I fully embrace my bleeding heart liberalism with what I believe should be a non-controversial statement that all human beings have a right to live unoppressed and without fear of brutalization from their government. And while I don’t particularly like the American Exceptionalism notion of being the police officer to the world, I do believe that if we can help the citizens of any country from starving or being disappeared by their government, that we have a moral responsibility as members of the human race to help. That said, what has always troubled me about the decision to go into Libya is how disingenuous the arguments have been to justify it. There is no question that Qaddafi is a crackpot. It is also indisputable that the Libyans have been oppressed. But I can also say the same about at least a half dozen other countries. Why are we intervening in Libya and ignoring the plights of people in the Ivory Coast, Yemen, Nigeria, Bahrain, Tunisia, Syria, Guatamala, Myanmar, Ghana and on and on? On the Meet the Press roundtable panel, Ted Koppel brings up the $64,000 question: Why Libya? Why now? And as Savannah Guthrie points out, the Obama administration really hasn’t come up with a coherent answer for that. MR. GREGORY: We’ve just heard this discussion, particularly the secretary of Defense saying that this campaign in Libya is not in America’s vital interest. Questions laid out by Senator Lugar and criticism. Pretty high stakes for the president, who’s about to address the nation about it all. MR. TED KOPPEL: Yes, and I don’t think he’s going to be able to answer the central question. You asked the right question in talking about the, the national interest. The question hasn’t yet been answered as to why it is that Libya, of all countries in that region, has won the humanitarian defense sweepstakes of 2011. We have seen many countries, both in that region and throughout the world, where civilian loss and civilian suffering has been much, much greater. Congo for the past 12 years, we’ve lost about five million people. Sudan, three million people, never any talk of military intervention. Take a look at what’s going on in the Ivory Coast today. Secretary Clinton was talking about the number of refugees that might have come out of a Gadhafi attack on Benghazi. You’ve got 700,000 refugees in the Ivory Coast right now–close to a million, in fact. Why, why Libya? Hasn’t been answered. MR. GREGORY: Do you think, Savannah Guthrie, that the president will make the case that in many ways this was a message being sent to the rest of the Arab world, particularly the Persian Gulf, where they’d like to see more reforms more quickly after the Saudis put troops into Bahrain, that they felt that they had to take a stand here? MS. SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: I think they felt they had to take a stand because, as senior aides will say to you, you have to put this in the context of the Arab Spring. When you look at Libya, you have to be looking at what happens to–what’s going on with its neighbors. In fact, this week in South America, I asked the president point-blank, what is the national security interest of the U.S. in Libya? And he cited Egypt, Tunisia, unrest in the region. So the president’s going to have to put it in that context. What’s so fascinating about his rhetoric, though, is while he’s saying, “We need to do this, the U.S. will take this military action,” you can see the subtext is clearly his own reluctance to do so. It’s not the normal commander in chief fare, “Our cause is just, our cause is righteous. We’ll see it through to the end.” Instead, you hear him saying, “We’ll be in and out. It’s going to be limited in duration. We won’t be the ones enforcing the no-fly zone. It’s not going to be our ships enforcing the arms embargo.” So you kind of see that reluctance shot through his rhetoric. Unfortunately, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates isn’t helping either: Sorry, Sec. Gates and Clinton, with so much focus on austerity measures for American citizens because of budget shortfalls, spending the billions it will cost to protect European countries’ vital interests just doesn’t fly.
