and visceral hatred that was created

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at that time, and I regretted it, I did -- it's did terrible things, the

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legacy of that is still there. In my congregation, the policeman, the

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striking miner, the nonstriking miner, the pit deputy, and the anger

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that was generated at that time continues to this day. Families are

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still divided, the legacy will be there for a very long time. I

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disagree with those who say we are just blaming Mrs Thatcher for the

:20:16.:20:26.
:20:26.:20:27.

ills of coal. I recognise that international is meant that many

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heavy industries were going to be devastated, that was happening. --

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international is. It was not the fact that there had to be

:20:37.:20:47.
:20:47.:20:51.

restructuring of the unions. It does not justify dancing on grades, but I

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can understand the anger. I think if you have such a funeral, which is

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over the top by anybody's calculation, I would have thought,

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that really does rub it in the noses of people who are suffering. Nadine

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Dorries, she was a champion of freedom according to President

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Obama. Let me finish my sentence and pose my question, if I may,

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formulate my thoughts! She fought for the freedom of people in Eastern

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Europe to protest, that is all they are doing, following what she wanted

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for people across the world. That is absolutely right, and what they

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should probably do is respect the fact that she fought for your

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ability to protest. Tell that to the people in Chile! She was a close

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friend of General Pinochet. He was a torture and murder. Actually, what

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we should be talking about... taste in friends, like General

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initiate and Jimmy Savile! Bernard Ingham, the man referred to as has

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Ben Doctor, he said she was indifferent to criticism. -- Ben

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Doctor. Yes, what she would say is that they were only having their

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say, exercising freedom of speech. Freedom of speech was not given to

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us by Margaret Thatcher. Working-class people have fought

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over the centuries to get those rights. She gave my family... We

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were not given the welfare state. We fought, in our unions, over the

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years, to get those rights. We got the vote by campaigning for the

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right to vote. We celebrated those workers in the opening of the

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Olympic Games. Those workers build our country. We fought for the

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welfare state. Tim Stanley, from a religious point of view. We were

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:23:17.:23:18.

called the enemy within, I am not the enemy within. What is very

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troubling is the lack of empathy. I understand the pain. People who, for

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example, whose children were not buried in the winter of discontent,

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they were glad to see union power broken. But a lack of empathy for

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the family of a woman who has died. No-one can deny that she was a

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divisive figure. I feel enormous pain for the people who are left

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behind. Why is there not a correlating sympathy for her?

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ask a question. Last word!Her daughter thinks people like me are

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golly walks, her son is an arms trader. That is not worthy of you,

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that is rubbish. She used that word. That is so not worthy of you, you

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are better than that. Is it not true?! Is it not true?! Do you know

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what? Carol Thatcher grew up in the same era as you or I did. Yes, she

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did say it... Thank you!She did not say it. Ladies and gentlemen, where

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there is then scored, we did not bring harmony! -- where there is

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discord. But thank you all very much for coming and taking part in

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Adelaide, thank you much indeed. -- taking part in that debate. If you

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would like to take part, follow the link to where you can join in

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online, or follow the discussion on Twitter. Our drones and an ethical

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step in warfare? And is opposition to Gypsies racist? Tell us what you

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think about those topics. As well as your ideas for any future debates or

:25:25.:25:26.

general comments you would like to make about the programme.

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For the past five years, drones have been used by the British and

:25:30.:25:33.

American air forces in Iraq and Afghanistan on surveillance missions

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and to deliver missiles and bombs, and the CIA has targeted sites in

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Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, one of which are in a state of war with the

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USA. Directed by pilots in Nevada or preprogrammed to fly alone, it is

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estimated they have killed up to 3500 people, including hundreds of

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civilians. Are they an ethical step in warfare? Andrew Brookes, it is

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said that... A former RAF commander, of course, it is said that they are

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more precise and therefore more ethical by those who argue in their

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:26:21.:26:30.

favour. Why are so many innocent people die? The bombs that it drops,

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we used to fire them from a manned aeroplane. You can argue, are they

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:26:40.:26:43.

is literally fired by a person like me. It can so they'll fall 16 hours,

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so it is better able to detect what is going on in the ground than me

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going past at 600 mph. But if you are going to argue, should anyone be

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using weapons like this to kill anyone in Mali or Yemen, that is a

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different thing, a moral issue that the United States has to address.

