Transcripts For BBCNEWS Newsnight 20170227

Many of those Making Assertions On The remain side were relying on people meekly submitting to authority as though we were still operating in the pre Reformation Catholic Church rather than making proper arguments. Well speak to those who think mr gove was putting his finger on something. And, of course, the oscars. Im sorry. No. Theres a mistake. Moonlight, you won best picture. No, not that, this. The oscar winner for best documentary is about the civilian Rescue Workers in syria. Well speak to one of the White Helmets. Hello. Good evening. For the First Time Since the uk voted to leave the European Union, former Prime Minister, john major, has spoken out of his fears for this countrys future. He warned of a real risk that government would not achieve all that it had promised from brexit. He said a comprehensive deal was unlikely by 2019 and that a failure to deliver would result in further distrust between politicians and the public. He launched an Excoriating Attack on the cheerleaders for brexit, he accused of shouting down the legitimate comment of those who voted remain. Well, well hear response to this carefully timed interjection from Iain Duncan Smith in a moment, first lets go to our political editor, nick watt. And nick, as i was saying, you dont hear from john major that often, what did you make of this . This is a significant speech. John major is normally very careful to ration his experience his interventions. Hes sensitive to the charge he would be criticising his successors in number 10. Dont forget, hes deeply scarred by his experience, after becoming Prime Minister. Margaret thatcher famously said she would make a great back seat driver. When David Cameron became Prime Minister, he had an informal understanding with David Cameron, who had worked for him in number 10 preparing him for the Prime Ministers questions in the early 1990s. The agreement was Thatjohn Major would only make intervention thats were helpful to him. Clearly he feels different about theresa may, elected to parliament in 1997, the year that he lost that election and ceased to be Prime Minister. He obviously feels there is a danger that she is presiding over potentially a damaging brexit. So hes decided to speak out. And this was his central message so i have two objectives this evening to offer a Reality Check on our national prospects, and to warn against an over optimism, that, if it is unachieved, will sow further distrust between politics and citizens at a time when trust needs to be rebuilt. It would be better to underplay rather than overplay expectations. The post referendum debate has been deeply disspiriting. After decades of campaigning, the Anti Europeans won their Battle To Take Britain out of europe. But in the afterglow of victory, their cheerleaders have shown a disregard that amounts to contempt for the 48 who believed our future was more secure within the European Union. Its clearly heart felt, but what do you think more than that is driving it in terms of the timing . Well, john major profoundly believe thats the uk should have voted to stay in the eu. Dont forget that one of the first trips he made as Prime Minister was to the then capital of germany, bonn, and said britain should remain at the heart of europe. Some, though by no means all of the message in this speech, echos some of the concerns raised recently by tony blair, who obviously unseated him in 1997. Theres a faint echo of tony blair, when he was saying that theresa may is not driving the brexit bus, it is being driven by Those Hard Line Euro Sceptics who want a clean break from europe. And john major obviously is haunted by those euro sceptics who gave him such grief on the Maastricht Treaty 25 years ago. And he warned theresa may in the speech today to face down those Who Favour Total Disengagement from the European Union. Youve been gauging a bit of reaction to this as it came out. Yes, a terse statement from number 10, challenging john major, who praised the remainers and criticise the leavers. Number 10 says, were moving beyond the language of leave and remain because we want to unite the country. I spoke to some remain ministers who privately welcome this. But interestingly, quite senior figures in the government, who are fans ofjohn major, are saying, this doesnt sound quite right this is not in the spirit of what i was talking about earlier, where he tries to make constructive interventions. And what these fans are saying is by all means raise your concerns about brexit, but if you are seen to undermine the Prime Minister, then im afraid to say, you are only going to undermine your own position within the conservative party. Nick, thanks very much. Well, john major talked about the Brexit Cheerleaders, and earlier, i spoke to the former Cabinet Minister and stalwart of the leave campaign, Iain Duncan Smith. I asked him ifjohn majors speech made him think twice about what brexit promised and what it is actually delivering. What i thought when i looked at this speech was that this was a peculiar speech, in the sense that it looked backwards, the whole time. It was almost like a refight of the referendum all the same threats and issues that came up during project fear were all in here. Strangely bitter, really. And almost really the speech of someone who simply refuses to accept that the british people should have made a