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I’m not going to tell you whodunnit, only that The Killing has been the best thing on TV for ages Non-spoiler alert: there are no spoilers in what follows. If you’ve yet to see the end of The Killing, or any of it and you plan to, it’s still fine to read on. Honest. I need to explain something about the mechanics of this column. Unless there’s some massive live TV event on Saturday I file copy for Monday’s edition, the weekend’s television, on a Friday. The early deadlines are to allow people who work on the print edition, the newspaper, to have some kind of a weekend. I don’t know whether they deserve one, but that’s another matter. The point is, I’m not going to discuss who it was whodunnit in The Killing (BBC4, Saturday), the conclusion of which was obviously the Big Thing this weekend. It wouldn’t be fair on my editors and subeditors. For those of them (loads, this is prime Guardian territory) who have been watching, it would totally spoil their weekend. For the others, it would spoil the box set which I will be urging them to get hold of as soon as it comes out. If you do want to discuss how Pernille could possibly have slaughtered her own daughter (oops . . . only kidding, hahaha), then you need to go to Vicky Frost’s excellent series blog . Which you almost certainly have done already – more than 1,200 posts after the last one. And there are half a million viewers of the show – not bad for an obscure foreign-language drama on BBC4 that requires serious commitment. And after all that hype, who’s talking about Boardwalk Empire? I will say, however, that the end of The Killing has left a frightening gaping void in my life. What is there to think about now, to lie awake worrying about at night? (I had a nice little theory about Nordic neo-Nazism, Mayor Bremer, and the bid for the 1984 Winter Olympics on the go). In my house, The Killing – or Forbrydelsen, as we’ve come to call it, pretentiously – has crept up and engulfed us like the gloom of an unlit Copenhagen cellar in November. Not only has it been pretty much the only topic of conversation for the past 10 weeks, but we’ve also begun speaking in Danish. Pass the salt, tak ; shall we get a hund ? We’ll call out “Troels!” in the voice of Rie Skovgaard for no reason at all, often in our sleep. And then think of excuses to say it again. Who are ugly and live under bridges? “Troels!” How does the fisherman catch mackerel behind his boat? “Troels!” What does a bobby on the beat do? He pa-”Troels!” Shut up! I’ve also asked my girlfriend to dress up in a loose-knit white Scando sweater and walk about in the dark with a torch, saying nothing, stony faced, giving nothing away . . . anyway, sorry, perhaps you don’t need to know about that. The reason for the obsession is simple: The Killing is brilliant, the best thing on television for yonks. It started with the brutal murder of a teenager, then dragged us along for 20 hours, mainly in the dark (sometimes with a torch, sometimes without), up side paths and cul-de-sacs, doubling back on itself until it eventually reached its conclusion, leaving us exhausted. And emotionally drained too, because The Killing isn’t just a thrilling whodunnit, it’s a very human story that never lets you forget there’s a tragic death at its heart. It has some of the most interesting and real characters on television, who develop and react to the drama as it unfolds. I’m talking about Pernille and Theis Birk Larsen, Hartmann (“Troels!”), Bremer, Meyer. And Sarah Lund, of course, possibly the most single-minded detective in TV history, but also seriously fallible and therefore believable, and now officially the coolest woman in the world. A mesmerising performance by Sofie Gråbøl, by all of them. The Killing is also beautifully written and directed, deeply atmospheric and fantastic to look at once you get used to the dark. Eat plenty of carrots if you’ve yet to get involved. Which you must do. I do still have a few questions – mainly about Danish police procedure, but also about some of the political stuff and who knew what when. So conversation isn’t totally dead yet. Or maybe I’ll go back and revisit earlier episodes. I really think you could, already, and get more out of it; there’s not a lot of television you can say that about. The final body count is six, or seven if you count the earlier one. My final score is clearer, and higher. Ten. Out of 10. Television The Killing Crime drama Drama Sam Wollaston guardian.co.uk
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Tina Brown’s return to print media with Newsweek surprised many. Here, she explains her plans for the loss-making title The last time Tina Brown launched a magazine – Talk in 1999 – she held a celebrity-stuffed party on an island off Manhattan where the fireworks were bigger, louder and longer than those at Rupert Murdoch’s wedding just a few weeks later. To celebrate her first issue as editor-in-chief of Newsweek, earlier this month, Brown ditched the party idea altogether, instead inviting some of the world’s richest, poorest and most-oppressed women to talk about their rights in a midtown Manhattan hotel for the Women In The World summit. The Murdochs were there too to discuss China, their marriage having outlived Talk by a whole decade. The magazine cost its backers a rumoured $100m (£62m) over two seemingly spendthrift