a sense of terrorism, you could draw parallels to different things. but it was commented on quite favorably here that after the 7/7 attacks, the day after the uk got the olympics, how most british people just went to work. part of that was because they had been confronted by terrorism and probably because although it was a horrific attack, it wasn't so devastated, it scared everybody. a lot of that is in mindset. is in the attitude towards where do you rate that in terms of the threats that you're confronted by? that is something something that the u.s. isn't in the same place. but in terms of the threats you're faced with, should the most serious thing you be confronted by every single day in the u.s. be a fear of getting on a plane? no, it shouldn't be. actually i thought president bush does a good job in trying to not go and attack everybody

in the turbine. sand very heavily criticized saying in a sense that you should go shopping. what he was trying to say is don't be terrified. i think while these issues should be taken very seriously and we should apply a rigid sense of how many civil liberties we give up, we shouldn't be so terrified that we don't leave the building. frankly, a lot of this stuff we talk about isn't really based on a lot. again, people will say after 9/11 al qaeda was trying to develop a nuclear program regarding suitcase bombs. never had anything close to suitcase bombs. and the russians, i don't know if they ever had suitcase bombs. we spent our lives characterized by things that may or may not exist. that doesn't mean we don't take real, practical things to deal with them. brian jenkins is the gold standard on everything saying you can't put guns and gates around every single building in

the world and say that will keep you safe. people have to have their own sense of how their threats line up. frankly, if you live on the other side of d.c it's not terrorism you should be scared of. there are many other things we should be concerned about every single day. relating to the previous question and to yours, i think in terms of nuclear proliferation, a lot of it is about being informed and being a citizen that is concerned about the cost benefit analysis of nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation efforts which may not be that popular going into the next election when people will say no. whether it's senator lugar and senator nun, those are not worth it. many of the most tangible, practical things we can do. the same with buying up scientific knowledge. you don't want that knowledge on any of these issues floating around the either. you want to make sure they're paid and employed and can find

some sense of employment. that's probably where i would focus my attention if that makes sense. >> david, go ahead. >> david eisenberg. bit of a devil's advocate question for mr. juare. given in the past year you've seen explicit guidance put out by groups like the international maritime organization, baltic international marine council and major insurers, lloyd's of london, all of which advocate using private sector security contractors for defense and maritime, shipping, who seem to have at least as good a track record in terms of defending shipping as anything done by nato flotillas.

my question is do you see a way where nato would ever conceivably outsource to the private sector a job of defending the industry? because even major partner states such as great britain and the united states in the past year had given their official and premature approval to this concept, hillary clinton in the last year, british foreign office issuing a general license for general security service pro virsd. it would seem to me they've done at least as good a job as the flotillas. do you see that as being conceivable and feasible putting aside what it says about the usefulness of nato which understand would be inpoll lytic to discuss. >> that's a very good question. first of all, regarding the private companies used for security purposes, anti-piracy

operations. i remember initially when piracy started being an issue on the radar of global maritime trade, off the coast of somalia, there was much debate about whether or not a private ship should hire private contractors to defend itself. there was the whole issue of how would the pirates respond? would they start shooting first in order to capture a ship and put in danger the lives of the crew. that's an ethical question. but there has been definitely, i would say, a proliferation of private companies aboard ships in the area. whether or not nato would use such private companies, i very much doubt, maybe the other members of the panel could respond from the nato point of view. i don't sene toe itself doing it. i can definitely see the member

states doing it of both nato and the european union do that because it's actually happening already whether you're looking at the example of iraq or afghanistan or other conflicts. private security companies are in many conflict areas. so the answer to the question regarding the organization itself although i'm not an expert on nato, i very much doubt it. i doubt we'll see areas where nato is also present. >> thanks very much. i'd just say one great website on the privatization of security sectors, topsecretamerica, a big research project that "the washington post" undertook over the past three years. it's pretty comprehensive. this is yet another discussion that we need to have out in the open about who is supposed to do what and whose responsibility it is to provide security.

so thank you for that. thank you everybody. i think we're overtime. so i'm going to wrap it up and we'll move on to the next panel. thanks. [ applause ]

we'll return live to this discussion on the future of nato after this break. at about 3:30 a new panel discussing the u.s. and european military capability. that forum takes place ahead of president obama's meeting this coming meeting with nato heads of state in chicago. that they, of course, will be discussing the direction for the alliance's activities. as we wait for them to resume with the next panel, let's bring you this, british prime minister david cameron and his deputy prime minister nick clegg during a factory in essex, england. shortly after they spoke to factory workers and discussed jobs and the british economy. they told factory workers the coalition government is on track for reducing the deficit and pro