decision such as they did, and wants them almost to rerun it again until they get it right, which is rather sad, really. He doesnt seem to question the result. He says theres a growing concern the British Public have been led to expect a future thats unreal and over optimistic, that obstacles have been brushed aside. Hes asking brexiteers to be more honest with the British Public instead of pretending its a walk in the park. I dont think anyones pretending this is a walk in the park, theresa may least of all. Shes going to do the negotiations. I think the important thing is that shes taken this on in a very realistic way. What shes saying is the british people voted to leave. We must now deliver that. At the end of it all, we want a decent relationship with europe. Were leaving the European Union, were not leaving europe. Actually, the speech was full of unrealistic, really rather angry threats, and i cant see the point of that now. 69 of the public voted in a poll to get on it. Theyre not looking back. What do you mean by threats . Theyre a rerun of you know, oh, its going to be a disaster, youre being too optimistic. And whats the alternative . That you go into the European Union saying this is all going to be terrible, help us out, its a disaster, its miserable. Help us. Thats not the way to run a negotiation. When you look at the rhetoric used, john redwood saying there will be no economic damage. Boris saying countries will be queueing up to be our trade partners. Michael gove saying our best days are ahead. Hes saying dont promise otherwise you create a distrust all over again between the public and politicians. I dont think the public expects this to be a complete walk in the park. The way its sold, they would. Im not so certain about that. If you look carefully at whats being said, what people are saying are that its in the hands of the british people to do the best out of this and actually do well. Its in our hands. Its not in somebody elses hands now. And thats the point. You can be optimistic Going Forward because you believe that the british people are capable of remarkable things. But to be pessimistic about them is the wrong attitude. Outside the European Union. And the point id simply make is, and im really sorry that hes chosen to couch this in really what i consider to be quite bitter terms about the process, and such a depressing forecast about the future, it would be far better that he should actually say, like the british people have made their minds up, lets get on with this. Lets make of most of this. Lets do the best. A former Prime Minister should have more faith in the british people. He points his finger at the brexiteers who shout down disagreement, who claim to Want Parliament to have sovereignty and have taken issue with anyone that has asked about amendments, questioned how brexit will happen. Thats crazy, isnt it . Well, thats the nature of debate, isnt it . Thats what he says. He says you have shut it down. He says you talk about frustrating the will of the british people, or calling it a slap in the face if the lords frustrate it. He says you have shut down debate. But with a bit of respect tojohn major, i was here 25 years ago when the Maastricht Treaty was being pushed through. The reality is that is the nature of robust debate. You know, were going to have this huge reform bill coming through. Everything will be debated ad nauseum. Then people will get a vote at the end of it on whether or not they agree with the agreement that theresa may brings forward. So when he says Brexit Cheerleaders have shown a disregard that amounts to contempt for the 48 of those who voted remain, you dont call that a disregard for what theyre saying . Youre encouraging them to do that, are you . I encourage everybody to debate. Im happy with debate. Why do you call it a slap in the face, why call It Shenanigans . Those who voted leave will have their opinion on where we go in the future. I relish that. You only test things by having debate. And amending if you need to after the debate . What are you going to amend . The difference is are you going to amend this short bill that says we want to trigger article 50 . So theres no point in debate then. You have behind that a massive bill. You can have a go at amending the other bill ad nauseum. Why do you Thinkjohn Major entered the debate now . I dont know why he chose to speak. I would have hoped had john major spoken he might have been a lot more positive. He might have actually said, look, there are going to be difficulties but this is what i would do, this is what we can achieve. I felt todays speech was a lost opportunity for someone who was the Prime Minister of the united kingdom, rather like tony blair, not harking back to what happened, not sounding bitter and angry, not looking like you dont have a lot of inspect for what the british people are capable of doing and making the wrong decision. Instead of which saying, look, we can do these things. You know, we have faith in the british people. After all, when we were elected in 1992 and john major became the Prime Minister, i dont recall he turned around and said i really dont have a lot of time for the british voters. They seem to have made the wrong decision. I think he accepted their decision. Thank you very much. In. Thmefientrklew has seguah w of the Eu Referendum campaign. But was it just a throwaway soundbite or did mr gove put his finger on a profound change . Are we really less willing to trust the people who were once supposed to know best . And have we come to distrust all experts orjust the kind who claim to know how the economy will behave . 