years. After its closure in early 2002, Brown hosted a chat show and wrote a biography of Princess Diana before setting up the webzine, the Daily Beast, in 2008. The past decade has seen an explosion of online social networking that now makes celebrity parties seem, well, old school, and the print media decimated by websites from Google to Gawker and the Huffington Post. But what hasn’t changed since 1999 is Brown’s ability to attract headlines, both good and bad. Brown is catnip to print journalists and the more vicious bloggers. When the Beast team merged with the even more loss-making Newsweek last November, Gawker ran a much-read piece comparing Brown with a hagfish, “a blind, slimy, deepwater eel-like creature that darts into the orifices of its prey and devours them, alive, from the inside”. Brown is, inevitably, dismissive of these attacks.”Snark is the medium of the day,” she says when we meet over a hotel breakfast (egg white omelette with bacon and butterless toast). In her transatlantic, staccato voice, she says she hasn’t read the stories anyway. “I don’t have Google alert because it just distracts the brain. At the end of the day, we have bigger things to worry about than that, quite frankly. We have a magazine to remake.” The task she faces in remaking Newsweek is one of the biggest of a 35-year career that has included taking on a failing Tatler when she was just 25, as well as editing Vanity Fair (1984 to 1992) and the New Yorker (1992 to 1998). In a world where advertising and circulation revenues have plummeted and the future of news magazines looks dire, Newsweek’s losses are estimated at more than $20m a year . Sidney Harman, a 92-year-old technology mogul paid $1 for the 78-year-old magazine last summer. He contacted Brown soon after. So, the question is, after extolling the virtues of the 24/7 nature of the internet for the past two years, why would Brown and her billionaire backer Barry Diller return to print? Manhattan gossip suggests Diller simply wants to distance himself from the loss-making Beast, but he has a funny way of showing it, if so. As well as continuing to fund the merged firm, he will provide office space in his new Frank Gehry-designed offices in the next month. Brown says of her two new co-owners: “I’ve got two guys who’ve expressed their commitment and no one expects it to be quick. I think I’m much safer with them than I
Continue reading …Avalanche on western slope of Croix de Tsousse kills five and leaves five injured BERN, Switzerland (AP) Rescuers called off their search Sunday for the last member of a group of 11 French snowshoers and cross-country skiers swept off the slopes of a Swiss peak by an avalanche, bringing the death toll to five. Rescue guides, helicopters, sniffer dogs and police halted their two-day search for the missing woman due to safety concerns and because they were unable to safely keep probing the snow that had packed like concrete and was some 20 meters (65 feet) thick in places, according to police in the canton (state) of Valais. “For this reason and to ensure the safety of rescuers, the search was called off,” the police said in a statement. Three victims were found dead at the scene of the avalanche, while a fourth died in a hospital after the slide struck Saturday on the western slope of the 2,800-meter (9,000-foot) Croix de Tsousse peak, near the Swiss-Italian border. Five others were injured, three seriously, and remained hospitalized Sunday. One woman escaped uninjured and was able to seek help. The group nine snowshoers and two cross-country skiers were part of a mountaineering club from the Cluses region of France on a moderate day’s outing to the Pennine Alps. They did not have a guide, but did carry avalanche beacons, police said. Swiss police said the victims recovered at the scene were two women and a man aged between 57 and 65. No details have been released on the man who died in the hospital or the missing woman. The injured were four men and one woman aged between 39 and 62. Switzerland’s National Avalanche Center had warned of a “considerable” risk of snowslides in the region. In January 2010, six people died in an avalanche in another Swiss region, Diemtigtal, and a doctor who went to help was swept away in a second avalanche. Switzerland France Europe guardian.co.uk
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Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan challenges western direct action and says prolonged conflict could lead to a ‘second Iraq’ The Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signalled that Turkey is ready to act as a mediator to broker an early ceasefire in Libya, as he warned that a drawn-out conflict risked turning the country into a “second Iraq” or “another Afghanistan” with devastating repercussions both for Libya and the Nato states leading the intervention. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Erdogan said that talks were still under way with Muammar Gaddafi’s government and the Transitional National Council. He also revealed that Turkey is about to take over the running of the rebel-held Benghazi harbour and airport to facilitate humanitarian aid, in agreement with Nato. Speaking in Istanbul at the weekend, Erdogan said Gaddafi had to “provide some confidence to Nato forces right now” on the ground if there was to be progress towards the ceasefire the Libyan leader wanted and an “end to the blood being spilled in Libya”. His comments came as Nato leaders met in Brussels to finalise arrangements for the alliance – with Turkey’s participation – to take over the enforcement of the UN no-fly zone from Tuesday, as well as for the more controversial air strikes against Gaddafi’s ground forces. Meanwhile, rebel forces completed their weekend take-over of a string of government-held oil towns, including Brega, Ras Lanuf and Bin Jawad, with the help of heavy coalition air strikes on pro-Gaddafi forces. By Sunday night their Their rapid advance westwards is heading for the Libyan leader’s home town and stronghold, Sirte, where two loud explosions were heard. The Turkish government, which is playing an increasingly important regional role and has the second largest armed forces within Nato, has been at the centre of the argument within the alliance over Libya, publicly clashing with the French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Turkey opposed any outside military involvement before it began – Erdogan described the idea of Nato intervention as a “nonsense” — but has now agreed to participate in a non-combat role in the wake of the UN security resolutions and Arab League appeal. His public challenge to US, British and French direct military intervention is likely to deepen Nato dissension and alarm western leaders who hoped Turkey had now acquiesced in the thrust of the Libya mission. “We have been opposed to any unilateral action and we could never accept appeals such as that by the French minister for a new crusade,” Erdogan told the Guardian, in a reference to comments made by France’s interior minister, Claude Guéant. His government would carry out its obligations under UN resolutions. “But for Turkey, it’s out of the question to shoot at Libyan people or drop bombs on the Libyan people,” Erdogan said in reference to the emerging “no-drive zone” policy. “Turkey’s role will be to withdraw from Libya as soon as possible” and “restore the unity and integrity of the country based on the democratic demands of the people”, he added. It was vital, Erdogan said, that “this deployment should not be carried out for Libya’s oil. Of course there will be a price for these actions and no one can guarantee that Libya won’t have to pay a price.” Repeatedly drawing parallels with Iraq and Afghanistan – which senior Turkish officials regard as a serious risk if there is a military stalemate – Erdogan said Iraq was “still paying a price” 20 years after the Gulf war of 1991. “I’m afraid we could see another Afghanistan or a second Iraq emerging. When western forces entered Afghanistan nearly 10 years ago, people were talking of it being over in days, and people said the same in Iraq. But a million have died and a civilisation has as good as collapsed. We don’t want to see a similar picture in Libya.” If the conflict was prolonged, the Turkish prime minister warned of a backlash against countries now carrying out air strikes. “It will be devastating for the entire Libyan people, and the repercussions will not be restricted to Libya, but will have a direct impact on those countries that have intervened.” Erdogan added: “There is a civil war in Libya and we have to bring that to an end.” He had spoken to Gaddafi repeatedly before the air strikes and to the Libyan prime minister since, while Turkey’s foreign minister was in close touch with the Benghazi-based opposition. It was crucial that contacts were maintained with both sides, he said. “Gaddafi wants a ceasefire, this came up when I was talking to the prime minister, but it’s important for those circumstances to mature. It wouldn’t be consistent to keep shooting while demanding a ceasefire.” If the two parties to the conflict requested Turkey to play the role of mediator, the Turkish prime minister said “we will take steps to do that” within the framework of Nato, the Arab League and African Union. “We can never ignore the democratic rights and liberties called for by the people of Libya, and change and transformation can never be delayed or postponed,” Erdogan said, adding that a leader such as Gaddafi, with no formal position, should be able to “lay the foundation for such a transformation”. Erdogan’s AKP party and its programme of Islamic democratisation and greater national independence is widely admired in the Arab world, and Erdogan widened his warning to autocratic governments facing popular uprisings throughout the region: “Leaders who are resistant to change and their people’s demands may find that brings an end to their being a leader.” Erdogan was also fiercely critical of European governments he said had misunderstood Turkey’s embrace of “Islam and democracy simultaneously”. In its negotiations to join the EU, Turkey had faced “obstacles that no country had ever witnessed before,” adding: “Never mind, we will do what we will do.” He was at pains to rebut criticism in the western media over the jailing of journalists caught up in the long-running investigation into an attempted military coup and claims that the government has used the case to intimidate sections of the press. “These criticisms upset us very much,” he said, adding that a total of 27 journalists had been convicted and jailed for crimes, including membership of terrorist organisations, coup plotting and sexual harassment. “Would that be accepted as normal in your country?” None of these cases had been brought to court at the initiative of the government which, he said, had taken action to increase the independence of judges and prosecutors, and the efficiency and speed of the judicial process. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Turkey Europe Nato Seumas Milne guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Newt Gingrich can’t make up his mind. The former House speaker explained Sunday that he was actually against using force in Libya before his March 23 flip-flop on the no-fly zone. In a March 7 interview with Fox News, Gingrich said , “Exercise a no-fly zone this evening.” After President Barack Obama committed to using U.S. forces for enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya, Gingrich changed his tune. “I would not have used American and European forces,” Gingrich said during a March 23 interview on NBC’s Today Show The Georgia Republican attempted to explain his flip-flop Sunday by telling Fox News’ Chris Wallace that he had actually been against intervention in a February interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “Some are saying that whatever the president does or doesn’t do, you’re against,” Wallace noted. “Well, you should have played an earlier clip when I was on Greta’s show in late February and I said we should be for replacing Gaddafi without using the U.S. military,” Gingrich explained. “Now, the president on March 3 changed the rules of the game. The president came out publicly and said Gaddafi must go. And so I was citing there my original position which is if you are not in the lake, don’t jump in. Once you’re in the lake, swim like crazy.” “Here is where I’m confused,” Wallace said. “Greta’s show March 7, the first clip you said to start the no-fly zone immediately. All she asked is what should we do about Libya? You made no mention about what the president had said, you said we should have intervened.” “Because there is an earlier Greta show in February which is where this all started,” Gingrich insisted. “In February, I said we should find ways to get rid of him using the kind of strategies that Reagan and Eisenhower used, which was to help freedom fighters by using American force. That became impossible once the president publicly said Gaddafi must go.”
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• ‘Historic’ first ever victory in regional Landtag vote • Chancellor suffers after U-turn on nuclear power The Green party has taken power from Angela Merkel’s conservatives in one of Germany’s richest states, exit polls from the Baden-Württemberg elections suggest. The chancellor’s Christian Democratic Union party, or CDU, had ruled the region’s state legislature for almost 58 years but found itself on the wrong side of the nuclear debate following Fukushima. Even before the Japanese earthquake, the party was unpopular locally for sanctioning a multibillion euro project to build a railway station in Stuttgart. Support for the CDU slumped from 44.2% in elections in 2006 to 38.2, according to an ARD broadcaster’s exit poll. The state parliament’s new leader would be Winfried Kretschmann, 62, a spiky-haired former science teacher. He is likely to become the Green party’s first regional “minister president” after his party gained 25% of the vote; enough, when combined with the 23.5% polled by the centre-left Social Democratic party, to form a coalition. Minister presidents are powerful on a national as well as a regional level, because they have a vote in Germany’s upper house, the Bundesrat, and can veto legislation. It would mark a historic win for the minority party, which polled 11.7% in Baden-Württemberg in 2006. Even when the Greens were in government in a coalition with Gerhard Schröder’s Social Democrats between 1998 and 2005, and had Joschka Fischer as foreign minister, the party never managed to win a regional “Landtag” election. “We have written history,” said Claudia Roth, joint leader of the Green party, speaking in Berlin after polls closed. Dressed head-to-toe in green, including glittery emerald ballet pumps, she said the result would have repercussions far beyond the borders of Baden-Württemberg. It was, she said, “a resounding slap in the face” for Merkel’s coalition. Commentators have suggested such a dramatic CDU defeat makes Merkel’s position untenable. It would be “the beginning of the end” for her, wrote one on Spiegel Online on Friday. Others suggest the leader known as Iron Angie will plough on until the general election in 2013. Also voting on Sunday was Rhineland-Palatinate state, where a separate ARD exit poll saw the Social Democrats retain power but only by agreeing to a coalition government with the Greens. The SPD fell 10 percentage points to 35.5%, while the Greens appeared to have more than trebled their vote, with 17%, according to the exit poll, and will send representatives to that regional parliament for the first time. The Christian Democrats are seen gaining 1.2% to 34%. But this minor gain did little to numb the pain in Baden-Württemberg; though the CDU, according to the exit poll, did win more votes than any other single party, its preferred coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democratic party, performed abysmally. The ARD exit poll puts the FDP at 5%, down from 10.7% in 2006. In Rheinland-Pfalz, the FDP failed to get the 5% minimum necessary to gain any seats in the