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Because it feels it is at war, it has every right under international

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law to prevent another 9/11. Article 51. So the question is, does it make

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it easier to wage war, so does it encourage war? We have seen this

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with Tony Blair, you get the impression that in the old days,

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going to war was the ultimate because you put your own men and

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women at risk. Now it is a first step, because you are not putting

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people at risk. Does this unmanned business make war easier? Since

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about 2000, there is a case for saying that, but it is not the fault

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of the drone. The fact that you are not putting people at danger should

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not be the point. It is the fact that politicians are using that.

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have lectured on this, can you make a moral case? Yes, I think you can.

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I agree with the point that has been made. There is a myth from Plato,

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the man who put the ring on became invisible, so he thought he could do

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anything he liked. There is a danger, with the drone, as Peter was

:28:14.:28:18.

saying, that it might lead people into saying that they can take steps

:28:18.:28:28.
:28:28.:28:33.

to far. I think that, given the nature of modern warfare, it is

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quite different, we are not talking about conventional battlefield,

:28:33.:28:33.

people clearly defined with uniforms, a bounded area where they

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are doing their fighting. Much of modern warfare where is in an urban

:28:36.:28:44.

context, people who do not wear a uniform. They slip in and out of the

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population. The point about the drone is that it enables you to

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target those people in a much more, to use the awful language, in a much

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more smart way, so you can take out a particular building or vehicle, so

:28:57.:29:03.

it reduces casualties. But that is also on your own site, because you

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do not take a large number of troops into battle. It enables you to get

:29:07.:29:13.

over difficult terrain. In terms of the proportionality of the force

:29:13.:29:18.

that is used, it can mean both that you have savings on your own side

:29:18.:29:22.

and you reduce the casualties, particularly civilian casualties, on

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the other side. There are strong ethical arguments that can be made

:29:26.:29:34.

for drones. We have got an expert on drones on the other side of the

:29:34.:29:44.
:29:44.:29:56.

Populations can hear them. They call them a buzzing Wasps. They are

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varieties of this. The ones we took about at 25,000 ft, nobody hears or

:30:05.:30:11.

seize them. It has been documented by various organisations. It has

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been documented in Afghanistan that multiple communities and reporting

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constant buzzing from the drones. They can be heard by the

:30:21.:30:24.

communities. You are not telling them who is being targeted and when

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the drone is going to fire. For days on end, they have a drone

:30:32.:30:37.

hovering above than and it fires on people below with no warning, no

:30:37.:30:41.

justification and no follow up as to who you have killed. We had

:30:41.:30:47.

intelligence leaks from the US last week saying that classified CIA

:30:47.:30:50.

documents are labouring people militants and foreign fighters

:30:50.:30:58.

because they do not know who they are killing. -- labelling. For me

:30:58.:31:02.

here this is based on intelligence, doesn't that ring alarm bells with

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you, based on previous failures? is entirely different. If you are

:31:10.:31:15.

looking at whether it is an ethical type of warfare, worries about new

:31:15.:31:19.

weapons are centuries old. When the crossbow came in, people were

:31:19.:31:26.

worried about firing in this way. It is a technical platform. If you

:31:26.:31:31.

are looking at the strategy itself, that is the question - the strategy,

:31:31.:31:38.

legality and morality of this. I would argue that absolutely it is

:31:38.:31:41.

legal and morally acceptable and it makes sense. We haven't had another

:31:41.:31:51.
:31:51.:31:51.

attack in the West since 7/7. It happened because of excellent work,

:31:51.:31:56.

they were not thanked... The Taliban is trying to kill us and

:31:56.:32:01.

they are trying to kill our children. That is a very been

:32:01.:32:04.

appropriate thing to say. The security services get no thanks for

:32:04.:32:10.

the work they have done. The people in the CIA get no thanks for the

:32:10.:32:14.

work they have done. When you take out, in this new type of warfare,

:32:14.:32:19.

which we have to imagine as a network, there are some keynotes.