0ur editor ian katz went in search of some answers. June 24th was a grim day in britains ivory towers. The brexit vote a punch on the nose for an intellectual elite who had lined up in favour of staying in the eu. This will be a victerge but did the referendum reveal, perhaps even cause, lasting change in our relationship with the people we once believed knew best . The bank of england, the ifs, the imf, the cbi and most of the leaders of the trade unions in britain. The working people of this country i think the people in this country have had enough of experts with organisations and acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong. Michael gove may have trotted out a glib sound bite to deflect an awkward question, but it was one with potentially profound implications. Have we ceased to believe that men and women with years of accumulated Specialist Knowledge are worth listening to . And if we have, does that reflect a healthy willingness to challenge orthodoxy . Or something more worrying . An assault on the very idea that society is built on reason and evidence. Those who are expert, who have the knowledge, who have the intellectual ability to dissect these difficult problems are being derided and pushed back. In recent years, politicians have increasingly pushed experts to the fore, to justify their decisions. But in a world where experts lose trust, how can politicians tackle Climate Change or convince us that vaccinations are safe . Look at the experts weve had. 0k, look at the experts. Some even see in the anti expert rhetoric a Slippery Slope that leads to the post fact morass of trumps america. Ive always wanted to say this, ive never said this before, we need an expert here, the experts are terrible. The assault on experts has implications for fields from medicine to intelligence. But its economists who find themselves on the front line. We are right to question experts, particularly after what happened in the referendum. When experts said that Consumer Confidence would fall, the Stock Markets would fall, growth would cease, house prices would go up immediately, as a result of the vote, not as a result of brexit. And they were wrong. Do you think its time we gave up listening to economists . I think we should pay a lot of attention to economists except when theyre talking about the future. Just balance the budget. In 1919 a young economist from new Zealand Built this contraption in his croydon garage. He used bits of Old Lancaster bombers and diy skills picked up in ajapanese pow camp. Phillipss machine, now at cambridge university, uses flows of water to model the behaviour of the british economy, literally trickle down economics. The economy comes out through here, around the pump at the back, this is income after taxation. Some of which goes off to savings, so this is the banking sector. It could be a perfect metaphor for whats wrong with economics. The embodiment of a mechanistic view that assumes people will behave like molecules in a test tube. Social science masquerading as science. It is telling us when you move the levers in the economy how the economy will perform . Yes. Its a model of the economy as a machine isnt it . Is it reasonable to see the economy as a machine . I dont know, thats a deeply philosophical question. It solves the equations. Economic forecasting has always been a bit hit and miss. Its early function, said jk galbraith, was to make astrology look respectable. Economists flag up the uncertainty and assumptions behind their or the media or both. In defence of economists i would say that short term forecasting is extremely difficult. We are talking about trying to predict the actions of millions of different consumers across the economy and trying to impose some order on all of that, those millions of decisions, is inevitably going to be really difficult. Victoria bateman is an economic historian. She thinks the attack on experts has implications far beyond economics. I also think it was dangerous, when we looked through out history, when we look at attempts to attack intellectuals and those go back to the period before the enlightenment. I think its particularly dangerous for a western politician in a western democracy to be playing this game of anti intellectualising. I think the people in this country have had enough of experts, with organisations. Its perhaps ironic that a man regarded as one of the most intellectual figures in british politics is now famous for one of its most anti intellectual sound bites. Gove insists he was quoted out of context. He didnt mean to impugn all experts. I was particularly thinking about organisations like the imf, who i thought had called the euro wrong and were calling the referendum wrong. And i felt, at the very least, we should challenge their arguments rather than simply saying, oh well, because you are a tenured academic, or because you work for the imf, you must be right. You are famous for your linguistic rigour, why didnt you Say Something more like what youve just said to me . It was a high profile, high intensity, high tension, High Nervousness encounter. There is a difference between the considered use of language