Transcripts For BBCNEWS Newsnight 20170510

Publicly owned Energy Company in every part of the uk. National grid, railways and Bus Companies are to be nationalised. Well, im joined byjack blanchard, the mirrors Political Editor replete with a copy of this thing. And with our own Political Editor, nick watt. Just to be clear, jack, what you have there is a print out. Its not a typeset, formalised version . Im afraid not. No cover, no glossy feel. It is a dodgy, leaked document. But it does have their draft measures. Give us some of the eye catching ones. Theres a lot in there. As you mention, there is the plan to bring a big part of the Energy Industry back into public ownership. There is a Huge Investment plans for the nhs, £6 billion extra a year, which will be funded with new taxes on people earning more than £80,000 a year. Theres Council Houses to be built every year, tuition fees abolished entirely. We kind of knew that anyway. And then the creation of new whitehall departments, a ministry of labour, a department for housing, because labour seat workers rights and housing as central. Lots and lots on workers rights. The telegraph have written it up tonight. You take a slightly different spin than the daily mirror. They are saying it is 1983 all over again. The moderates in the labour party are relatively relaxed about this Draft Manifesto which they had obviously seen. They are saying this is the closest the labour party has got to the 1980s, the famous 1983 manifesto, the longest suicide note in history, as the late sir Gerald Kaufman calls it. They are saying that they are upholding labours commitment to renewing trident in this manifesto, that there was a curious paragraph after that, saying any Prime Minister would want to use the Nuclear Deterrent with caution. Which i think they have done up until now 82 . Commitment to the 2 spending on defence. They are saying that robin cook couldve written that in 1997. Who has written this . Is it corbyns team . Absolutely. Two or three key members in his team. They obviously have not had very much time to do it. They started looking at all the things they wanted to do, and they have reached out from there. Labour are not doing well in the polls, but when you look at the policies, like nationalising railways, people will like it. Would you describe this as quite populist in flavour, taxing the rich more to pay more into the nhs . A nationalised Energy Company in all regions . I spoke to a Senior Member of corbyns team tonight asking if they wanted to say anything. They didnt want to comment on record, but when i said some of this looks quite left wing, they said, no, it is popular. If you look at these individual policies, like energy and privatised railways, and higher taxes on some people, people agree with them on that. I was talking to one moderate this afternoon. The moderates said that the abolition of University Fees would connect people. And they said, oh, dear me, is this going to raise questions about their strategy . The moderate strategy is to let Jeremy Corbyn own it. The one red line was a trident renewal commitment. For everything else, they are taking the tragedy the strategy owned byjohn golding. They say that he must own this so he can own the General Election result. Lets think about the process. This goes to this clause 5 meeting tomorrow. Is thatjust a formality . Will they not it through, or will the nec be over each others shoulders, trying to. I think it is tweaks more than anything more serious. I dont think they will change much. In the past, you had battles, although that would take place beforehand. Its notjust the nec, it is the shadow cabinet, and it is the trade Union Liaison and contact group. The trade unions have a big say. I was told one thing that might cause a problem at the meeting tomorrow is what it says about immigration. The trades union do not think it goes fast far enough. Will the party be really annoyed . Is it a shambles or a clever Media Strategy . Lets leak it out, lets get people talking. Its not that. It looks slightly shambolic. My understanding is this has happened before. Because labour has this process, this big meeting full of senior people who all discuss it, leaks can happen because of this process. But it is in their constitution and its how they work. Its not what they planned, but it was all due to come next week anyway. Whose interest is it to leak this, and for what motive . You could say that the corbynites have a good reason for leaking it, to get away with any problem. And to stop anybody watering it down . And you could play that game, so i dont exactly know. Thank you for coming in with it. Thanks very much. So a president fires the head of the internal Security Service, on perplexing grounds that are months old. Just as the Security Service is investigating the president s own campaign team. It doesnt sound like the us, but it is. Today, the New York Times reported that the terminated director of the fbi james comey had just been asking for more resources for the investigation into russian connections to the Trump Campaign. Was he sacked to thwart an inconvenient investigation . Or, do we believe the trump line that mr comey had lost the trust of democrats and republicans alike and the fbi needed a fresh start . Well, for many, the president has crossed a dangerous threshold the constitution has checks and balances on his power, but it has to allow him some discretion, and to them, hes broken the spirit of us convention, by exploiting his powers to an entirely self interested end. 