state parliament. This poor showing poses difficult questions for the FDP’s leader, the unpopular foreign minister Guido Westerwelle. It could also call into question the national CDU-FDP coalition in power since autumn 2009. Within half an hour of the first exit poll, Daniel Bahr, an FDP politician from Nordrhein-Westfalen, told ARD his party needed to consider a “change of personnel”. The Green vote was helped by the argument in Germany over its 17 nuclear power plants, heightened by the Fukushima disaster. In the aftermath, Merkel performed an 180-degree policy change by announcing the closure of seven stations built before 1980. She also said she was committed to speeding up total withdrawal from nuclear power. This was six months after she had ignored public opinion by extending the life of the 17 plants by an average 12 years; in this, one of her most vociferous supporters was Baden-Württemberg’s minister president, Stefan Mappus; he paid the price for his loyalty. Germany Europe Nuclear power Energy Green party Angela Merkel Helen Pidd guardian.co.uk
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• Plans based on average of £7,500, not top-rate fees • Cost to government may hit education spending The government could be forced to spend almost £1bn more than expected over the next four years to cover the cost of tuition fees, as a growing number of universities set out plans to charge the maximum of £9,000 a year. From autumn next year, universities will be allowed to almost treble the amount they now charge, as part of a reform of the funding of higher education. The initial charge is borne by the government, which pays the fee for each student in the form of a loan before recovering its money once the student has graduated and finds a job that pays more than £21,000. Critics fear that the government will claw back the initial outlay from other higher education spending, potentially leading to fewer university places or cuts in research budgets. David Willetts, the universities minister, had anticipated that a market would develop, with institutions charging a wide range of fees, but a picture is emerging of the majority of institutions charging the top rate. Of the 16 universities that have so far stated how much they intend to charge, 13 want the maximum – University College London, Birmingham and Lancaster being the latest to do so. Willetts predicted that the average across the whole of higher education would be £7,500. It now looks much higher, but the Treasury has used the £7,500 average to determine how much universities should receive for research, teaching and building grants, among other things. Figures from the House of Commons library show that if the average is £8,600, the government will have to spend £960m more in the next four years. If it is only slightly higher, at £7,900, it is £340m extra. But if the average is £8,900, the government will have to pay out an extra £1.23bn. The funds could be deducted from universities’ budgets and could mean fewer places on degree courses or a cut to the research or teaching grant. A total of £940m has already been cut from English universities’ budgets for teaching, research and site renovation for the next academic year, a 12.6% reduction. However, last week’s budget awarded an extra £100m to research. Gareth Thomas, the shadow universities minister, said either universities would have their funds cut or the government would have to reconsider altogether. He said: “The government repeatedly promised that fees over £6,000 would be the exception, but it is increasingly clear that they are powerless to stop most universities charging closer to £9,000. This will push up average fees beyond the £7,500 estimate on which the government’s spending plans are based, requiring deeper cuts elsewhere in the higher education budget.” Other universities seeking the £9,000 maximum are Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, Exeter, Essex, Aston, Manchester, Warwick and Durham. St Mary’s University College, Twickenham has said it plans to charge £8,000. Universities that charge more than £6,000 must set out a plan, or access agreement, to widen their pool of students beyond white, middle-class teenagers, and this must be approved as adequate by the government’s access watchdog, the Office for Fair Access. Institutions have until 19 April to submit their access agreements to Offa, which will give its verdicts in July. Tuition fees Higher education Students Liberal-Conservative coalition Education policy Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
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Union leaders condemn actions of several hundred not associated with main rally who caused damage and clashed with police in parts of central London More than 200 protesters are in police custody and a clean-up operation is under way after anti-cuts activists smashed shop windows in London’s West End and clashed with riot police following Saturday’s peaceful TUC Hyde Park rally. Union leaders condemned the actions of several hundred people not associated with the main rally who wreaked havoc along Oxford Street, Regent Street and Piccadilly, targeting shops and banks, cracking windows, throwing paint and hurling missiles including, said police, lightbulbs filled with ammonia. At least 84 people were injured, including 31 officers, 12 of whom required hospital