in a conversation like this and having to think fast on your feet. Do you regret it . Do you regret having used the word experts in that context . No, i think, life is too short for regrets. I think one of the things that is occasionally irritating a Blanket Rejection of facts, evidence, rigour. So you dont trust mark carney . Or the chancellor or the Prime Minister . Not really, no. They dont know any more than we do, do they, really . No. Before the referendum, newsnight came to Bognor Wherejoan and some friends told us why they would ignore warnings does he know what its like to go around sainsburys, shopping . Does he know what its like . That line seemed to reveal something profound about our Changing Relationship with experts, so weve come back. Joan is away but over a cup of tea i asked a few of the locals how experts lost their trust. Its too much scaremongering from so called experts. Too many organisations and businesses that all they do is study graphs and take polls and theyjust seem to make a living out of it. And i dont believe that they can, that they know best. I dont think they know best. How on earth do we decide what to listen to and what not to listen to . You listen up here. A lot of people have got good common sense. You are not impressed by the expertise of academics, why are you sceptical about people who have spent often years studying the subject . They are just ordinary people but unfortunately they get stuck in this little bubble of what they are doing. So you will make all yourjudgment based on what you hear, not on what their qualifications are . Yeah, doesnt matter. It depends on what they actually say. It sounds like what youre saying is we should just pick the experts we agree with . Well theres plenty of them out there. Perhaps not everywhere in britain is as allergic to boffins as bognor. But it does seem we are far less willing to take the pronouncements of experts as gospel. So how did we get here . At least part of the answer must lie with the internet and the way it handed all of us the keys to the kind of Specialist Knowledge that once took years to acquire. Which of us hasnt diagnosed an ailment with a little help from Doctor Google long before arriving in the doctors waiting room . If the internet has chipped away at the respect commanded by many experts, its done the opposite for one man. Polls, if they still count for anything consistently found that martin lewis was the figure trusted most on brexit. He thinks the trouble starts when experts start predicting the future. Because you cant make that prediction. This is a world about probability and chance but what we had in the Eu Referendum was people giving us Black And White answers all the time. Lewis thinks that part of the problem is that many experts appear to take sides in the referendum argument. It was a problem we wrestled with on newsnight. In the eyes of the two campaigns, no expert was sufficiently independent for both to agree on. I think some experts made the mistake of campaigning and therefore presenting their views as part of a campaign which immediately says that you are biased one way or the other. The public will perceive it and not trust you. And even those who didnt then allowed their information to be used in a polemic way. If the enlightenment has its sacred texts, one of them is isaac newtons Principia Mathematica. Newtons own annotated copy is the prized possession of trinity colleges library. A temple to knowledge so chilly, the librarians wear anoraks. So this is a newtons own copy of the Principia Mathematica . This is indeed, its one of the great works of western science. Incredibly important. Its the book that inflicted calculus on centuries of schoolchildren. Indeed it did. Newton helped put science at the centre of our modern world. Yet some worry that the assault on experts has spread beyond economics and the Social Sciences and now challenges science itself. Unfortunately, mr goves remarks spilled over into all sorts of other areas where experts have an enormous contribution to make to the proper running of society and for good policy development. Science is absolutely there because science is based on reason and evidence and the fact that experts have been derided in this way does have an effect in undermining science and scientific evidence. Weve come to another temple to knowledge, londons gleaming Francis Crick institute. Noble prize winning geneticist paul nurse believes michael gove probably was thinking of economists in his infamous comment, but it was irresponsible not to clarify his remarks. Opinions on the front foot, and those who are expert, who have the knowledge, who have the intellectual ability to dissect these difficult problems are being derided and pushed back. My view about this is that it cannot last very long because opinion is not built on firm foundations. And it rapidly falls apart, and i think we are seeing that already with for example mr trump. Science is built to last. The expert bashers believe they were vindicated by the fact that most economists got the short term consequences of a brexit vote wrong. But have they started something more dangerous . Has gove emboldened people to dismiss all kind of Expert Advice they dont like . Do you worry about that at all . Worry that youve actually let something bigger get rolling that perhaps you did not mean to . I entirely understand