>> this is "bbc newsnight." >> funding for this presentation is made possible by -- the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu, newman's own foundation, and union bank. >> at union bank, our relationship managers use their expertise in global finance to guide you through business strategies and opportunities of international commerce. we put our extended global network to work for a wide range of companies, from small businesses to major corporations. what can we do for you?

>> at shell, we believe the world needs a broader mix of energies. that's why we are supplying cleaner-burning natural gas to generate electricity. and it's also why, with our partner in brazil, shell is producing ethanol, a biofuel made from renewable sugarcane. >> amend it, mom! >> let's broaden the world's energy mix. let's go. >> in syria, alarming either side. this week, they warn russia to stop the fighting of syrian government. john mccain says it is time to take action by providing the rebels with american military

support. >> everything is looking out. >> building the solution for an acute housing crisis and some people -- >> [singing] >> why less than half a century later is this happening? and the novelists on the state of england and whether he has become a grumpy old man. hello. this week, the conflict in syria and spilled out into the international renown with hillary clinton accusing russia

of defying the syrian government with helicopters. they deny the claims and the u.s. -- some in washington are calling for action. as jeremy found out, when he spoke to the former u.s. presidential candidate senator john mccain. >> what do make of the russian denials that they are supplying arms? >> is a return to the old kind of cold war rhetoric, denying the undeniable. it is very obvious that russian tanks and artillery and helicopter gunships are being used by the main russian supplier. the civil war is beyond description because it is an unfair fight. not the united states to help

the rebels. >> i absolutely believe that we should provide a sanctuary and provide them with weapons with which to defend themselves. >> creating safe havens might require the use of american force? >> i think it could require the use of air power. if he told the attack of the sanctuary, the best way for him to be motivated with the help of the russians to leave syria is if he thinks he can't win.

right now on the battlefield, he is prevailing. >> why is syria worth risking the life of a single american servicemen? >> i don't think we would be risking many lives because i don't believe there of the american routes on the ground. >> it will be the greatest blow to iran in 25 years. this would free up 11 on, it will be a huge blow to hezbollah and will have enormous effect. people are being massacred. people are being tortured and raped and killed. i went to a refugee camp, and it is a horrible thing. i heard the same thing about

libya. if we helped in libya and gaddafi came down on july 7. it will probably be reasonably free and fair. they said the same thing about bosnia and cause of the zero and rwanda. dr. they said the same thing about afghanistan and were ignored. troops are still there. >> that is right, jeremy, and we went to afghanistan because that was the place where the 9/11 attacks were initiated and we had no other choice because that is where the attacks came from that killed several thousand grave and innocent americans. >> it is still 11 years on, and ongoing military problem in which lives are being lost. >> i know none of us that want

intervention or boots on the ground. this would be a multinational effort in the thick the turks will play a very lead role. america should lead. this president won't even utter a word on behalf of these people who are being slaughtered and massacred in as short a time ago as friday. that is something ronald reagan was all about, i will tell you. >> and jeremy speaking to senator john mccain. >> in britain, social engineering has come to a dramatic end. it was designed as part of a solution to that city's problem of overcrowded slums. the big bright future is decanter for generations of problems. the blocks were a solution for housing, but in decades, they were the problem. this week, the have succumbed to

high explosives. utopia became dystopia. >> red road. for more than 40 years, these imposing structures loomed over glasgow. they were the solution to a postwar housing crisis. >> look at this. if you are part of something big. look at the size of these. it is all going to disappear. >> weathered through years of neglect, who loved as they were loved. >> it is a dumping ground.

>> of the man is 60 years old. he built a concrete castle that went from building to building. there are not many blocks dedicated to their memory. but it is always somewhat unique. the time they were completed, it has become something of an architectural experiment. home to almost 5000 people.

they moved in on day one. they arrived at the tenement. >> we walk through their, [unintelligible] [unintelligible] i'm quite happy, i'm very happy

there. very, very, very happy. >> everything is looking up at the development. >> red road came in the later part of those years. >> there is a pilot's eye view of the city. >> does go was faced with an acute shortage of combinations. >> mr. william ross and delegates studying housing. >> a project us ko you just wouldn't see today.

>> look at these buildings, the scale on a purely formal level. the sheer size is symbolic of post war social consensus. the idea that people will get better housing and so forth. and still arriving on the community. it is a community that is here. from these dilapidated and poverty stricken communities in the twentieth century.