0ur diplomatic editor mark urban is with me. In fbi terms, the history of the fbi, how big a deal is it for the fbi director to be sacked . I think you know the answer to this question. One has been sacked before, by bill clinton back in 1993. William sessions. People say this was a move like nixon. Nixon fired the Special Prosecutor who had been appointed to investigate the watergate burglary, so thats where there are parallels. Consternation in washington today, and all sorts of versions coming out of a beleaguered president becoming obsessed with this russia issue, finally boiling over and doing this. That is from anti trump media, but it is true that he hadnt been Doing Public Engagements in recent days, and its also true that even his press people seemed unaware until moments before this happened that it was going to happen. They have been putting some other lines out today, like saying, we thought the democrats would really like this and be supportive. Everybody has jumped to their own conclusion about why it happened, and that is largely to do with the russian thing. But that Russian Investigation will go on. Now it all comes back to the investigation of connections between the Trump Campaign and the russians. No one has produced evidence of it yet, but theres a Lurking Suspicion that team trump might have encouraged, co ordinated, or been in some way complicit with russian hacking of the clinton teams emails. If that was true, well, lets just say its not a good thing to do. Paul wood is in washington, and looks at whats left of the investigations into the russian connection to the Trump Campaign. The political melodrama House Of Trump is a ratings smash. But at times its a little dark, and the plot does stretch credulity. In part one, the fbi investigates whether the Trump Campaign conspired with a foreign power, russia, to steal the us president ial election. In part two, trump fires the fbi director, james comey. The audience is left to wonder why. Everybody knows. It was not to derail the fbi investigation, the president insists. Yes, that is Henry Kissinger next to him. The question is, naturally, were about comeys sacking. He wasnt doing a good job, very simply. He was not doing a good job. The president wrote a terse letter to comey, saying it was Vital To Restore Public Trust and confidence in the fbi. Significantly, he recalled comey informing me on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation. At the white house briefing, an avalanche of scepticism. Look, i think it was something that. Above my pay grade was decided to be included, and im not going to get into the specifics of that. Thank you, so much. Trumps critics paint a different picture. They dont believe that comey was sacked, as the white house says, because he was too tough on Hillary Clinton. The white house should perhaps recall what another president , lbj, said about another fbi director, j edgar hoover. Better to have him inside the Tent Pissing Out than outside pissing in. It is a delicious irony that russias Foreign Minister should be Visiting Washington today to see mr trump. Youre kidding . Such insouciance is impressive. Never forget that the Us Intelligence agencies all say that russia interfered in the election, and they did it to put President Trump in office. Raise your hand, please. That assessment was made by james clapper, when he was director of national intelligence. He told congress this week that russia had hacked leading democrats and then leaked out damaging information a sophisticated propaganda campaign. They must be congratulating themselves for having exceeded their Wildest Expectations with a minimal expenditure of resources. And i believe they are now emboldened to continue such activities in the future both here and around the world, and to do so even more intensely. No evidence has been made public proving that the Trump Campaign did conspire with russia. Nothing. Theres no evidence either for the claim that the kremlin is blackmailing the president , using a tape of him with prostitutes in moscow. Nor has it yet been shown that trumps Business Dealings put him in hock to the russians. But the fbi investigation will continue after comeys departure. There are also four separate congressional enquiries. All these investigations now have many more questions following the events of the last 2a hours. Why was comey sacked . What does he know thats yet to be made public . And, was trump reassured that he himself was not the subject of an investigation . Washington echoes to talk that a Special Prosecutor may be appointed. Inevitably, the president s critics compare this to watergate. There is a Clear And Present Danger of a cover up, history doesnt repeat but it rhymes. And this firing very much has the look and feel of an effort to stop an investigation and politically interfere with it. It is true. Not since watergate has a president dismissed the person leading an Investigation Bearing on him. But President Trump may be right that only his aides and associates are being targeted now. Then the question will be that which came to define watergate what did the president know, and when did he know it . Paul wood there. Mark urban is still with me. How much of a danger do you think this Russian Investigation is to President Trump . Well, we know that the idea mesmerises the intelligence community. Ex director comey and others, as well as the president s political opponents. It is that there is some kind of connectivity that is provable between the Trump Campaign, and the hacking and leaking of e mails during last years president ial election. That is clearly the main thing they are going for. There are peripheral issues with money, meetings coordinating policy, other things. But that is the central thing they want to prove. Clearly, if they get there, if it is possible to prove that connection of people meeting, and money going. But they are a long way off. The president s defences are holding up in certain respects. For example, today more than 75 democrats and independents joined the call for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor. No republicans, just three in congress and the senate, led byjohn mccain, backing the idea of a special committee of enquiry. 