:32:19.:32:23.

It is true there have been all sorts of challenges and it is good

:32:23.:32:29.

we are having a debate about it. When the keynotes are taken out, it

:32:29.:32:37.

makes a huge difference and it works. It is legal and it is the

:32:37.:32:41.

way to go. Noel Sharkey, it works, it is effective and lessens the

:32:41.:32:46.

death toll. I guess I would share the view there is nothing immoral

:32:46.:32:52.

in a piece of equipment, it is how it is used. The next stage we are

:32:52.:32:57.

moving to with more automated drones... It let me not go with

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that one. If it is more precise than conventional bombing, is it

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not more ethical? The problem is it leads to an expansion of the battle

:33:08.:33:18.
:33:18.:33:18.

space. There is an illusion of accuracy. A lot of the time, it is

:33:18.:33:23.

using infrared signature is, so you can see temperature inside the

:33:23.:33:29.

building and you strike that building on the basis of

:33:29.:33:33.

intelligence as we know from the Vietnam War. If you strike a

:33:33.:33:39.

building, you do not know who is inside. Even when I spoke to the

:33:40.:33:44.

CIA and played devil's advocate, I said, it is more accurate than be

:33:44.:33:48.

fitted to bomb us. He said, you do not understand, we cannot fly the

:33:48.:33:53.

bombers into countries we are not at war with. The United States has

:33:53.:34:03.
:34:03.:34:07.

permission to strike anywhere it likes. That is absolutely incorrect.

:34:07.:34:12.

You are conflicting a whole number of issues in an emotive display

:34:12.:34:19.

which is incorrect. You're being very Calder and cynical about the

:34:19.:34:26.

deaths. Let's hear the argument. -- very cold. Being colt about the

:34:26.:34:31.

death of children does not help. It is not free to strike anywhere it

:34:31.:34:38.

wants. It is by the invitation of the Government, for example, in

:34:38.:34:45.

Yemen. The legality is absolutely sound. Secondly, the intelligence

:34:45.:34:53.

is excellent. It is true that occasion a mistakes are made.

:34:53.:34:58.

Somebody else can say, President Obama, we invite you to come and

:34:58.:35:07.

kill our citizens. We do not say that. President Obama and the CIA...

:35:07.:35:12.

Let me hear from some people in the audience. What are you going to

:35:12.:35:18.

say? I think the question is may be misguided. People have said it is

:35:18.:35:24.

just a piece of equipment. It is just a different way for us to

:35:24.:35:30.

carry out war. The ethical question is, is it ethical to go to war?

:35:30.:35:34.

have done that one before. I suppose you would argue that

:35:34.:35:38.

sometimes it is absolutely necessary. The prime job of any

:35:38.:35:46.

leader is to safeguard its people. The number one job is to protect

:35:46.:35:54.

your people. Barack Obama, George W Bush, after 9/11, the primary job

:35:54.:36:01.

is to breed a recurrence of that. They are doing it. Barack Obama,

:36:01.:36:07.

for everything he is doing, he is sending 10 times as many drones as

:36:07.:36:13.

George W Bush. When Eddie Mair says, you are a nasty piece of work, I

:36:13.:36:18.

realise the BBC is taking that seriously. President Obama is

:36:18.:36:23.

getting away with it because of who he is. He must also run certain

:36:23.:36:28.

tests of legal and moral culpability. There have been 3500

:36:28.:36:36.

drone strikes. Children have been killed. They take had areas when a

:36:36.:36:41.

strike. Innocent lives are lost as a result. The effect is that it may

:36:41.:36:45.

give the illusion of being more protected but it creates a new

:36:45.:36:50.

generation of terrorists. People living in a peaceful village who

:36:50.:36:56.

find family members murdered in the part of award they are not part of.

