Today programme

Radio is more representative of middle England than TV

Greetings from the 2013 Radio Festival, in Salford. I’m here to take part in a debate about whether or not radio reflects the opinions and concerns of a broad enough tranche of the public. It certainly does a better job of this than TV; Radio Five (especially Nicky Campbell) and some of the local stations seem to reflect the views of middle England pretty well. Still, on Radio Four, you get the bien pensant toss rammed down your throat, almost without variation, which is a shame. There are problems enfranchising the silent majority, though: they tend to be silent. This is most obviously evident on BBC1 Question Time, for example,

The worrying ‘hyper-inflation’ of human rights

There is a term which ought to be in better use – ‘human rights inflation’. This is the means by which the currency of ‘human rights’ – which used to mean things like ‘the right to life’ – becomes, thanks to the addition of endless spurious additional demands, severely undermined. The latest example of this trend has come to light this morning thanks to a Brazilian far-leftist who claims to be working as a rapporteur for the United Nations. As listeners to the Today programme will know (about 2 hours 37 minutes in here) according to Raquel Rolnik the latest inalienable human right is apparently the ‘right to a spare bedroom.’

Alexander Chancellor Why can’t we have more public toilets and fewer wheelie-bins?

After a carefree month at my wife’s house in Tuscany — the longest summer holiday I have spent there for maybe 30 years — the return to England this week has proven especially irksome. It is depressing enough to land at any British airport, but Stansted takes the cake. Arriving there after a Ryanair flight from Pisa (in itself a dispiriting experience), I found myself at the end of an enormous queue, so long that its front was indiscernible, and took 40 minutes to reach the desk of an immigration officer. There were literally thousands of people in front of me. Why so many? Why is England so much more

Jim Naughtie tells Sunny Hundal to ‘shut up’

Listeners to the Today programme were treated to some comedy this morning, when noted Ed Miliband fan-boy Sunny Hundal tried to claim that Labour’s summer of discontent is part of a grand plan. Hundal was supposed to be countering the view that Ed is not doing enough to get to Downing Street, but ended up conceding the point live on air — and not before gentle Jim Naughtie spoke for the nation by telling the spluttering Hundal to ‘shut up’. The laughter on the face of fellow guest Jenni Russell says it all. Mr Steerpike feels sorry for little Ed. With friends like Sunny… listen to ‘James Naughtie vs Sunny Hundal’

Immigration allows Britain to fake progress, not make progress

Is Britain addicted to immigration? I argued so in my Telegraph column yesterday and Radio 4’s Today programme held a discussion about it this morning and asked me on (22 mins in, here). You can say that that immigration has worked wonders for the economy – without it, we’d have a pathetic 2 per cent more people in work than in 1997. As things stand, our workforce has expanded by 11 per cent. We’d actually notice the number British people emigrating (the exodus has doubled to 400 a day under Cameron) so the ever-growing growing debt pile would be shouldered by a shrinking workforce. David Cameron would have no jobs

Dear Mary on mobile phone etiquette, playing bridge, and the weather

The Spectator’s Mary Killen — otherwise known as ‘Dear Mary‘ — was on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning discussing whether or not it was right for a Sainsbury’s checkout assistant to refuse to serve a customer who was on her mobile phone. Here’s the clip from this morning’s programme, and below we’ve put together some of our favourite Dear Mary dilemmas of the last six months. listen to ‘Dear Mary on mobile phone etiquette’ on Audioboo Q. I was sitting in a South West train the other day. A woman across the aisle was making nonstop calls into her mobile phone, speaking very loudly in what sounded to me like

Hats off to Sarah Montague

Well done to the BBC Today programme’s Sarah Montague for not screaming abuse at Tommy Robinson, the English Defence League leader, when she interviewed him this morning. It seems that many wanted her simply to shriek abuse at the man – and now she is being criticised for having been too lax. Being aggressive with interviewees simply because you don’t like their opinions never really works; getting a bit arsey with them when they obfuscate or hide the truth, however, does work. But it makes no sense, having taken a decision to interview the clown, to then subject him to an intemperate tirade of bien pensant outrage. This is the

The Spectator’s Notes | 2 May 2013

It is fascinating watching the great welfare debate as the universal credit starts its life. The ruling elites have very, very slowly caught up with public understanding. The simplest way to think about the question is this. At every level of society people tend to be acutely aware of what their approximate equals are paid, and usually unaware of what those richer or poorer receive. Therefore the people who best understand how welfare works are either its recipients or those who work on low wages and are scarcely better off for doing so. These people recognise that being on welfare is — in effect, though not morally — like having

The BBC’s great public service: Cancelling the Today programme

Is it true that the Today programme did not go out this morning?  If so the strikers have done a great public service. Giving the country a day off the Today programme is one of the kindest things anybody could do, in any economic climate.  I hope the generosity continues. I stopped listening years ago after I acknowledged that the programme only succeeded in getting every day off to the worst possible start.  Since I stopped listening my life has improved immeasurably It is not just the inevitable left-wing bias of the programme or the left establishment view of what is or is not news.  It is the fact that

Cameron tries to return to the big picture

David Cameron is out doing the media rounds today. He wants to, in his words, get back to the ‘big picture’, the argument over deficit reduction. Indeed, Danny Alexander’s speech today saying that departments have to indentify additional saving seems to have been timed to tee up this argument. Cameron’s Today Programme interview, though, was dominated by Abu Qatada, tax avoidance, Lords reforms and whether or not — in John Humphrys’ words — the PM is ‘a bit lazy.’ On Qatada, Cameron was insistent that the Home Office had ‘checked repeatedly’ with the European Court of Human Rights on the deadline. I expect that the Home Office will have to

