Our first question please.

David Ezekiel [phonetic spelling]. What more can the western leaders do to restore financial confidence thus making sure that the terrorists are not seen to win, to some extent?

Chris Patten.

I think it is, first of all, very important that western leaders continue to do with other leaders as well, all that they can to ensure that, whatever else happens, terrorist organisations themselves aren’t going to be properly financed. I think beyond that, there is one absolutely imperative thing that should happen. People will talk about fiscal policy, people will talk about tax and spend, people will talk about the very necessary efforts to help the airline industry. But, for me, the key thing in the next few weeks and months is to make sure that we have a successful meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Doha and that we give a new boost to free trade and fair trade, particularly fair for developing countries. I think it is very important that we have… that we make this demonstration, that multilateralism, that working together for a better world, that working together for a more prosperous world is what we all want to see at the top of our economic agenda and I think that we also need to recognise that this time, that at this meeting, the World Trade Organisation has to demonstrate that what we’re doing, what we’re attempting to do, what we’re talking about is being fair to poorer countries around the world.

Charles Kennedy.

Chris Patten.

That… that’s [applause]. I think there should have been more applause actually because I think that’s is a response that… that… that speaks for itself. I mean, this was an act of evil. It wasn’t actually a response to the fact that the US had walked away from the Kyoto Protocol. But, just let make this… this point, which is, I hope germane. When the Berlin wall fell, we said that nothing would be quite the same again and we said that nothing would be quite the same again after the atrocities on the 11^th of September and one way in which nothing must be the same again is that we’ve actually got to make international cooperation work and work more effectively and we have to make the institutions of global governments work and work more effectively. And, we can say perfectly well to the United States, it’s a debate that’s been going on in the US. Actually, under the last administration, as well, when issues like the International Criminal Court was being debated.

You signed that at the end but it didn’t actually go through the Senate, unfortunately. We have to be able to say yes, we know you’re Gulliver but you have to understand that you’re legitimacy and the effectiveness of what you do will largely be… be dependent on how you manage to work with the rest of us. And, for the rest of us we have to be able to demonstrate that international cooperation, that multilateralism does actually work. If we don’t demonstrate that we’re serious about dealing with issues like the financing of terrorism, if we don’t demonstrate that we can make the United Nations a really effective instrument for better governance around the world then people in the United States and elsewhere will say, see, we were absolutely right. We have to handle all this on ourselves. I think this is a defining moment for United States foreign policy, for US attitudes to the rest of the world and whether the US takes the right decisions on things like Doha on things like the WTO, on other issues, will very largely depend on whether we recognise that we’re now faced with tough options not soft options and we’ve got to actually put our actions where our mouths are.

Our next question please.

Anisha Gina [phonetic spelling]. As a young British Asian brought up in the Muslim faith how do I react to a comment such as the one made by Silvio Berlusconi, this week?

Who said, as the Italian prime minister, we should be conscious of the superiority of our civilisation which consists of a value system that’s given people widespread prosperity and guarantees respect for human rights and religion. This respect, he went on to say, most certainly does not exist in the Islamic countries. Glynis Kinnock.

Chris Patten.

I’d just been in Pakistan and Iran and Saudi Arabia and was on my way to Damascus to explain to the Islamic world that we didn’t think that the campaign that was launched was the west against Islam but was decency against the forces of darkness, when at a press conference in Cairo a journalist referred to the remarks that were made by Mr. Berlusconi and I responded, reaching for straws, that I’m sure that a spokesman for the Italian government would say before very long that these remarks had been taken out of context and indeed within 24 hours a spokesman of the Italian government. So, let’s suppose that they were taken out of context, but let’s still deal with the point that was perhaps not made but was certainly reported, not least on television. The remark is morally flawed, it’s historically inaccurate and it’s politically, profoundly foolish. I’m a practising Christian, I’m a citizen of a European country, I am extremely proud of the achievements of western, Christian civilisation, artistically, commercially, culturally and I think we’ve happened to have devised a form of government that best combines individual freedom and social solidarity. But I’ll tell you what else western civilisation, Europe has given the world in the last 100 years – two world wars. The gulag, the gas chamber. Every citizen of an Islamic country who heard those remarks about the superiority of western civilisation could have turned on CNN or BBC World, for the last few weeks and seen pictures from Belfast, of little kids having to go to school running the gauntlet of spitting, shouting crowds of examples of western Christian civilisation [applause]. So… so, I think, that we need to remember when we address these issues that one of the attributes of Christianity is humility and I think we should display a little humility when we talk about this. Where this is dangerous is it is entirely right that we should espouse human rights around the world but we have to make it clear that we don’t have a monopoly of virtue when we talk to other people about human rights and we also have to make it absolutely clear that in our judgement, whatever the civilisation or religion, human rights are universally valid and why I think this sort of remark is dangerous is because it makes it more difficult for us to put that argument in Asia, in Latin America and in the Middle East [Applause].