:36:56.:37:01.

-- a war. There is a civil, libertarian angle to this. The

:37:01.:37:07.

writer states has killed two of its own citizens. -- the United States.

:37:07.:37:14.

It is true that war is hell. It is always help. It is our moral

:37:14.:37:22.

responsibility to make it a bit less hellish. I think it is

:37:22.:37:29.

absolutely immoral to go into war in the first place. More civilians

:37:29.:37:35.

have been killed. They have been bombed by these drones. In the

:37:36.:37:41.

George Bush era, 60 drone strikes were conducted. After that in the

:37:41.:37:47.

Obama era, the champion of change, he bombed 400 drone strikes in

:37:47.:37:53.

Pakistan. He is killing civilians and it is creating anger, as you

:37:53.:38:01.

are right to saying. The thing is, it is done with the support of the

:38:01.:38:07.

Pakistani state. By allowing these drones to happen, it is creating

:38:07.:38:14.

anger in people. Elections are going on right now. If it was 60

:38:14.:38:19.

years ago, could to have taken at the Nazi leadership? If you go to

:38:19.:38:29.
:38:29.:38:30.

Berlin now, the lift that her headquarters is still intact. It is

:38:30.:38:37.

a bank headquarters. What as a president should you do? You can

:38:37.:38:43.

either do-nothing and sit and wait for the next 9/11, send the police

:38:43.:38:48.

then but it is not that sort of terrain. If you do not want to use

:38:48.:38:57.

trains, what answer should you give? -- drones. That is the very

:38:57.:39:02.

inaccurate thing to say. Article 51 is what they are trying to use.

:39:02.:39:09.

That is from the Geneva Convention. It says you can attack another

:39:09.:39:13.

country if it is an imminent threat to your state. Some foot soldier,

:39:13.:39:17.

who has just joined Al-Qaeda because his parents were killed or

:39:17.:39:21.

some other people were killed, is he really an imminent threat the

:39:21.:39:29.

United States? Is it worth killing civilians? There is a lot of talk

:39:29.:39:32.

about children and civilians dying. This happened throughout the war.

:39:32.:39:38.

But anyone who lived in the Blitz, fire rockets and menacing London,

:39:38.:39:43.

it does not make it right. If we are going to use technology, used

:39:43.:39:48.

it to its best advantage, that it as the least effect and kills the

:39:48.:39:55.

least people. It is targeted. Mistakes do happen. This is not a

:39:55.:40:00.

new occurrence. I do not personally believe that we or the Americans

:40:00.:40:07.

are at war, we are defending our states. We saw this boy the first

:40:07.:40:12.

time - the manifestation of this - with the Gulf War for the first

:40:12.:40:19.

time. Is this not a step further on in that rather frightening

:40:19.:40:23.

progression towards be complete association with those waging war,

:40:23.:40:28.

with the effects that war is having? All changes in technology,

:40:28.:40:32.

including the technology of warfare will show up these sorts of

:40:32.:40:36.

questions. The development of the nuclear bomb is not at all targeted

:40:36.:40:42.

and precise. It wipes out millions. In terms of an argument against the

:40:42.:40:47.

weapons, that is the one that all these kinds of arguments mostly

:40:47.:40:51.

applied to. The drone is much more targeted. Something else about the

:40:51.:40:56.

drone. It does not have a human emotions. As long as your

:40:56.:41:00.

intelligence is correct and people are making the right decisions

:41:00.:41:04.

about what to attack, it will not flip in the middle of the battle

:41:04.:41:14.
:41:14.:41:14.

like the massacres in Vietnam where soldiers massacred an entire

:41:15.:41:23.

village. We are trying to stand back and have the kind of debate

:41:23.:41:29.