that, yes, and i think that, im sure there are people who have latched on that word, either those who fear that rise of, a superstitious approach towards knowledge, who think that i may have legitimised it and it may be that there are some people out there that think that i am giving them license to operate in that way. Who is to say . All i would say is that that phrase apart, during my political lifetime, both when i was Education Secretary and when i wasjustice secretary, i wanted people to know more, to have more information and knowledge and a greater capacity for critical thinking. You were out campaigning every day after that interview, you could at any point in the days after when i am sure it came up countless times, you could have qualified that remark. Funnily enough it did not come up that often during the referendum campaign. I think it was used particularly afterwards because people felt that the brexit vote had somehow been a triumph of know nothing anti fact populism. My argument is that actually many of those who were Making Assertions during the campaign on the remain side where relying on people meekly submitting to authority as though we were still operating in the age of the pre Reformation Catholic Church, rather than actually making proper arguments. Science writer matt ridley believes this Greater Public scepticism about experts is healthy, the very opposite in fact of the challenge to enlightenment values others fear. One has to remember about the enlightenment did consist one has to remember that the enlightenment did consist of challenging the experts, particularly challenging priests and saying you do not have all the answers. People can work out the answers for themselves. Its hard to argue that a more questioning public is a bad thing. But heres the problem, where do we stop . All these people have had experts, oh, we need an expert. The experts are terrible. Can any layman decide that if the evidence on Climate Change stacks up, or if vaccines are safe, or whether its safe to eat gm crops . After seeing their brexit advice ignored, at least one expert decided to express herself more forcefully in the days after the referendum. Yeah, so i made the decision to spend the day at the university naked, as both an expression of my feelings about the referendum, which is that its a rather dramatic event and will have dramatic long term consequences, but at the human level more importantly as a show of solidarity. Victoria attended the monthly faculty meeting wearing only the words Brexit Leaves Us Naked scrawled across her torso. For some, the scene might have been a perfect metaphor for our Changing Relationship with experts. The emperor revealed to have been naked all along. So did michael gove put his finger on something no one had yet noticed . Or did he help to cause it . If only there was an expert we could ask. Well, we have three right here although maybe they wont thank me for saying that. Tracey brown is the director of sense and science because evidence matters, Nassim Nicholas taleb is the author of black swan and Swati Dhingra is an economist at lse. Nice to have all of you here, i will start with you nicholas, did jk galbraith get it right when he said Economic Forecasting makes astrology look respectable, should it all be left well alone . Well, its right that in a similar system you should let the system decide for itself, but, let me put some precision here because ive done some work since, the first time i was in your studio was nine years ago where i had to explain that economists were not experts. At least in macro affairs. Since then i have had to refine some of my work, so there are domains where we have experts, we need experts, 99 of the people you will run into tomorrow through evening will be experts, the driver will be an expert at driving, the baker and expert at making bread. And so on. And now technicians, i am in new york, the technology who are able to make that connection are experts however there are domains where they are not experts and where is the boundary . The boundary appears to be micro versus macro. There are three boundaries, micro versus macro, in other words someone who deals with smaller affairs, its much easier to do micro because youre not going to be held to account. So economics basically fits as macro . Its too big to get right . That is not true, there are many facts we do know from economics, how does trade work across countries from example and that is what we know from hundreds of data and those are the facts we were bringing to the public and i want to point out two issues in the film, one is that experts and academics are being put in the same category even though we know there are not many. I am talking about academic. Sorry, i dont see you guys here, so i dont know, let me say a couple of things, i was a trader for 20 some years and then i saw, i am not of course in an economics department, i do applied maths, then we saw the rigour and economics, it makes me cry, the statistical rigour because you use galcienne distributions and metrics for things which are repeatedly not them. Its too technical for the audience. I dont know what that means but broadly, is Economic Forecasting something we should leave alone . Economic forecasting, predicting the future, is taking the definition of expertise to its outside edges. I think most people in your film and people in the