Tag Archives: bbc radio 4

Caron Lindsay defends Jo Swinson’s right to stand

By Andy Boddington | Fri 18th October 2013 - 2:00 pm

Jo Swinson GlasgowThe government has been introducing a lots of “rights to” of late. Communities have rights to bid and to build. Individual have rights to buy and to personal budgets. After the last 48 hours of media coverage, it may be that we need to bring in a “right to stand.”

The story runs like this. Jo Swinson arrives for Prime Ministers Questions at a point when the house is already crammed out. She stands for a while and she’s happy with that. The political editor of the Spectator, James Forsyth however was horrified and tweeted.

Quite remarkable that no MP has offered Jo Swinson, who is seven months pregnant, a seat. Really shocking lack of manners and decency

The Daily Mail then took up the case. Caron Lindsay took that newspaper to task last night, concluding:

I find the Mail’s attitude to women much more offensive and harmful to society than anything that happened in the House of Commons yesterday.

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 12 Comments
NewsHound

‘I have a dream’ speech on Radio 4

By NewsHound | Mon 26th August 2013 - 12:43 pm

martin-luther-king-jrThis Wednesday the BBC will be marking the 50th Anniversary of  the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s  ‘I have a dream’ speech’ with a special programme at 9am on Radio 4.

The entire speech will be read by 19 well-known human rights activists, including Maya Angelou, Doreen Lawrence, Mary Robinson, Malala Yousafzai and the Dalai Lama. You can see the full list of readers here.

The programme will be repeated at 2.30pm on BBC World Service, or you can, of course, catch up on i-Player.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

A personal guide to the 13 most essential political podcasts

By Stephen Tall | Mon 10th June 2013 - 8:45 am

podcastsCommuting is a major part of my daily life, so I find podcasts are an essential way to make use of time I’d otherwise spend staring vacantly out the window or idly refreshing and re-refreshing Twitter. Here, in order of where they appear in my iTunes directory, are the podcasts I listen to most frequently…

The Economist’s podcasts – a good mix of audio recordings of selected articles from the print edition together with brief discussions involving the Economist’s expert correspondents. Slightly irritatingly the sound can vary between recordings, so you …

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Stephen Tall

The Eurozone crisis explained. OR: How not to get distracted by smurfs doing star-jumps

By Stephen Tall | Tue 12th June 2012 - 1:10 pm

The Eurozone crisis isn’t, by common consent, a sexy topic rich with comic potential. Important, yes. A rib-tickler, no. So kudos, immense kudos, to comedian John Finnemore who performed a pretty acute summary for BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show this week. In just 6 mins and 35 secs. Enjoy…

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Posted in Humour and YouTube | Also tagged , , , and | 1 Comment
Prateek Buch

Nick Clegg’s priorities for 2012

By Prateek Buch | Fri 6th January 2012 - 9:30 am

The Voice’s Mark Pack has been writing about the Party’s challenges in 2012 – as if on cue, leader Nick Clegg set out his priorities for Lib Dems in Government in a Radio 4 Today interview which you can hear in full here.

As reported in The Guardian, these priorities include tackling tax avoidance by both corporations and wealthy individuals, clamping down on excessive and undeserved top pay, and re-engaging with governments and business in Europe following the Prime Minister’s unhelpful showing in Brussels at the end of last year.

Pressed on how that re-engagement would materialise, Nick …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 8 Comments
Helen Duffett

Shirley Williams revisits her childhood haunts

By Helen Duffett | Mon 22nd August 2011 - 8:48 am

BBC Radio 4’s latest series of “The House I Grew up In” (which revisits the childhood neighbourhoods of influential Britons) includes an episode featuring Liberal Democrat Peer, Shirley Williams.

Shirley Williams, now Baroness Williams, returns to her childhood homes in London’s Chelsea and the New Forest. Her mother was the writer, Vera Brittain, whose most famous novel – Testament of Youth – was a best-seller when Shirley was a child in the 1930s. Her father, George Catlin, was an academic and and an instinctive feminist whose own mother had been an early suffragette, ostracised by Victorian society. He was a

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , and | 1 Comment
The Voice

‘Who is Nick Clegg?’ Find out tonight on BBC Radio 4

By The Voice | Sun 29th November 2009 - 3:45 pm

Tune in tonight, at 10.45 pm, to BBC Radio 4 if you want to hear Richard Reeves, director of think-tank Demos, examine the intellectual and philosophical roots of the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, for the Political Roots: Liberals programme. (Repeated on Wednesday 2 December at 8.45 pm).

The BBC website carries an article by Richard, trailing the programme, with some revealing quotes from Nick – for example on the influence of his family in creating a liberal within him:

There was something floating around in my family … I don’t want to make it sound as earnest as it does –

…

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Stephen Tall

‘The Age of Ming’ – Tue 23 June, BBC Radio 4, 11am

By Stephen Tall | Mon 22nd June 2009 - 10:20 pm

If you have the chance, you can listen live to BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Age of Ming’ tomorrow, Tuesday, at 11 am. If you don’t have the chance, there’s always Listen Again. Here’s the BBC online article:

Sir Menzies Campbell lasted less than two years as leader of the Liberal Democrats. Many believe he was hounded out of office by a media obsessed with his age and appearance. The former Olympic athlete protests that, after his admittedly shaky start in the Commons, views were formed in the press that never wavered.

His background should have been an image-maker’s dream: born into

…

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Stephen Tall

Mark Reckons on BBC Radio 4’s ‘More or Less’

By Stephen Tall | Thu 21st May 2009 - 8:20 pm

What does it take for a Lib Dem blogger to hit the mainstream media?

You might think racy exclusives and sex scandals would be the way forward. But not Mark Thompson of the Mark Reckons blog – instead he’s chosen to make his mark on the Lib Dem blogging world through the medium of statistical correlation analysis, examining the likelihood of MPs in safe seats being implicated in the expenses furore.

His study, MPs Expenses and safe seats correlation – update, was picked up by (among others) The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee. And now Mark is to be …

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Posted in News and Online politics | Also tagged and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Is the Today programme going to launch a political party?

By Mark Pack | Tue 19th December 2006 - 9:00 am

I only ask because, whilst it has become traditional for other political parties to copy Liberal Democrat policies, Today has now started doing the same.

Perhaps it is the start of a John Humphrys for Parliament campaign? (Though let’s hope he doesn’t find his attempt to vote for himself scuppered by the failure of his local council to remind him that he signed up for a postal vote; I mean – being told nine times by the council that you have a postal vote isn’t really often enough is it?)

In case you’re wondering if it is site value rating …

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