Fraser Nelson

Cameron needs results that match his words

Further to James’s post on the Cameron interview, here’s what jumped out at me: 1. ‘Governments have difficult months. This government came together to dig this country out of the huge economic mess that it’s in…’ This is the official No.10 explanation about the last few months; that it’s the problems of the austerity agenda. As James Forsyth says in his political column in the current magazine, there are strongly-held alternative explanations. 2. ‘We’re not just a bunch of accountants dealing with the deficit…’ Cameron kicks off with this, an interesting phrase as it has been used by those criticising his Chancellor’s economic message. Osborne’s critics says he no agenda

Transcript: Nick Clegg on the budget and the local elections

Here’s the full transcript of this morning’s Today programme interview with Nick Clegg: James Naughtie: Coalition government involves some pretty hard bargaining, some difficult compromises for both parties. You might think therefore that the opportunity of a local election campaign would be quite welcome, party leaders being themselves, talking to their own parties without having to worry too much about the other lot. But for Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, times are tough. He doesn’t even need to look at the opinion polls to know that. He said himself at the weekend that coalition life was a roller coaster and acknowledged that any government sooner or later found

Transcript: Balls vs Alexander on tax credits

On the Today programme this morning, Ed Balls aired his criticisms of the government’s tax credit changes — which come in tomorrow. He was followed by Danny Alexander, who emphasised the £630 increase in the personal allowance and argued that the measures are necessary ‘to deal with Labour’s economic mess’ and to create a tax and benefit system ‘which encourages and incentivises work’. Here’s the full transcript of both interviews:   James Naughtie: Now, in every set of tax changes there are winners and losers and after today, the end of the tax year, people will be able to assess what the government’s changes to tax and benefits are going

Transcript: Osborne defends his Budget

Here’s the full transcript of this morning’s Today programme interview with George Osborne: Evan Davis: If you believe in using the tax system to cut the incomes of those at the top and in using the welfare system to hand money to the poor, then yesterday’s budget was probably not for you. The Chancellor  hinted at big further cuts to welfare and he clearly thinks the tax system has gone too far in trying to harvest cash from those at the top. Yes, he’s ironing out some loopholes but for him 50p rates don’t work. Believe him, and the game’s over for those who want government to iron out the

Transcript: Grayling on work experience

On the Today Programme this morning, Employment Minister Chris Grayling defended the government’s Work Experience programme in light of the recent controversies around it. Here’s a full transcript of the interview: Evan Davis: Well how can work experience get such a bad name? A string of high profile companies have pulled out of one government scheme providing work experience for young people. The latest, retailer Poundland, has announced it is suspending its participation in the scheme although it’s not quite clear which scheme it is, because there are several government schemes for getting people, long-term unemployed or young, into work. Let’s see if we can clarify what is going on

Letts for DG

How does Quentin Letts for Director General of the BBC sound to CoffeeHousers? He’s certainly putting himself forward, and in the latest issue of The Spectator he lays out what he’d bring to the role. His seventeen-point manifesto includes such proposals as ‘Cut the DG’s pay to 10 per cent of its current value’ and ‘Sack Jeremy Clarkson’. We’ve pasted the whole thing below. Do add your own ideas for the Beeb in the comments section. Messrs Egon Zehnder, ­headhunters, are helping the BBC find its next director general. The involvement of these swanky international executive search agents is depressing. Their ­American-‘flavored’ website brags about helping companies seek ‘competitive advantage’

Prescott’s pitch for the police commissioner job

How strange — John Prescott is fast becoming the poster boy for elected police commissioners. He appeared on the Today Programme earlier to explain why he’s putting himself forward for that very job in his home of Humberside. But has he acquiesced to Tory thinking? Don’t bet on it. As he told John Humphrys, he doesn’t actually support the legislation, but he does believe that Labour should have a man in the fight: ‘The Labour Party didn’t like this legislation and I voted against it, but once there is an election the party isn’t going to stay out of it and they will want to see it doesn’t go the way they feared it

Transcript: Gove on sacking teachers

This morning, the Education Secretary went on the Today programme to explain his plans to make it easier to sack teachers. Here’s the full transcript: James Naughtie: From the start of the next school year in England, head teachers will find it easier to remove teachers that are considered to be under-performers.  The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, thinks the process is too cumbersome so it is being streamlined. The National Union of Teachers, as we heard earlier, says it could become a bullies’ charter.  Well Mr Gove is with us. Good morning. Michael Gove: Good morning. JN: Bullies? MG: I don’t believe so. I think that actually if you have

Miliband tries to get his message heard

Ed Miliband is trying to do something interesting today. He is attempting to answer the question, ‘what’s the point of Labour when there’s no money left to spend?’ This is the problem that Miliband has been grappling with since winning the leadership and there’s no easy answer to it. It seems that today Miliband will give us more of a sense of the ‘new economy’ which he wants to see in this country. The test of the speech will be whether it gets beyond generalities about a long-term vision for an economy that is ‘fairer’. The challenge for Miliband will be to make his subtle message heard above the chatter

Dave talks film, finances and Europe

It was the second of the Today Programme’s New Year’s interviews with the three party leaders today; this one with David Cameron. And there was plenty to digest from it. So much, in fact, that we thought we’d bash out a transcript, so that CoffeeHousers can read it through for themselves. That’s below, but before we get there it’s worth highlighting a couple of things that Cameron says. First, his point that ‘we’ve seen a level of reward at the top that just hasn’t been commensurate with success’, which is another volley in the battle against the ‘undeserving rich’ that James mentioned yesterday. And then his extended admission, in reference