business of looking at the economy recognise that. But i really feel we need to Say Something about this interpretation of what happened in that debate, because the referendum has become the Reference Point for this discussion about expertise. Its a bit a false situation for us to be drawing big conclusions about what people think about experts based on that. You know, im im deeply suspicious when people make sweeping rhetorical flourishes of an anti intellectual nature. They usually dont mean lets equip the public with critical thinking. They usually mean believe me, dont believe them. Thats an interesting point. To go back to you nicholas, to that one, when people reject experts what theyre saying is dont believe them, take it from me or another source that i trust. Do you buy that . I definitely buy that. I buy that people in a microlevel trust some people for their opinion. I think that if you were to build a pyramid at the bottom, most people are experts at what theyre doing. Awes go up layers, the scaling, as you go higher and higher then you lose in expertise because you cant check the persons results. Economists, of course, live in their own little bubble when theyre not judged by reality, theyrejudged by other economists. They can keep being incompetent forever. Imean. Let me tell you. Just let me bring you to one point, is it irresponsible when you hear positions in Great Politicians in great positions of power, be it donald trump or michael gove at the time saying weve had enough of experts or experts are wrong do you agree that is irresponsible . I mean, the word expert can mean a lot of things. Some classes of experts we should dispence with because theyve been very dangerous. When i was in your studio nine years ago, talking about economics, it was an Expert Problem. There is something we call an Expert Problem. There is an Expert Problem we just have to Train Society to distinguish. Its societys fault that we dont explain properly who is an expert. Its not just about explanation. No, its not. This is about how the debate was portrayed. The same kind of people like michael gove was letting their information being misused. They were saying £350 million per week coming back to the nhs, we havent seen that happen. Why are only those particular experts who made it happened on the other side, we all remember them showing, on the remain side it would cost £4,300 perfamily. These specific numbers. Those short term officials were made by Public Officials not independent experts. Independent experts made only long term positions. This wasnt all about you. People were posing all kinds of questions in the referendum. Like, i live in swansea, and my hope for my kids getting a job or going on holiday in the next five years is zero anyway. So your National Discussion and your National Figures and projections are not talking to me. People were posing questions that were political questions. They werent getting political answers. So, you know, what weve seen is a politicisation of expertise over the recent discussion. But lets not draw grand conclusions. Last year, you could say 2016 was not the year of post truth. 2016 was the year in which, for example, the hillsborough families use a mass of expertise and fact finding to hunt for the truth. You dont think its eroded confidence in experts then . I think theres a bigger question, there is a fracture between the discussion were having about our National Well being, at a national level, with economic contributions and what peoples lived lives are like that dont relate to that. There are assumptions there and this has laid them bare. The point about this question was when you talk about not believing experts and when people start to agree with it, does it have a Knock On Effect in different fields, whether its science, Climate Change, inoculations, all those sorts of things . The biggest danger is the Knock On Effect in politics. Which is if we have the belief starting to take hold among our politician thats truthfulness is no longer a public value that people dont expect things to make sense it doesnt matter what the content or the subject is, its about the approach to trust . Yeah, it almost becomes subversive. Its like the 505 when it was subversive to talk about homosexuality or abortion rates. It becomes subversive to talk about the facts about something if people think its not going to play well in one of the national newspapers. Except its good to question, isnt it . Its good to use common sense and everything we heard. Experts have a great history of helping the public to pose questions about their lives. In the run up to the referendum there was a survey done which showed that people do trust academics. 0ur ratings were at the level of 57 to 60 and that they trust organisations like the 0ns because it gives them fact. Its not as though people dont want the facts. They want the facts. Nicholas, i know youre very respected by steve bannon in the trump administration. Have they come to you with the offer of a job . I will not comment on that. But. Go on, let us entice you gently on newsnight. 