treatment for “relatively minor injuries”. The day ended with late-night confrontations between police and around 300 demonstrators, who converged on Trafalgar Square where they were contained until the early hours. The TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, said he “bitterly regretted” the violence that occurred away from the main march and rally, which had been attended by “between 250,000 and 500,000″ and was hailed a “fantastic success”. Organisers hoped the actions of a small number of activists would not detract from the massive anti-cuts protest and the powerful message “middle Britain” had sent to the government. Senior Labour figures have mounted a co-ordinated defence of the demonstration, condemning the violence but demanding that the government answer the charge made by thousands of peaceful marchers. Shadow ministers were also forced to defend Miliband’s decision to attend the event, after Tory accusations that he had aligned himself with unions against all deficit reduction. Michael Fallon, the deputy chairman of the Conservative party, accused Labour of “breathtaking levels of deceit over the economy” and Miliband personally of “insulting” the suffragettes and anti-Apartheid movement by comparing their struggle to opposition to government cuts in his address to the rally. Vince Cable, the business secretary, insisted that the government was listening to citizens who were lawfully demonstrating against its programme of cuts, but said it would not alter its course. “Certainly we’re listening, and I talk regularly to the trade union movement. I think [it's] important we have a dialogue with them, but we’re not going to change the basic economic strategy,” he said. Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, condemned a “tiny minority of violent, parasitic, unrepresentative hooligans who are trying to destroy” the right to peaceful protest. “He [Miliband] said he acknowledged there was a need for tough choices and some cuts, and it seems that on the one hand you’ve got the government who are saying that all of these cuts are necessary and on the other you have a minority of demonstrators who say none of the cuts are necessary,” he told the BBC’s Politics Show. Miliband told the crowds on Saturday: “We come in the traditions that have marched in peaceful but powerful protest for justice, fairness and political change. “The suffragettes who fought for votes for women and won. The civil rights movement in America that fought against racism and won. The anti-Apartheid movement that fought the horror of that system and won.” Murphy said his comments reflected the scale of public feeling against the cuts, but Harriett Baldwin, MP for West Worcestershire, said: “For Ed Miliband to compare himself to the anti-Apartheid campaigners fighting for equal rights for blacks, or to the suffragettes’ struggle for votes for women, just beggars belief. His self-important comments are an insult to those who risked and gave their lives in the fight for equality.” Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said “violent thugs and criminals” who took part in the clashes should face the full force of the law. “I do hope that the government listens to that strength of feeling, there were people from all walks of life there… and there was this very strong message that people do think that the government has got this wrong.” The Metropolitan police confirmed 201 people had been arrested and were being held in 21 police stations across the capital. Detectives have begun examining CCTV footage from the stores and buildings in the streets affected. Commander Bob Broadhurst, in charge of the Met operation, claimed officers had had to deal with “mindless yobs” around Trafalgar Square. “We’ve had a number of – I hestitate to call them protesters – a bunch of people that ended up in Trafalgar Square.” A group of between 100 and 150 people ran off, ripping open litter bins and throwing bricks and flares, he said. “This is just mindless vandalism, hooliganism, it’s nothing to do with protest”, said Broadhurst, adding the force would never have enough officers to protect every building in central London. There was criticism of the police operation, with accusations that officers should have been better prepared. Former Met deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick said there were not enough officers “in the right place at the right time”. He added: “There was a lot more I think they could have done”. But London’s deputy mayor, Kit Malthouse, said criticisms of alleged intelligence failings by the Met were “unfair” and that officers had carried out “a huge amount of work” in preparation for the march. Malthouse, who chairs the Metropolitan police authority, condemned perpetrators of the violence as “fascist agitators” and a “nasty bunch of black-shirted thugs”. In Trafalgar Square, where demonstrators had scrawled graffiti on Nelson’s Column and on one of its four bronze lions, street cleaners were busy jet-hosing the paving stones as part of a clean-up operation likely to cost tens of thousands of pounds. Red paint still remained on the 2012 Olympic clock, and a placard reading “Kill the Cuts” hung from the bronze statue of Saint Vincent. Cleaning teams were also in force outside Topshop’s flagship store in Oxford Circus, targeted by protesters who threw paint, fireworks and smoke grenades in