Category: BBC Radio 4

Stewart Jackson on Grant Shapps

13:33 Monday 16th March 2015
BBC Radio 4

MARTHA KEARNEY: The Conservative Party Chairman has admitted today that in his own words he “screwed up” over his past business activities. Grants Shapps has faced criticism in the past for using the pseudonym Michael Green as part of his marketing company, which offered advice on how to make money. Michael Green was supposedly a successful businessman. Grant Shapps told LBC three weeks ago this is all before he became an MP.
(TAPE)
GRANT SHAPPS: I thought the discussion here was second jobs whilst people are MPs. So to be absolutely clear, I don’t have a second job, and have never had a second job whilst being an MP. End of story.
(LIVE)
MARTHA KEARNEY: But today’s Guardian has released a recording of Grant Shapps described as having been made in 2006, in which he is posing as Michael Green. This is part of the recording.
(TAPE)
GRANT SHAPPS: I think we’re suggesting if people are listening to this pretty currently, and we’re in the Summer of 2006 whilst we’re recording, a great timescale would be to use the profit diary techniques to make a ton of cash by Christmas.
(LIVE)
MARTHA KEARNEY: So the business How To Corp. was still running in the year after he became an MP. This confusion has emerged in other public comments too. When I interviewed Grant Shapps two years ago, he offered this explanation.
(TAPE)
GRANT SHAPPS: Just so your readers are clear, before I went into politics I used to run a printing company and I also set up a publishing company, and I think sensibly just to keep it separate from politics, I published under a brand name, under a pen name, like any ..
MARTHA KEARNEY: Michael Green.
GRANT SHAPPS: Michael Green.
(LIVE)
MARTHA KEARNEY: So there Grant Shapps was saying that the pseudonym was used before he went into politics. But later in the same interview ..
(TAPE)
GRANT SHAPPS: Just to be clear that the business is actually closed. I haven’t been involved with it for nearly four and a half years. And the business is closed so it’s a really very old, very very old story.
(LIVE)
MARTHA KEARNEY: So there Grant Shapps admits that the business was still running in 2007, two years after he became an MP. The Guardian has published a letter from his lawyers in November which reads: “Mr Shapps MP has at no time misled over the use of a pen name. Indeed I now understand that he openly published his full name alongside business publications, making it clear that he used a pen name merely to separate business and politics, prior to entering Parliament.” In fact How To Corp. which was set up in 2000 was registered at Companies House in 2005, the year of the election. All of this had led to Grant Shapps apology today. He told the BBC he had ” screwed up”, by denying he had a second job while an MP. Mr Shapps said he responded over-firmly at interview on LBC. Labour wants an immediate enquiry into his conduct to establish all the facts in the interests of the public. David Cameron’s official spokesman said this morning, “The Prime Minister has full confidence in Grant Shapps.” We approached the Conservative party for an interview with Grant Shapps but he wasn’t available. They suggested we speak to Stewart Jackson, the Conservative MP for Peterborough, and a Member of the Public Accounts Committee. This is an unfortunate position, isn’t it, to say the least, to have your party chairman admitting that he “screwed up” so close to an election.
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Cry Freehold – the Transcript

17:00 Sunday 8th December 2013
BBC Radio 4

[A]NNOUNCER: We know that we face a widespread housing crisis, but is land the real issue? In Cry Freehold, Chris Bowlby investigates.
(MUSIC) (LYRIC) Went to the housing committee/Stood for two hours in a line/They showed me ..
CHRIS BOWLBY: I’m sitting at my kitchen table, in the house I co-own with my wife in East Oxford. It’s exactly where, a little while ago, this story began with a rather boring letter about renewing our buildings insurance. I’ve got the letter here, and what stood out for me is the big discrepancy between what the insurer says the house would cost to rebuild, and what estate agents tell me the house is worth. The difference of course is down to the value of the land my house sits on. And that got me thinking. We talk endlessly about housing, whether there’s a bubble brewing in the south east, whether the Government’s initiatives will inflate the market, the north/south house price divide. But we seem to talk rather less about land.
(DOOR OPENING)
CHRIS BOWLBY: In this programme I want to show that just as underneath our houses there’s land, underneath the housing issue there is a land issue. And we need to understand both. And I’m going to attempt to show that by exploring my own street, neighbourhood and city, Oxford. Because as we’ll see, Oxford’s housing problem is typical of a growing problem affecting more and more places, especially in the south east, south west and eastern England. It’s a problem which on the one hand makes housing increasingly unaffordable, especially for younger people, and on the other hand puts green spaces in and around cities under intense pressure. Land and land ownership, once you start thinking about it, looks like one of the great dividing lines in our society, and always has been.
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Tories Split On Europe