0n the hill his defences are holding up. Self evidently theyve not got the point where they could launch a charge against individuals on these very serious potential allegations, and of course even if they do, they may well be arms length associates, people who were dismissed from the campaign at some point during the campaign. It may be, if there is in the end a parallel to watergate, the attempts to cover up or disrupt investigations that could finally do for him. Mark, thank you. 0ne concern is whether the president is somehow undermining the institutions of the us, politicising justice and damaging morale at the fbi and department ofjustice. The kind of thing that you might expect of lesser countries. Lets talk to Sidney Blumenthal, a senior aide to bill clinton who worked at the clinton foundation. First charlotte laws, an author and political commentator who was one of President Trumps earliest supporters. Charlotte, why do you think the president acted now on this . This question of why now seems to be one that has iffiifilef if fifi beer eyilfiifilfi this goes all the way back to january. Comey was increasingly viewed as a political figure which is inappropriate for someone who is the director of the fbi. There were calls from the republicans to sack him. Here in los angeles, im an independent but i know a lot of republicans and they were all saying to me back injanuary, why doesnt trump fire comey . There was a big push for this. I think that trump had it in his ear like i had it in my ear. The democrats were calling for comey to be fired during the campaign and there were reports that within the fbi there is disgruntlement and they were unhappy with the leadership. That was happening at the same time. You have controversy from a few days ago where comey went out and misstated information regarding e mails which created huge controversy and he had to come out and change what he had 5. 3. In f 3i§¥ifiz § all of these things had come together and i think that trump had an erosion of confidence. On that list are convincing or not. Do you not think that the president should have thought about how it looks . He is being investigated fifi . . . He 93351 . H . . . §§h§7 i will wait until the investigation is over before i sack him . Well, i think you dont do Something Like this you dorrltgvoutafidbofnowaofia and put it in your driveway if you dont have a pure heart. I think his detractors would have criticised him no matter when he fired comey. The investigation may not be over for years, and secondly, if he did it back injanuary when he first came into office, he still would have been criticised for the same basic reasons. I think so many people are anti trump in the media and the democrats and political figures that it is hard for him to do anything that is seen as right or proper. I want to ask you one question. This perplexes me. In the letter that trump sent to comey, he used the line while i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation, blah blah blah. What a strange thing to write. It is like it is on trumps mind, as he terminates this guy, is the investigation into his team. Why would you write that in there . It is very strange to me. Because being president is very much public relations. He wants to make it clear to america that he is not personally under investigation. As i understand he isnt. Personally. He wants to make it clear. I also think that the reason why he did not call comey himself was because trump has a reputation of not liking to confront people and make them feel bad. Its very hard for him to fire people. Ive heard many people say it with regards to the trump organization, he would leave people in the company even though he wanted them gone because he couldnt bring himself to fire them face to face or he would get someone else to do it. Thats probably the reason why he did not call him and that is the reason for that comment in the letter. His catchphrase was youre fired. But you are ironically saying he was incapable of firing people. Let me go to Sidney Blumenthal now. I may come back to you afterwards. Do you think that this is a constitutional crisis . Or at least a constitutional moment . It is a crisis in democracy and it has been ever since the moment that donald trump was inaugurated. Hes declared war on the free press and called them enemies of the people. There hasnt been that kind of language since middle europe in the 1930s. Against the free press. And hes has attacked judges. He has called them so called judges, and attacked the judicial system on cases that he is involved in, attempting to ban people based on their religion from the country. It puts enormous stress on those institutions. There has not been a president like donald trump in the entire not even nixon. While nixon was guilty of crimes which were the articles of a peach empeachment, there hasnt