dutsing creating a stable company. this is about a half hour. >> so as i said about five minutes ago, it's a unique and historic occasion. i want you all to welcome the prime minister david cameron and the deputy prime minister nick clegg into the plant. they'll give you a short speech each and then we'll have a q&a session. thank you. >> thanks very much, indeed. thank you very much for the warm welcome. it's great to be here. great to be here in a factory that is employing more people this year, that's expanding and that's doing so well selling overseas. but i know that we're living in very difficult economic times. and i just wanted to say a word about that before asking nick to speak and then we'll try and answer your questions. these are tough economic times. you switch on your television screen and you can see what a difficulty the eurozone is having. here at home, we're finding it more difficult to get our economy recovering. and, of course, for families around our country, things are

difficult. it's difficult when petrol and diesel prices are high. it's difficult when so many people have had a pay freeze. it is tough right now for families to make ends meet. we're in a difficult economic situation. now we formed a coalition two years ago to try and deal with these problems, and i believe the need for that coalition, two parties working together to solve the problems we have in our country, i think is as important and as necessary today as it was two years ago. let me tell you the three things i think that we need to do. first of all, i'm afraid we can't let up on the difficult decisions that we've made to cut public spending and to get our deficit and our debt under control. i know it's hard. i know it's difficult. but when you have got a debt problem, the one thing you mustn't do is keep adding endlessly to that debt. we all know if you've got a credit card you max out that credit card.

you shouldn't go and max out another. the problems of overspending and too much debt can't be solved by even more spending and more debt. and crucially, we've got to keep our interest rates low. that will help firms like this expand. helps families with their mortgages. so it's right to keep with the tough decisions that we've made. but just because we're dealing with the debt and deficit, that doesn't mean we don't need to go for growth. and we need to think of all the things we can do to help get our economy growing, whether that's encouraging the banks to lend more money, whether it's actually helping firms to start up, whether it's making easier for companies like this to employ more people. whether it's investing in apprenticeships, we need to do all of those things and, frankly, we need to redouble our efforts in doing all of those things. we have got to rebalance our economy. when we came in, the government was too big, but the private sector was too small. we had lots of jobs in finance, but not enough jobs in manufacturing. we had a lot of wealth concentrated in the south of the

country, but not enough spread around the country. so we've got to rebalance in all of those ways. as we do so, we've got to try and help people more. we have frozen the cancel tax. we've lifted a lot of people out of income tax. we tried to help on things like petrol duty but i know there's more we need to do. third point from me, after dealing with the debt and going for growth, we're both in this to try and build something for our country that is more worthwhile than what we inherited from the last government. what we want to do is get behind families that work hard and do the right thing. i've lost count of the times that people have said to me, look, prime minister, i work hard, and i try and save for my old age. my wife works hard. she tries to do the right thing. yet we feel that we get punished for doing the right thing rather than rewarded. so i want to make sure whether it's reforming our welfare system so that it doesn't pay to sit at home when you could work, whether it's cutting our taxes

on the money that you earn, whether it's making sure you can buy your own home and invest in that home, whether it's making sure there are good schools for your children to go to, everything this government does is not just about the dry numbers of the economy. it's about building something that is really worthwhile in our country as we take these difficult decisions. that's what fires me up. that's what the next few years have got to be about. that's what this coalition government has got to be about. nick, over to you. >> thanks for letting us interrupt your day's work. your blue and yellow livery on your tractors are tailor made for the politics of this coalition. as david explained, we started off with one simple mission in mind. and that is to rescue, repair and reform the british economy. and i would just really like to add to what david said with three points. firstly, it's worth remembering

what we're having to recover from. in my view what happened in 2008 wasn't just any old recession. it wasn't just a blip on an economist's chart. we suffered a big heart attack at the very center of our market. the housing bubble burst and the banks blew up in our face. it's like a cardiac arrest where blood no longer pumps around the system because the banks can't lend money into the economy. all that stopped. and it's painstaking work recovering from that. and it's not something we're going to achieve overnight. and so we need to bear in mind the enormity of the trauma if you like that we suffered back in 2008. a second thing i'd say is that dealing with the deficit, a very dry, sta stats statistical exercise.

i think we have a moral duty to our next generations and to our children and grandchildren to wipe the slate clean for them. we set out a plan that lasts about six or seven years to wipe the slate clean to rid people of that dead weight of debt that has been built up over time. just imagine if you didn't take the time to get it right now. just imagine if our children and grandchildren had to face years and years and years of more cuts and more savings with no end in sight. so i think we owe it to the youngsters of today to lift that dead weight of debt off their shoulders. and for those critics who say about us in this coalition government that we're somehow doing this with ideological reasons, that we're doing this with any relish, we do this because we want to shrink the state, nonsense. we're doing this, not because we want to but because we have to. even at the end of this parliament, we as a government will be spending about 730 billion pounds of your money. that's about 42% of national wealth of gdp which is more, by