0k, let me tell you the one thing that people seem to miss about all this thing that the point isnt so much trusting experts and not trusting experts. The idea is to build systems that are error proof. And microsystems are pretty mush error proof because the error doesnt generalise. When you have a concentrated system, as in brussels, one error can lead to very large conclusions. Maybe the experts were not error free. This is where the discussion should be is how can we build systems that can with stand an Expert Problem. These systems have one atery bute, they need to be decentralised. Attribute. Thank you all very much indeed. Youd be excused for thinking that the oscars this year essentially consisted of one big envelope related cock up. Tonight, another missing piece of thejigsaw, as reports surface in the Wall Streetjournal that Price Waterhouse coopers managing partner, brian cullinan, was tweeting a backstage picture of emma stone moments before that critical moment. A tweet, incidentally, that has now been deleted. But beyond the la la land moonlight fracas, another rather different picture also won an academy award. The White Helmets are a group of civilian Rescue Workers in syria. You may even recognise their name from newsnights over the past few years and a film following their work in syria, simply titled the White Helmets, won best documentary. We spoke to a member of the organisation, majd khalaf, about what the oscar meant to them. This piece contains images from the documentary which some viewers might find upsetting. Explosion translation at the moment we receive the news of winning the oscar, one of our volunteers was pulling a child from underneath the rubble in the city of idlib. Other volunteers were helping in the suburbs of damascus. When we started our work with the Civil Defence team, the White Helmets, we pledged to help as many civilians as possible. It is an indescribable feeling when we get the call to help, although our job poses a lot of threat on our lives. Translation until now, we have saved 80,000 civilians, but we have also lost 162 of our colleagues because of air strikes. Although we are happy to save lives, we are also living the suffering of the civilians every day. The film was shot in aleppo, which was considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Our colleagues have put their lives on the line to get the message across. The oscar has shed a light on the suffering of people inside syria and made their voices heard. It introduced the work of the Civil Defence teams and the difficulties and dangers they face when they respond to calls. It also showed there is a humanitarian work taking place in syria and Notjust A Civil War happening. Its true there are people dying and air strikes bombarding civilians, but there are also volunteers who are working to make the peoples voices heard. We didnt think we would get to the oscars or win it. Our message is clear to stop the air strikes on civilians. Thats it for tonight. We leave you with the the sony world photography awards, whose 2017 shortlist will be on show at Somerset House in london on april 20. The actual nominees can only be revealed at midnight tonight, so obviously im not allowed to open the envelope and tell you who they are. After the disaster at the oscars last night, who would believe me anyway . But heres a peak at a few strong contenders. Goodnight. I hurt myself today. To see if i still feel. I focus on the pain the only thing thats real the needle tears a hole the old familiar sting try to kill it all away but i remember everything. Hello once again. This gives you a bit but i remember everything. Hello once again. This gives you a bit of but i remember everything. Hello once again. This gives you a bit of a but i remember everything. Hello once again. This gives you a bit of a clue but i remember everything. Hello once again. This gives you a bit of a clue about but i remember everything. Hello once again. This gives you a bit of a clue about some but i remember everything. Hello once again. This gives you a bit of a clue about some of but i remember everything. Hello once again. This gives you a bit of a clue about some of the weather you might encounter on tuesday across the british isles. You should see this quite extensively throughout the midlands. Less of a problem in a pride in our study needs, but then showers will dry out of. Best of the sunshine across a central part of scotland. The worst conditions to the north wales and north west of england. Dont be all surprised to be See A Wee Bit of winteriness. Tuesday into wednesday, some of the same thing. Skies were clear, with a chilly start through the day. Quite a dry and bright one, two, but dont be fall by that one. This band of rain will come into the southern countries of england and wales. But further north, there will be some sunshine. One or two passing showers, though, but it present day. The centre not be said if you are lurking across the southern counties above england and wales. The same cannot be said. Welcome to newsday, im Sharanjit Leyl in singapore. The headlines a 70 year old german tourist is beheaded in the philippines four months after being kidnapped by islamist militants. President trump promises to increase americas Military Spending by 54 billion without running up any more debts. Deported to singapore with just £12 in her pocket. We hearfrom the woman thrown out of the uk despite three decades of marriage and children. All they say is i cant be in the country and i have to kids and a husband and thats no grounds, i dont know what kind of grounds you want. And the Prime Minister of singapore tells us what he thinks of press freedom, the