been such a systematic assault on the institutions of democracy in the us. Then under donald trump. We heard this from charlotte earlier, and you basically blamed comey for losing Hillary Clinton the election. Its interesting the democrats are the great defenders of comey, because comey is now trumps enemy and they had to rally round. What is going on there . I would say that the approximate cause given for the Firing Of Comey by the Assistant Attorney General was ridiculous on its face. After that event, donald trump conducted a very Public Campaign claiming that even though Hillary Clinton had been exonerated, that she should have been locked up and that she was a criminal. Mike flynn led chants of lock her up from the platform of the republican convention. Its ridiculous. Everybody knows it is a ridiculous reason. The reason is that he is attempting to obstruct the investigation into russias intervention in the us election. That is your charge, the congressional investigations will continue. But tell me, what are you meant to do if you are the president of the United States, and you do not like your fbi director . And you dont think he is doing a good job . And there is chatter all over the place saying that the guy is not up to it . You are going to sack him, right . Its an interesting question. Had he wanted to change his fbi director, who has a term of nine years, he could have done that during his transition or when he first came into office. Instead, he praised him and he had a Public Meeting with him that was filmed in which he embraced him. So Something Else has happened. What weve learned in the last 24 hours is that there is a grand jury that has been convened by ja mes comeycagctitis. Beaeggg a story to tell. We learned james comey asked for a vast increase in funding for his investigation. There are other elements involved here. Sidney blumenthal, thanks. Charlotte, you are not go to blame anyone for putting two and two together, saying he has obviously done this as he is leading an investigation which is effective into his campaign . I do not think you can read into President Trumps mind. I think he wants this investigation concluded. I do not think he has tried to thwart it but get it behind him. Its a handicap to his presidency. I do not think it is logical to think that that was the goal behind his actions. Wouldnt it be better if president s used it with restraint and it was fairly difficult to do . Thinking about it for awhile, have consultations and enquiry . I cannot quite hear you the sound has got rough. It should be difficult to sack the director of the fbi and not too easy for a president to do that . Well, president s can have anybody that they want as the director of the fbi. It is his decision and i do not think he was praising comey initially, but i think he wanted him to have a chance. Face to face, he has a reputation for getting along with everybody, and being friends with people. And getting them to do what he wants them to do, building relationships. I do not think it is unusual at all. It is obviously President Trumps choice, and i think he likely has a pure heart in this. I cannot read into his mind, just like Sidney Blumenthal cannot, one potential threat hanging over the conservative campaign was that of possible prosecutions for breaches of election law in 2014 and 2015. This is all to do with the Party Spending National Money on local campaigns, and counting it in the wrong box, in order to override rules about how much can be spent. Well, today that threat almost went away. 15 Police Forces looking at multiple constituencies reported to the Crown Prosecution Service, and in 1a of those, no further action is to be taken. However, its not a get out of gaol free card for the tory campaign. In one prominent case, a decision is still to come. Chris cook reports. The Conservative Party has already been in trouble over its election of constituencies the result of an exhaustive channel 4 news investigation. But that fine may be it. The Crown Prosecution Service said there was an error made in our National Returns for the 2015 General Election. And the Electoral Commission fined us for that, and we have paid that fine. The cases dropped today relate to a Battle Bus Campaign which took tory activists and shipped them into target seats. Now, what these cases actually demonstrate is a real oddity in our election law. Specifically, there would have been no investigation at all, and no problems at all, had those tory activists simply handed out leaflets that only mentioned David Cameron and the Conservative Party at large. The problem was that, and i quote the Electoral Commission, they found social media posts where activists from the coaches were holding Campaign Material promoting individual candidates. The reason they drew that distinction is that our law distinguishes between National Spending promoting parties and local election spending. , 7 , g at the same cost. And both are going leafleting to help mr bloggs. Lets say, by the luck of the draw, one of them gets a bundle of leaflets that praise local manjoe bloggs, and the other gets leaflets that only mention the party leader and national policies. The activists delivering the local Joe Bloggs Leaflet will count as local spending, but the activists delivering the national leaflets will count as national all Party Spending. Never mind the fact that a vote for the National Party in this seat would be a vote forjoe bloggs. In Victorian Times, an mp was simply returned for his constituencies without any regard for his