the way, than any time between 1995 and the time when the banks went belly up in 2008. and the final thing i'd say is this. dealing with the deficit is a means to an end. austerity alone doesn't create -- doesn't create growth. it's a necessary but not sufficient step towards creating growth. but in the end, what we are absolutely dedicated towards is creating jobs. creating prosperity, creating investment. creating opportunity, creating optimism and hope in our country. and i think as david has indicated, we know we need to do more. constantly strive to do more to create and foster the conditions for growth. and i would particularly underline two areas. firstly, getting lending to british businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises. i've just met too many small companies who say they've got great business plan. they are healthy companies and they simply can't get ahold of money. they can't get ahold of the

money on reasonable terms. they won't expand. they can't create jobs. we're doing a whole lot to try and fix that problem but i think we all accept in government we need to do more. and the final thing is, invest in infrastructure. not just public money, but private money because we've got infrastructure, road, rail, energy, housing. much of which is just far too old. we need to invest in that for the future that helps create jobs today and create a growing, prosperous economy in the future. with that, thanks again, and over to you. >> thank you very much. >> okay. [ applause ] thank you very much. we've got a roving microphone. who wants to ask the first question? sir? >> you've both given us a speech about how you're going to try and make things better. but it seems to me that neither are singing on the same hymn sheet. every time you come up with a

policy, the lib dems come up with a policy you want to water it down. how are you going to work together to solve this crisis? >> what i would say -- thank you, sir. obviously, we're different parties. conservative party, liberal democrat party. we don't always agree, but i would argue actually in the last two years, the government has actually done a lot of things that needed to be done. we've cut the deficit. we made difficult decisions about cutting some areas of public spending, about having to increase some taxes because we inherited a situation where our budget deficit was bigger than that in greece. so although we might have had different views, we put those aside. we cut the deficit for the good of the economy. we both also took some very difficult decisions on welfare. for the furs time ever in our country we put a cap on welfare and said no family out of work should be able to get more in welfare than the average family gets in work. again, a difficult decision.

one that's never been taken before, but we worked together to do that. and whatever the area, i would say, you know, whether it is getting immigration under control, where we put in place some tough limits, whether it's reforming our education system, where we put in place much tougher standards in terms of discipline and teaching proper subjects like math and english, we're not always going to agree, but in the end, we've produced some pretty chunky, clear policy of things that needed to be done. now, of course, i would like to be running a conservative only government. nick would like to run a liberal democrat only government. you the voters, though, decided that no one won the last election and effectively you are asking us to work together. now i would argue, in spite of the differences we sometimes have, in spite of the arguments we sometimes are have, we have put those differences aside and taken pretty tough action on the deficit, on welfare, on education and i think this coalition government is delivering. but i accept it's a tough time in our country. it's a difficult time in our

country. it's a difficult time in our country, and we've got more work to do. >> all i would add to that is, judge us by our actions, not by our words and with the greatest respect to the members of the press around, judge us by what we do rather than what people say we are doing or not doing. if you look at what we've managed to do over the last two years, it's a pretty remarkable -- we were accused for a lot of that period of time that we were doing too much. rushing to try to do too many things at once. reforming welfare. reforming education. changing the tax system. fixing the broken banking system. fixing the black hole in our public finances. we were involved in military action in libya all at the same time. that's quite a lot to be getting on with in a fairly compressed period of time for any government, single party or coalition party. i think about the things i care about. i am hugely proud of the things i fought for for my political life. more money for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds in school through the pupil premium. more apprenticeships and

delivered by any government since the second world war. raising the allowance, the point at which you start paying income tax by the highest amount ever. these are things we're delivering through coalition in the same way david is delivering for his party things his party believes in, but we're doing it in a coalition government. i think, you know, you always get ups and downs in politics. but i think the idea of politicians from different party setting aside their differences and working in the national interest is something that i hope most people think is a good thing to do. >> next question? the gentleman -- >> -- going to increase spending on manufacturing apprentices. i've been in this company 37 years. the last 27 years we haven't had apprentices. that skill base is -- we're all getting older. if you don't get your act together, you're not going to have the people here that are going to be able to do these jobs. are you going to increase money in manufacturing apprenticeships? have you got a plan for that?