like I have with those in the military. War is horrible. We're

:41:29.:41:34.

trying to find ways in which we can protect our own soldiers, our own

:41:35.:41:42.

troops as far as we can and hit the enemy and not innocent people -

:41:42.:41:45.

non-combatants and civilians. This is a form of technology which

:41:45.:41:50.

enables you to operate much more smartly in that sense. Thank you

:41:50.:41:55.

for that. If you have something to say about that debate, log on to

:41:55.:41:58.

the website and follow the link to the online discussion. Or send us

:41:58.:42:02.

your views about our last Big Question, is opposition to gypsies

:42:02.:42:07.

racist? And, if you would like to be in the audience at a future show,

:42:07.:42:11.

you can e-mail. We are not on next week because of the London Marathon

:42:11.:42:15.

but we're back from Birmingham on April 28th to make two programmes -

:42:15.:42:19.

one a pre-recorded special. Then we are in Edinburgh on May 12th and in

:42:19.:42:27.

Here in Cambridgeshire, travellers and gypsies have been hitting the

:42:27.:42:32.

headlines. This week, 11 travellers set up camp on a rugby pitch, in

:42:32.:42:40.

protest at the lack of official camp sites around Peterborough. And

:42:40.:42:43.

just north of Cambridge, local residents are up in arms about the

:42:43.:42:45.

council's decision to authorise 55 pitches, some on a formerly illegal

:42:45.:42:53.

site in the green belt. Is opposition to gypsies racist? Len

:42:53.:42:58.

Gridley of Dale Farm committee were fighting against gypsy encampments.

:42:58.:43:04.

They have their way of life and so two years. What is your problem

:43:04.:43:09.

with their way of life? They moved into the bottom of my garden,

:43:09.:43:14.

devalued by property by 300,000 and I said I would fight them the legal

:43:14.:43:18.

way through all the court in the land to remove them. I have not

:43:19.:43:24.

broken the law, they have come and built on green belt. The first

:43:24.:43:28.

eight travellers moved there and the rest of them came along and

:43:28.:43:33.

made it to 52. They knew they were breaking the law. We need to uphold

:43:33.:43:39.

the law in this country. They were not breaking the law at the time,

:43:39.:43:44.

were they? They were going through the planning system. They used the

:43:44.:43:49.

planning system. It is totally separate for the Gypsy and

:43:49.:43:53.

travelling community. We were using that system to gain access to

:43:53.:43:59.

accommodation because of the lack of accommodation. The problem is

:43:59.:44:04.

the councils. Central government gives policy. There is plenty of

:44:04.:44:10.

policy out there to build and provide sides. In the caravans Act,

:44:10.:44:16.

we were forcibly settled into places we did not want to be. We

:44:17.:44:22.

had apartheid. We were forcibly settled where we did not want to be.

:44:22.:44:28.

In 1994, the Conservative Party said, let's not provide for these

:44:28.:44:32.

gypsies. Let them provide for themselves. In 1994, they said to

:44:32.:44:37.

councils, what we would like you to do is identify land suitable for

:44:37.:44:43.

gypsy and traveller occupation. That never happened. From 1994, as

:44:43.:44:49.

gypsies have been identified our own land quite rightly or wrongly.

:44:49.:44:59.
:44:59.:45:01.

Do you think some of the opposition is racist? No. There are certain

:45:01.:45:07.

factions who use the planning system in a racial way. There is a racial

:45:07.:45:15.

undertone, very much so. Middle England, everyone else, it was

:45:15.:45:19.

like, it is an anti-Gypsy campaign, not on my doorstep. I have heard it

:45:19.:45:23.

all my life. I will pull in somewhere, the police come up, the

:45:23.:45:31.

council, what are you doing? Why are people like that? I haven't got a

:45:31.:45:39.

clue! It has fed down from the top. It is not racism, but there is

:45:39.:45:45.

opposition. I will give you an example in Bedfordshire, where you

:45:45.:45:49.

have got Bedford and Luton on either end. My council are being forced to

:45:49.:45:57.

provide pitches for Gypsies and Travellers. Forced? It is required

:45:57.:46:04.

by law, isn't it? If nobody has any opposition, I fully support that, I

:46:04.:46:09.

think it is a better lifestyle, we know what your health outcomes are.