>> even 1,000 feet of undergrounding go wars. it was a golden time. the shift of this way of living was significant for guys go -- glasgow. [singing] >> in the culture was this idea that, for example, kids would come home from school. there was a sandwich, [unintelligible] your mother is not going to throw a sandwich down 20 floors to you. one of these pigeons or seagulls

might gravid. >> that initial wave of hope became a far more harsh reality. the high-rise towers became symbols of poverty and alienation. like many of the first residents, when he lived there in the late '80s and early 90s, it had a very different kind of community. no longer a desirable place, people were not taking turns

decline in the hallways anymore. >> when you get out and see the big huge round of the building. -- the run to the building. a few days beforehand, it was a click save, so when you look at the kitchen window, you could see where they were being patched up. >> [unintelligible]

crime seemed to be the easiest way to pay for things. >> he would probably get shot here. it is kind of a dumping ground, isn't it? >> ferment going to the shipyard and so forth, '80s, it was no longer a problem. it was the idea of the space, the idea that things -- there was no future. this residual as asian -- residualization.

>> this could be the end of the story. the flats became the hallmark for science leaders. politicians found a home here. there are more horror stories here. a family of russians jumped to their deaths in 2010. red road has echoed the community. they arrived in 2007. >> is just like that scene -- in

the airplane. [unintelligible] >> and so on and so on. until the tenants were god and to the building of steel and girders and ghost stories.

>> can you work out where this cheerful community might be? casual violence in the streets, an average of six children per family. this is the fictional london district as conjured by the writer in his new novel. a thankless a bunch among whom they have the distinction of being stupid and violent. the lottery and the novelist is subtitled seats of england.

dodge they hit everything hard and vice versa. this for everything. >> the context of your book is aggressive, violent. are you saying that he somehow represents the state of england? >> i am not saying anything. >> arbitrary rewards and punishments, it is that. it is not an examination of england. >> when people say that this is a pretty scathing attack on

the working class, what do you say? >> it is not a member of the working class, he is a member of the criminal class. and it is not even an attack on that. novels don't come out of negative feelings. you couldn't write with the discuss her, -- with disgust or contempt. >> lionel represents something. he represents a particular sort of human being who many live in terror of. >> i think he is an example of it.

they are enjoying that considerable, and somehow capture the imagination of england. you wanted of that is captured by these marginal, as you say, undeserving humans. >> he was brutally generic. in the great city, where there are young man that looked pretty much exactly like that. >> he is so obsessed with celebrity and material success. >> you can make a laborious and historical case for 70 years.

it is one of the symptoms. they are embarking on that, lee rose earlier than any other country with the exception of holland, perhaps. we had our revolution a century before the french. we got further along. >> to do you like england? >> i am as attached to it as you expect. >> it is an affectionate.

>> de you think that england is above reproach? >> no one is above reproach. >> i am connected to england through having lived here and its literature. i am proud of coming from the country of shakespeare and dickens. >> you are not a better man? >> not at all. one of the benefits of when you hit 60, you think this can possibly and well. but very quickly, you begin to value life as much as you did when you were a child.

you have a leave taking point of view. and certainly not reactionary anchor. it is the idealist kind of inquiry. i want to see what is there. >> do you still remain optimistic about your own life at the lives of this country? >> as i said, the reserves of culture are there, and it is an enormous strength. >> has that affected how you think about your own mortality?

>> the value of life and increasing, and i always envied it. >> it is encouraging as well as heroin. >> wearing a turquoise rebar cat suit, sunglasses, putting it back in again. they are all up on the very first night, she is not that kind of girl. lionel, she said, trust me. i will guide you through the

celebrity circuit. give me your hand, shea got that. she whispered, let's see. >> jeremy speaking there, that is all for this week. from all of us, goodbye. >> funding was made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu. newman's own foundation, union bank, and shell. >> at shell, we believe the world needs a broader mix of energies. that's why we're supplying cleaner-burning natural gas to generate electricity. and it's also why, with our

partner in brazil, shell is producing ethanol, a biofuel made from renewable sugar cane. >> a minute, mom! >> let's broaden the world's energy mix. let's go. >> "bbc news night" was presented by kcet, los angeles.