protest over allegations of tax avoidance by big businesses. The store was open for business by 11am on Sunday. At luxury grocery store Fortnum & Mason on Piccadilly, which the campaign group UK Uncut claimed was occupied by around 200 of its supporters, paint was being scrubbed from brickwork. Meanwhile, workmen boarded up nine windows which had been smashed on the front facade of the Ritz hotel nearby. Guests had been moved to a private dining area at the rear of the hotel during the disturbances. Emergency glaziers were replacing smashed windows with boards at Santander and Lloyds TSB branches in Piccadilly. Unions are planning fresh campaigns in the coming days against cuts in the NHS, as well as considering co-ordinated industrial action. Public sector cuts Liberal-Conservative coalition TUC Trade unions Economic policy Labour Ed Miliband Yvette Cooper London Police Caroline Davies Polly Curtis guardian.co.uk
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Adam Posen calls for another round of quantitative easing and insists the Bank should not raise interest rates The Bank of England’s leading dove has predicted that inflation will tumble to 1.5% by the middle of next year as George Osborne’s austerity drive and the underlying weakness of the economy stifle consumer spending. In an interview with the Guardian, Adam Posen admitted he had sleepless nights over his call for more money to be pumped into the economy and said he would not seek re-election to Threadneedle Street’s monetary policy committee if his view turned out to be wrong. Posen said: “If I have made the wrong call, not only will I switch my vote, I would not pursue a second term. They should have somebody who gets it right and not me. I am accountable for my performance. I’m holding my nerve because it is the right thing to do.” The American academic said he would be profoundly affected if it was proved that he had erred in voting repeatedly for bank rate to be pegged at 0.5% and for more money to be pumped into the economy through quantitative easing. “It would not just be terrible that I had messed up for other people but it is also my fundamental world view that I have been testing. “I would take it deeply and personally, which is why I have laid awake at night thinking about it.” But Posen said recent trends in the economy had left him convinced that inflation would fall back below the government’s 2% target in the second half of next year, as the temporary factors pushing up prices washed out of the system and the economy slowed down. This analysis, he said, chimed with the views expressed in recent speeches by the Bank’s governor, Mervyn King, and Charlie Bean, one of the two deputy governors. Three members of the MPC – Andrew Sentance, Martin Weale and Spencer Dale – voted for higher interest rates this month, but Posen challenged their view on four separate counts. He said so-called “core inflation”, which strips out the effects of fuel, food costs and taxes such as VAT, did not suggest that the economy was overheating; the recent strength in manufacturing only affected 13% of the UK’s total output and was not replicated in other parts of the economy; it was too simplistic to say that the economy was overheating if inflation was high; and it would only be costly to take a wait-and-see approach to raising interest rates if there was a risk of an inflationary spiral. “We could get inflation back to target really fast if we put the economy through the wringer,” he said. Posen added that the real debate inside the MPC was whether the increase in inflation to 4.4% would lead to consumers and businesses believing that there had been a permanent upward shift, and thus have knock-on effects on wages and prices. “I don’t see that as a material risk given all else that is going on, which is why I have been leaning the way I have.” He echoed King in calling a small increase in bank rate futile, as any rise would have to be reversed, damaging the Bank’s credibility. Posen said that whatever the merits of the government’s austerity plans, higher taxes and reductions in public spending would have a “meaningful” dampening effect on consumer spending and overall demand in the economy. “Household consumption is going to be pretty darn weak. It may even contract a little”. Consumers, he said, were unlikely to run down their savings in an attempt to maintain spending patterns, while the weakness of trade unions meant it would be hard for wage bargainers to push up pay settlements in response to higher inflation. “Wages will be the dog that doesn’t bark,” he said. Posen said he disliked the idea that interest rates had to be brought back to a more normal level after being cut to 0.5% in early 2009, the lowest level since the Bank was founded in 1694. “If I am a firefighter fighting a fire I don’t say I have pumped more water than I have ever pumped in my life so I must have pumped too much. You stop pumping when the fire is out.” Posen was also sceptical about some economists’ suggestion that the government’s deficit reduction plan could help growth by boosting confidence in financial markets, leading to a fall in long-term interest rates and higher investment. Inflation Bank of England Consumer spending Interest rates Economics Economic policy George Osborne Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
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