:46:09.:46:14.

You need access to healthcare, hospitals, public transport,

:46:14.:46:21.

employment, all the things you nude when you want to settle. Now, in

:46:21.:46:23.

Bedfordshire, those things are found in Bedford and Luton, not the rural

:46:23.:46:28.

villages in between the small towns. But the problem is that the Gypsy

:46:28.:46:32.

and Traveller community do not want to settle in Bedford or Luton. They

:46:32.:46:39.

want to settle in the very expensive small towns and villages. It is only

:46:39.:46:46.

exclusive to the rich, is it? The countryside... It is exclusive to

:46:46.:46:51.

the rich, is it? Actually, the people who live in those towns and

:46:51.:46:56.

villages have worked hard all their lives. Don't you think we have

:46:57.:47:03.

worked hard? Why are you expecting me... Why are you making yourself

:47:03.:47:10.

better than me? Jozsef, thank you, I want to hear from the audience. Are

:47:10.:47:20.
:47:20.:47:27.

you part of the community? We bought a piece of land in Peter Brett. The

:47:27.:47:33.

council objected against it. Why? There is no work, no shops, know

:47:33.:47:43.
:47:43.:47:44.

this and that, nothing to do with planning. A young lady bought a

:47:44.:47:49.

paddock, next door is a lady of us been living there for 11 years. All

:47:49.:47:54.

the time, even with the council we get racism. Not all the council, but

:47:54.:47:59.

most of the council. I have got a council chap saying to this young

:47:59.:48:05.

lady, you have got to move, you are a Gypsy. She said, what about this

:48:05.:48:15.
:48:15.:48:17.

lady? She is not a Gypsy, she can stay. Come on! One 2nd... Clive is

:48:17.:48:24.

editor at large of country life magazine. A lot of people feel there

:48:24.:48:28.

is an issue of fairness, because people who have applied through the

:48:28.:48:32.

planning system for an extension or turning their garage into a study or

:48:32.:48:37.

something like that, they have been turned down. They feel it is

:48:37.:48:41.

extremely unfair that another community buys a piece of land, it

:48:41.:48:45.

may be it the green belt, without any hope of getting conventional

:48:45.:48:49.

planning permission. There is a ruse by which they turn up on a bank

:48:49.:48:53.

holiday, they bring in diggers, and by the time it is finished, they can

:48:53.:49:03.

then claim... I can understand... No, but... We want to be treated

:49:03.:49:13.
:49:13.:49:13.

fairly, the same as everybody else. Is there fair treatment? Gypsies are

:49:13.:49:19.

treated fairly, because we are very proud of that, and we have to

:49:19.:49:25.

balance all these competing interests. Let him finish.I have

:49:25.:49:30.

talked to some Gypsies, and I respected their point of view. The

:49:30.:49:36.

leader of the group at Meriden, he is a great guy, but he was saying

:49:36.:49:40.

that he feels very strongly that he cannot get through the planning

:49:40.:49:45.

system, he could not do anything because he was a Gypsy. I do not

:49:45.:49:50.

believe that is true. And enormous amount of effort goes into the

:49:50.:49:55.

planning system to make sure it is shared. The protest outside Noah

:49:55.:50:02.