>> i've not only got a plan. we're doing it. apprenticeships are expanding at a rate they haven't done for a generation. during the course of this parliament, this coalition government will deliver 250,000 more apprentices than were planned by the previous government. it's one of the things actually i think really brings both parties together is a kind of passionate belief that we've got to kind of give the same sense of esteem and respect for vocational education, including apprenticeships as we traditionally have for an academic university base. for too long there's been this barely disguised snobbery that says once you leave school the only good thing to do is to go to university. of course it's not right. and we know from the most competitive economies in europe and elsewhere, look at germany. look at denmark and some of these countries that have very successful economies. it's because they value vocational education just as much as academic education. and that's why we're investing huge amounts of extra money in expanding the number of

apprenticeships which are available. >> about half the board of rolls royce, half the board were apprentices. so the apprentices behind us have the ambition of not just working at this company but of running great companies like that. that's the motivation that fires us up and why we're putting money into apprenticeships and not just universities. next question. sir? hold on. we need a microphone for you. >> how can the uk government promote the equipment made in the uk has an appeal to the british farmer? >> say that again. how to make equipment in the uk that has appeal to the british farmer. i think it's going to be on quality. i represent a big constituency in the south of england. 400,000 square miles. a lot of agricultural land and the farmers that i represent,

they want to buy the best. they want good equipment. and this is fantastic to be in this factory, the last tractor factory in britain that makes, i think, 92% of what you make is for export. but you're also supplying the domestic market. i think in the end if we want a healthy farming industry, what we've got to recognize is that that really depends on us as consumers going into shops and supermarkets and wanting to buy quality british produce. of course we've got the common agricultural policy and all the schemes and grants and everything to help farmers. but in the end if you want healthy farming, you want consumers saying, british meat is the best. british food is the best. i want to demand the best and i want to go out and buy the best. that will be good for british agriculture and good for your business, too, as you sell them the tractors they need to do all the work they do on our behalf. next question for the gentleman over here. >> france is one of our biggest customers. with the recent elections in france now with the socialist government, how optimistic are you that they will remain one of

our biggest customers? >> i think france is one of our oldest, strongest, most important allies, sometimes rivals as well over our history. i think president hollande has made it very clear that he wants to place a lot of emphasis on growth. i don't think anyone would disagree. who is going to disagree with someone saying we have to grow our economies. that's exactly what we're about. he knows as well as all of us do that you can't create growth on the kind of shifting sands of debt. you have to create stable foundations upon which you grow an economy. and i think in all of us in the government here in london are looking forward to working with him, working with his ministers on the new ideas they've got about how we can foster growth because that's good for the french economy. good for french consumers. it's good for the british economy and it's good for british workers, not least here because you produce so many things that are then bought in france.

so any emphasis on growth from whatever direction of the political spectrum has got to be a very good thing. >> i'd agree with that. if you look at what we're doing here. we got interest rates at a record low. we've got a big budget deficit so we can't increase spending. can't do tax cuts that are unfunded. so the way to get growth in our economy, the way to get growth in the french economy is look at all the things that hold our businesses back. can we get our banks lending. can we make it easier to employ people? can we make it cheaper for firms to go out and employ people? can we invest in apprenticeships so there are better people for companies to take on. and across europe, we talk about the single market. we haven't even completed it. you know if you look at things like energy policy, if you look at digital technology if you look at things like music and things that we're good at in this country, the single market isn't even finished. services which are very good out in our country we haven't

finished. one of the arguments we've got to have with the new french president as with all the other european countries is we've got this great european market, but let's finish it because that's one of the best boosts we could give to growth when actually our interest rates are already low and our budgets are badly stretched. and that's the discussion we'll be having with the new french president. next question. sir. there we go. we need a microphone. >> the cost of fuel on running these machines in particular has an impact on food costs. what can the government do to alleviate some of that costs, particularly for british farmers? >> well, obviously with british farmers, we've got the issue of red diesel. so there is an advantage already in -- built into the system. looking more generally at fuel prices which i know are extremely high at the moment,

the government has tried to help because we canceled some of the tax increases that were in place. we also cut fuel duty by a penny the last budget. we spent 4 billion pounds trying to keep diesel prices and petrol prices low. it's difficult to fight against the overall increase in oil prices that's happened worldwide. so i think it is testing. we're going to rely on businesses as well to keep developing, as i know you are. cleaner and more efficient engines to try to keep costs down because oil prices in the end are what drives the price. but if we can make sure that the word diversifies its energy supplies and we become less reliant on petrol and diesel in other elements of life, then it will be -- that will have a good effect. effect for motorist ts and people using tractors and other vehicles. >> next. do you want to just wait for the -- here she comes.

>> what are the positive items for 2012, of course is the olympics. what do you guys see as the positive legacy that we'll get within the country? >> i think -- i don't think in many ways we get woken up to what a big, big thing this is. it is unbelievably exciting. the eyes of the world will be -- it's a well-worn cliche but it is so true. it's going to have, i think, a massive effect on that part of london in the long run. i think it's going to be a brilliant opportunity for us to kind of show ourselves off as an optimistic country, as an open country, as a diverse country, as a young country, as a country open to the -- well, i hope we win a few sort of medals in the process. there are lots of ways you can judge the legacy. part of the legacy is, does it help create jobs, particularly in that part of london. another legacy which i think is a really important one is will they inspire lots of youngsters