13:22 Monday 26th November 2012
World At One
BBC Radio 4

MARTHA KEARNEY: The Leader of UKIP Nigel Farage described David Cameron as the major obstacle to any kind of discussion or deal with UKIP. Speaking on the Daily Politics on BBC2 earlier, Nigel Farage said a pact would only be possible with a change of Leader. (TAPE)
NIGEL FARAGE: If Cameron went and somebody pragmatic, grown-up and sensible like Michael Gove was Leader, you might think then we could sit round the table and have a proper discussion. Continue reading “Tories Split On Europe”

Stewart Jackson on the Prospects for the Coalition Agreement

13:17 Monday 16th July 2012
World At One
BBC Radio Four

MARTHA KEARNEY: What is the future of the Government? The Mayor of London Boris Johnson said this morning that the Coalition is, and I quote, “doomed to succeed”. Interesting phrase that. Stewart Jackson is the Conservative MP for Peterborough. He was one of those who voted against the Government on Lords Reform. Do you see a way through that thorny issue? Continue reading “Stewart Jackson on the Prospects for the Coalition Agreement”

Taxman Targets Interims and Consultants on Local Authorities

20:00 Tuesday 13th March 2012
File on Four Radio Four

ANNOUNCER: With tax avoidance increasingly in the news, Fran Abrahams investigates the extent of the problem. ..
FRAN ABRAHAMS: HMRC is certainly facing criticism. MPs have been asking why it’s doing deals with big business over unpaid tax bills. There was anger over the revelation that the Chief Executive of the Student Loan Company wasn’t on its payroll. And we’ve discovered it isn’t just central government that’s under pressure on the issue. Hammersmith and Fulham Council has been thanking its residents for helping it cut costs. It’s even been able to reduce council tax bills. But there ‘s been concern it might also have been cutting back on another kind of bill, the tax bill. The issue arose over the employment of a man named Nick Johnson, who’s recently been working at Hammersmith in a senior role. Theresa Pearce, who’s now a Labour MP, knew him when he was Chief Executive of Bexley Council in South London. Continue reading “Taxman Targets Interims and Consultants on Local Authorities”

Tim Ayers on Medieval Stained Glass

15:00 Tuesday 11th January 2005
BBC Radio 4

SUE COOK: It’s our wonderful heritage of stained glass window making which is the subject of our next query. James Barnam from Bristol asks when and how the use of stained glass windows as a decorative art form developed. And Peter Smith from Jarrow is interested in where the first English stained glass windows were made. A hint of local rivalry in Peter’s email I think. He says he remembers reading in a school encyclopedia that stained glass windows first appeared in his home town of Jarrow. But then when the National Glass Centre opened at Sunderland, in 1998, that distinction was claimed for Monkwearmouth, five miles away. Well we’ll sort this all out now, because Dr. Tim Ayers is a former specialist in this field. He’s the secretary of a British research project into medieval glass, based at the Courtauld Institute in London. Tim, can we start then with Peter’s question, where was stained glass first used in this country? Was it Jarrow, or was it Monkwearmouth?
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Caroline Lucas on Being a Green MP

17:20 Thursday 30th December 2010 5PM BBC Radio 4
CAROLYN QUINN: The new intake of MPs elected in May 2010 included a member of a completely new hue, a Green. Caroline Lucas, the Leader of the Green Party, pulled off a victory in the long-nurtured seat of Brighton Pavilion. But it’s potentially a lonely furrow to plough, as an Opposition member with limited influence. I asked her if she felt that the long haul to becoming a solitary Green in the House of Commons had been worth it.
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