Burton's place did not help the situation, did it? I talked to him,

:50:02.:50:07.

he knew it was wrong. They was doing wrong, but no matter what kind of

:50:07.:50:12.

money you have got, where you live, when you buy a property, you only by

:50:12.:50:17.

the boundary it sits in, no more, no less. That doesn't entitle anyone

:50:17.:50:27.
:50:27.:50:27.

else to the rest of England. OK... Allow me to come back. Site

:50:27.:50:31.

instance, our road, Oak Road, residents want to build on the open

:50:31.:50:34.

fields they owned, they can't, the council say that it is not

:50:34.:50:40.

suitable, it is a narrow lane and everything. But the travellers think

:50:40.:50:44.

they can buy green fields cheaply, develop it without planning

:50:44.:50:51.

permission. I travel, Mick, I have travelled this country. Hold on,

:50:51.:50:57.

hold on... The shouting does not work, please be quiet. I have

:50:57.:51:02.

travelled all over the place, I was in Scotland a few years ago, just

:51:02.:51:06.

outside Glasgow. I pulled up at the side of the Road to have a walk,

:51:06.:51:11.

walked over a bank and found a Gypsy site, totally not used anymore. They

:51:11.:51:16.

had all their sheds, the hardstanding for 12 pitches. So I

:51:16.:51:23.

thought, why have they show that site? I ask that a nearby garage,

:51:23.:51:27.

and they said, we are not going to spend any more on that site, they

:51:27.:51:30.

keep wrecking it, and we told them we would not repair it, we would

:51:30.:51:34.

shut it. If they cannot look after the sites, why should we find them

:51:35.:51:41.

any more legal sites? Damian is from the travellers times, you don't have

:51:41.:51:45.

a microphone, so all we are hearing is a cutaway in the background. Are

:51:45.:51:54.

any people in the Gypsy communities doing themselves no favours?

:51:54.:51:59.

question that was being asked, is opposition to Gypsies racist, which

:51:59.:52:06.

aside from being simple to answer is almost comical. Is it?Whether it is

:52:07.:52:11.

Roman Gypsies or Irish travellers, recognised ethnic groups, it is

:52:11.:52:15.

racist. If you are opposed to them, you are a racist, that is not my

:52:15.:52:21.

fault all these people's fault. do you mean? It is a simple

:52:21.:52:25.

intellectual question. If you think it is OK to judge some people based

:52:25.:52:30.

on the actions of others because they share their ethnicity, you are

:52:30.:52:37.

wrong, and that is not my fault. live in South Lincolnshire, and when

:52:37.:52:39.

I first moved here, there was an incident in my village, and I called

:52:39.:52:45.

the police. One of the first things they said was, where they Gypsies? I

:52:45.:52:49.

thought to myself, if somebody call the police and they said, worth a

:52:49.:52:54.

black, I would be up in arms about it. And I do think a lot of the

:52:54.:53:00.

opposition to Gypsies is racist, even the tyranny is, they are not

:53:00.:53:04.

Egyptians! They originate in India, and so even the term is corrupted.

:53:04.:53:12.

The term is not a problem? term, our leading counsel, our

:53:12.:53:21.

ethnicity is Romani. But the wider society cause us Gypsies. I am

:53:21.:53:31.
:53:31.:53:33.

comfortable because it reminds us of the suffering... We look at nomads

:53:33.:53:38.

in Africa and Asia and think, isn't that romantic? Aren't that great? We

:53:38.:53:43.

have nomads in our own country and we will not accommodate them. We

:53:43.:53:47.

have to accommodate them, they are our native tribes, they live amongst

:53:47.:53:51.

us, and we should support them. All this stuff about planning

:53:51.:54:00.

permission, listen, they did what we were doing thousands of years ago.

:54:00.:54:05.

Benjamin makes a strong point, traditions going back 500 years, you

:54:05.:54:11.

know, ethnic minorities, and we are, in this civilised, multiracial

:54:11.:54:18.

society... We should give them every help we can do, to settle, can I

:54:18.:54:24.

speak? Can I say that actually you do not help yourselves all the

:54:24.:54:29.

time? We have heard many examples, let me give you another in my

:54:29.:54:32.

constituency. Travellers have taken over a piece of land, they put in

:54:32.:54:36.

their application to settle. Local people did some research, and guess

:54:36.:54:42.

what? The people who applied to have the pictures on the land are

:54:42.:54:45.

actually house owners in Leicestershire. So you do not do

:54:45.:54:50.

yourselves any favours all the time. That is where we have been forced,

:54:50.:54:56.

into accommodation we don't want. These beagle owned the houses in

:54:56.:55:01.