party label whatsoever, and the parties were not creatures really recognised by the law. They were certainly not controlled by the law. More recently, that is to say within the last 20 years, weve had a system which has recognised Political Parties and sought to control party expenditure, hence weve got one system left over from Victorian Times for individual mps, and one system recently introduced for national expenses, for national campaigns, for now recognised Political Parties. The case whose fate is yet to be decided, though, south thanet in kent, is the most serious, and its not about activists handing out the wrong leaflets. Its about one party using its Spending Superiority to overwhelm another one. Its precisely the sort of activity that these rules are supposed to prevent. This case is so high profile because nick timothy, now the Prime Ministers co chief of staff, ran that campaign. Deliberately, not by accident, because Tory Central Office gave candidates duff advice about receipts. The law draws quite odd lines, and prosecution is difficult. Viewsnight now, and in the run up to the election weve been devoting this spot to provocative ideas for the party manifestos. Should they be minded to look for some. Tonight faiza shaheen, director of the Thinktank Class Talks about property ownership. Last week, chris cook showed us some Interesting Data on the election noam chomsky is notjust one of the worlds most famous academics his work on linguistics has shaped the field in the modern era he is also one of the worlds most famous supporters of the political left. Now imagine it from his Point Of View hes 88, has campaigned for socialism for decades against the grain of his fellow americans, and just as rage at social injustice erupts and theres an overthrow of the establishment thinking, he finds its President Trump in office. For him, exactly the wrong kind of anger. Well, Professor Chomsky has been at the University Of Reading this evening, giving a lecture on the state of western democracy. I went over there this afternoon, to talk to him about everything that is going on. I asked what it was about donald trump that appealed to american voters. What is the alternative . The democrats gave up on the Working Class a0 years ago. The Working Class is not their constituency. No one in the political system is. The republicans claim to be, but they are basically their class enemy, however they can appeal to people on the basis of claims about religion, white supremacy. So you think there was quite a racist motivation . No doubt about that. Are we talking 3 , 30 of the voters . Roughly . Theres a substantial streak of fundamentalist religion. Trump took an enormous quantity of the christian fundamentalists, who are a big segment of the us population. Remember, in the United States, about 40 of the population think the Second Coming is going to be in their lifetimes. The United States is off the spectrum in this respect. Do you think trump will do much damage while he is there, and will it be permanent damage to the institutions of the us . I think the main damage he will do is to the world, and it is already happening. The most significant aspect of the trump election, and not just trump, the whole Republican Party, is their departing from the rest of the world on climate change. You have called the Republican Party the most Dangerous Organisation on earth. In human history. It is an outrageous statement. When i said it, i said it was very outrageous. But is it true . You are rating them as worse than kimjong un of north korea, or as isis . Is isis dedicated to destroying the prospects for organised Human Existence . Its that bad . What does it mean to say we are not doing anything about climate change, and we are trying to accelerate the race to the precipice . And you dont entertain the possibility that they might be genuine in their belief. Doesnt matter. If the consequence of that is, lets use more fossil fuels, lets refuse to subsidise developing countries, if that is the consequence, that is extremely dangerous. Macron won the french election, emmanuel macron, and internationalist, liberal, loves the eu. All the things, in a way, that the trump voters have tried to reject. Can he succeed . Is this the end of populism in europe . By no means. Macron is a good example about how the core of the institutions have collapsed. He came from the outside. A vote for him was substantially a vote against le pen, who is recognised to be a serious danger. What about the British Election . Jeremy corbyn has been leading the labour party. They have an uphill task, according to the opinion polls. Have you any advice or thoughts about how labour refines its pitch and makes it to government in the uk . If you asked me to vote, i would vote for them. They have a problem. I think he is a very decent and good person, and ive followed his career for some years. He is evidently not inspiring the population. Labour has not come out with its programme, so we dont really know what it will be. There is a sense of a lack of clarity about what he stands for, which is odd because he was someone who was most clear about it. What has happened to the labour party through the neoliberal years is, it became is, as many call it, thatcherite, especially under blair. It did not represent the Working Class. I want to talk to you aboutjulian assange. You have been a big supporter of him and wikileaks. Many progressive people have looked at wikileaks and said, this organisation is on the wrong side of history. Do you still believe