And our next question.

Ian Horseborough [phonetic spelling]. If the purpose of the arts is to reflect the human condition what is their role in times of uncertainty?

My favourite sung mass is the Haydn mass, In Time of Peril, which I think was written just before the Battle of Trafalgar, when people were perhaps expecting the worst, and then ‘hey-ho’ Nelson ‘socked’ [phonetic spelling] them one. And, I…

Nor very Francophile, perhaps. I think what a great piece of music at that time must have done was to make people, as Charles was suggesting, lift their eyes a bit and realise that there was another dimension beyond human affairs and I think with perhaps, particular reference to the terrible events of this month. What great art should remind one of, is that as well as original sin, responsible, after all, for those atrocities we should also believe in original virtue.

Can I ask you one more thing about that because there are those artists who say that their task too is to challenge, to question, to be uncomfortable. Do you think there is a role too or is it too early, to pick up what James Rubin said, for a lot of testing thoughts expressed through the prism of various art forms.

Yes, of course, I do. I think that very often, for example, the most important political issues are dealt with through novels, even through the visual arts as well and I’m sure that will happen in this case too. I have to say that when people talk about ways of memorialising the martyred, the dead of the twin towers that there will be some profound artistic way of doing that, perhaps in the form of a great piece of sculpture. But "Guernica" was a very good example, I guess, of a great work of art coming out of a terrible disaster, Picasso.

Bernie Morgan [phonetic spelling]. If you were the Queen, how would you deal with your squabbling offspring?

You have in mind St. Andrews University…

… and the photography by the Ardent company…

That’s right. Yes.

… breaking the agreed rules. Chris Patten.

I don’t think anybody called me the old queen of Hong Kong. But I… I think this really would be a… an example of Les Majesty, off with his head. I think I would… I would want to… I think one would want to make it a… clear that Prince William deserved his privacy even in relation to his own family.

The… the debate as it’s been put, it’s been said that the Prince of Wales believes that his brother, Prince Edward, the uncle of Prince William should either be a royal, as it were full-time, or choose to make television programmes but you can’t do both without getting in to this kind of problem. What’s your view about that?

I think that sounds pretty sensible. I don’t think you should stop members of the royal family earning their own living but I think they should make a choice and I think it’s quite difficult to do both without it raising rather difficult issues that cross borders and… and produce problems of definition.

I think… I think what would be sad is if this episode made some of our own tabloids or paparazzi think that the agreements were off and they could now make Prince William’s life hell and I hope that won’t happen. I think the tabloids have behaved well, so far and I hope they’ll go on doing so because this is a young man and obviously rather an extremely agreeable young man who deserves to enjoy his time at university like all our kids.

We’re on to our next question with that.

Jeff Coates [phonetic spelling], Student Union President at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. When is discrimination not discrimination? Are gender quotas an insult to women, a threat to men or an affront to everyone’s integrity?

Gynis Kinnock.

Well, one of the sacrifices I made this week in order to travel 20,000 odd kilometres round the Middle East and beyond was that I missed the Liberal Democrat conference and…

And you’ll go on missing me. And, in particular… in particular I… I missed this debate. In the party…

I don’t… I don’t think we should put him to the test. Now, that it’s as clear as it’s likely to be, your quick thought. Is it… just to come to the question. Are these quotas, 40 per cent, says Charles Kennedy in winnable seats, an insult to women, a threat to men or an affront to all our integrity? Jeff Coates asks.

I think there should be more women in the House of Commons. I think it is perfectly reasonable to insist on having a proportion of women on every selection list in a constituency. What has always amazed me and the party I know best, is that the majority of party members are, I think, invariably women and they’re so lax in actually choosing women candidates. It’s a… it’s absolutely astonishing to me. But I have… I have no difficulty at all in insisting on a proportion of women on every list but I’d have a lot of difficulty going further than that and I think a lot of women would feel that sometimes if when they were chosen in their… on terms that were more favourable than that, they haven’t been chosen on their own merits.

And we can just squeeze in one more.

Lorna Boyd [phonetic spelling]. If a musical was made based on your life, which song would you want included and why?

A musical on your life, which song? Any song and why? Not long, I’m afraid, I… start with you, Chris Patten… ‘cause you were trying to hide.

I think if it was tonight, Some Enchanted Evening.