Leicester. -- these people. Do you want to allow them to settle or

:55:01.:55:10.

carry on travelling? I think people who own houses but say they are

:55:10.:55:13.

travellers to get a piece of land, by doing that, you should yourselves

:55:13.:55:20.

in the foot. We are going to hear from this gentleman. I think so,

:55:20.:55:25.

too. I live in a bungalow because my wife has got rheumatoid arthritis,

:55:25.:55:30.

right? Travelling is no longer a possibility for us. I spent many

:55:30.:55:40.
:55:40.:55:41.

years living on a site in Peterboro. Actually, for 29 years. The reason I

:55:41.:55:46.

lived on a site is because I would not get a place somewhere else

:55:46.:55:46.

because we could not get planning patient because I am from the

:55:46.:55:53.

travelling community. The problem is, right, is that I do not want to

:55:53.:55:58.

be in a bungalow. I want to be on the road, I want to be in my

:55:58.:56:05.

caravan, because that is a home to me. Let me put that to Nadine, if I

:56:05.:56:11.

may, that is the way of life, being on the road. Be on the road, that is

:56:11.:56:15.

fantastic, you should be accommodated, but it is how you go

:56:15.:56:21.

about seeking your accommodation, that is the problem. What racism

:56:21.:56:25.

is, essentially, is over generalising to a group of people

:56:25.:56:30.

from particular examples. If I was to say... I don't care what

:56:30.:56:33.

everybody has been doing, I am telling you what racism is in an

:56:33.:56:37.

objective way. If I was to say that white Anglo-Saxons have committed

:56:37.:56:41.

murder, they are not doing themselves any good, should Gypsies

:56:41.:56:46.

say, they are useless? You are taking one little example, over

:56:46.:56:51.

generalising to a whole group of people, and that is called racism.

:56:51.:57:01.
:57:01.:57:02.

No, I am not... That is a very good point. We cannot say, because one

:57:02.:57:04.

thing is happened, we can speak about the behaviour of an entire

:57:04.:57:09.

people. We want a society in which people have the freedom to be

:57:09.:57:13.

different and to roam if they wish to. However, we are also a society

:57:13.:57:16.

of laws, and we have to find a balance between different kinds of

:57:16.:57:21.

freedoms. When we ask, if there is racism, yes, there is a lot, no

:57:21.:57:25.

denying it. But if someone does something which breaks the law that

:57:25.:57:29.

affects you personally, it is not necessarily racist to oppose them

:57:29.:57:36.

doing that. We have to be careful about our language and respect the

:57:36.:57:38.

rights of people to be different, but also the entirely natural demand

:57:38.:57:42.

of homeowners that their lives should not be undermined or ruined

:57:42.:57:46.

by someone else's behaviour. see, the problem... I think what you

:57:46.:57:50.

will find is the majority of people that object to Gypsy sites know

:57:50.:57:58.

nothing about the circulars in planning law, right, that are

:57:58.:58:03.

actually affecting us personally. Because we are segregated, right? In

:58:03.:58:10.

1994, we were totally segregated under the circular of 1994, it was

:58:10.:58:14.

repealed and then put back in in 2006. Eric Pickles is flouting his

:58:14.:58:19.

mouth off about what he's going to do, criminalise it. Everything that

:58:19.:58:23.

he has tried to put in place is nothing but to criminalise,

:58:23.:58:30.

criminalise, criminalise. Are the law is racist? The laws are not

:58:30.:58:33.

themselves racist. You get a bunch of people together saying that we

:58:33.:58:36.

are breaking the laws. We have broken no laws when we applied for

:58:36.:58:42.

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