injulian assange, despite the fact that they published e mails of Hillary Clintons. I believe that the persecution of him is completely wrong. The threats against him are completely wrong. They should be withdrawn. He should be freed. He shouldnt be imprisoned. Judicial process. He needs to be questioned about the accusations. It is pretty much a front. There is no reason why swedish prosecutors cant interrogate him on the charge that they think they have. In fact, theyve already begun to do so. Whats keeping him in prison. In an embassy, is his desire to go in there. Is the threat that the us will go after him. Is he right to worry about it . Of course. It is the threat that is wrong. As to what wikileaks has decided to release, you can have various opinions. What is your opinion of stolen e mails, perfectly legitimate e mails, stolen and put in the Public Domain . I would not have been in favour of doing that, but the general idea of informing the public, informing citizens, of what you are doing and keeping from them, thats a good idea. Noam chomsky, thank you very much indeed. Noam chomsky there, in all fairness speaking before the mirror leaked labours manifesto. And you can see a longer version of that on the Newsnight Youtube page. Thats it for tonight. And if the election has been spoiling the vibe of your springtime, we leave you with a celebration of seasonal fertility courtesy of film makerjamie scott. Mr scott has a genius for Filming Flowers blooming in time lapse, and his latest work took three years to make. Heres a small but pungent clipping. Goodnight. Music pure morning placebo a friend in needs a friend indeed a friend with weed is better a friend with breasts and all the rest a friend whos dressed in leather a friend in needs a friend indeed a friend wholl tease is better our thoughts compressed which makes us blessed and makes for Stormy Weather days dawning, skins crawling. Hello there, good evening. After all the dry weather we have had four days and weeks now, it is probably about time we had a change. Well, there is one on the way. Things are going to be a little bit different for the next couple of days. All of these cloud have been swarming across spain and portugal have been giving some quite vicious thunderstorms and some of those shower clouds on their way northwards in our direction. With the showers we will have warm and humid at wafting up from the south. So for the end of the week things will be turning quite muggy and humid with the risk of some thundery downpours at times. In fact, as we go through the rest of the night we will see some showers beginning to creep in across england and the far south of wales. Elsewhere, still on the chilly side for many. That will change as we go through the next couple of nights. The upper story at 8am tomorrow morning, we will see some showers across southern counties of england and the far south of wales. There will be quite hit and miss. South of wales. There will be quite hitand miss. Many south of wales. There will be quite hit and miss. Many areas will be dry and will not see a shower but if you do get one that will be Thunder And Lightning overhead. Northern england and northern ireland, in south west scotland. Tomorrow with a good deal of sunshine and a fairly chilly start to the day. A bit of low cloud in the eastern and northern scotland, the odd spot of rain across the northern isles. As we go through the day there will still be a lot of dry weather and some sunshine. This Showery Rain Moving Erratically Northwards and in the afternoon the chance we could spark off some really quite intense downpours and thunderstorms. Not everywhere, but if you get one you will know about it. A lot of rain in a short space of time. Temperatures of 22 or 23 in the south. Cooler and fresh into the north east of scotland. Into the early hours of friday that humid air continues to work its way northwards. With its showery rain at times. Looking at the overnight temperatures, eight to 13 degrees. No more frost, certainly, for the time being. In the friday, it is a bit of a mishmash. They will be thundery weather, showery spells, which could crop upjust weather, showery spells, which could crop up just about anywhere. Hard to be precise about where the showers will be at this stage so dont take the blue blobs too literally. Maybe ten in the south east, in aberdeen, but many areas will feel the warmth and humidity. Another fairly but many areas will feel the warmth and humidity. Anotherfairly humid day on saturday, with some sunshine and showers but then change of that ata and showers but then change of that at a night. This weather front, and showers but then change of that at a night. This weatherfront, a cold front will sweep its way in. Some fresh air behind it means temperatures will dip away again on sunday. A cooler, fresherfeel to the weather with a mixture of sunshine and showers. If you are staying up, there is more weather overnight on the news channel. If you are off to bed, sleep well. I wish you a very good night. Im rico hizon in singapore. The headlines. President Trump Defends his decision to fire the director of the fbi. He said james comey had lost his confidence. Why did you fire him . Because he wasnt doing a good job, very simply. He was not doing a good job. South koreas new president , moonjae in, vows to tackle the crisis in the north. Hong kong protesters say their demonstration has been blocked due to president xis visit. And a bride without a wedding. We meet the woman with terminal cancer fulfilling a lifelong dream