Archives for July 2010

It is the final day of 5 live Drives Down the Deficit. Declan Curry and I will be at the fantastically named VAT and Fiddle pub in Nottingham from 4pm.

This week, our panels of would-be chancellors in Berkshire, Rutland, Northumberland and Fife have suggested £35bn of spending cuts. How much will our last trio generate by bumping up our taxes?

They don't have to worry about being popular, they just have to raise money. What would you tax?

Even a casual glance at how the government spends our taxes leaves one thing very clear: Welfare and benefits are very expensive.

For every four pounds the taxman takes from us, more than a pound is spent on welfare. The state pension, housing benefit, incapacity benefit and unemployment benefit all, of course, come with a bill.

7PM UPDATE:

In Gordon Brown's backyard here in Lochore in Fife, the word 'benefits' gets people going.

Some are dependent on them, others are infuriated by them. One man jabbed his fingers towards a neighbour's front door saying they were scrougers.

For Day 4 of 5 live Drives Down the Deficit, we assembled a panel of Scottish would-be chancellors in the Lochore Miners Welfare Social Club. Caron has worked for 15 years in the voluntary sector. Gary is married with four grown up kids and is a fireman. And John is the Minister at Lochgelly Baptist Church.

Our team of Treasury wannabes decided those in the highest tax band wouldn't get child benefit. Free bus passes for pensioners would only be given to people who don't have a car. The Winter Fuel Payment for the elderly would only be given to the poorest half of society. But, biggest of all in terms of savings, the state pension would be given in stages depending on wealth. Yes, it could be administratively complicated, but there would be potential for massive savings.

So how much did our trio save, very, very roughly? Perhaps up to £24bn. Opinion polls suggest people are most inclined to say savings should come from the welfare bill, and broadly, our panel in Fife agreed.

Hear our deficit reports in Drive (up to seven days after broadcast)

On Friday, we'll be heading to Nottingham to look at tax. How about a tax on text messages?

Day three of 5 live Drives Down the Deficit and we're in Haltwhistle in Northumberland.

The town claims to mark the spot that is the geographical centre of Britain. So what better place to survey the country for national assets that our panel of wannabe chancellors might want to sell?

Sitting at the bar at the Centre of Britain Hotel, our panel.

Mike Pearson runs a cafe here. Barbara Medley is a retired university administrator. Michael Wilcox is a playwright.

Selling off the major roads could save around £6.5 billion a year. Selling the bits of the rail network still owned by the state could bring in £1.5 billion annually. But there are no takers for either here. The panel is unanimous: the countryside gets a rough deal on public transport, people rely on their cars, and privatisation might mean higher prices.

Privatising universities gets short shrift too, as does selling off national museums and imposing charges. Slash and burn merchants our Northumberland chancellors are not. They do though agree to privatise the state owned bookie the Tote. But the current government and their predecessors agreed too-but couldn't find a buyer.

On days one and two of this exercise our panels suggested savings of around 11bn. Today, savings of just £1 million.

On Thursday it is welfare spending, and we're off to Fife.

Day 3 of 5 live Drives Down the Deficit. We're on the A1 and heading for the very centre of Britain. Our destination? Haltwhistle in Northumberland.

Today is the big sell-off. But it's not as easy as it seems. For the sake of our exercise this week, we are trying to cut the deficit. But you can only sell things once.

Nonetheless, our panel of Northumberland chancellors will be wielding For Sale signs.

What could they sell? The Crown Jewels? Does the state need to own the roads we drive on? Should the whole university system be privatised?

We'll be live in Northumberland from 4pm on Drive.

Chris Mason is 5 live's political reporter

• 5 live Drive will be looking at the budget deficit all week
• Subscribe to Drive's Story of the Day podcast

Welcome to Camp cuts. As holidaymakers set up the awnings on the side of their caravans, three Harrier Jump Jets perform an exercise less than discreetly a few thousand feet up.The noise is unmissable - but could soon be gone for good round here.

RAF Cottesmore up the road is due to close in a few years. People here know the reality of defence cuts.

But how much could be saved from the foreign affairs budget - on defence, membership of the European Union, international development and the Foreign Office? It was here that we set up our stall for day 2 of our week driving down the deficit for 5 live Drive.

Read the rest of this entry

It's day two of 5 live Drive's series looking at ways to drive down Britain's £156 billion deficit. Today I'm in Rutland in the East Midlands to look at foreign and defence spending.

It's an area where you might expect some big budgets. But compared to other areas, the figures aren't always so big.

This year, the government's planning to spend £40 billion on Defence and less than £6 billion on international development. Put together, that's less than half the budget for education.

Nonetheless, there are still beans to be counted and belts to be tightened. Once again, I'm looking forward to your ideas.

When Drive is on air you can text us on 85058, you can comment below or you can contribute to the BBC News website's Have Your Say discussion on this.

Chris Mason is 5 live's political reporter

• 5 live Drive will be looking at the budget deficit all week
• Subscribe to Drive's Story of the Day podcast

Day One of 5 live Drive's Down The Deficit and we are in the Broad Street Mall in Reading. What savings would people here suggest to trim the amount of our taxes spent on schools, hospitals and the police?

Listen again to Monday's programme here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t7dzs

Read the rest of this entry

We're setting off today on our five day trip to find out how you would cut the budget deficit if you were Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Don't worry about suggesting things that are unpopular - our aim is to see how much of the national overdraft we can chip away at in just a week, thanks to your ideas.

Our first stop will be Reading in Berkshire. Throughout Drive on Monday, 5 live Money's Declan Curry and I will be chatting to people at the Broad Street Mall about how they'd save money on the UK's home affairs budget. So we're looking at the money currently spent on things like schools, hospitals and police.

Flicking through the Chancellor George Osborne's Red Book - his Budget from last month - I can tell you the government is planning to spend £122bn on the NHS this year. That is about 22p of every £1 we pay in tax.

The Prime Minister has promised that the health service budget won't be squeezed, but we'll be hearing one radical idea to do just that.

And we're keen to hear plenty more from you. Once Drive is on air you can text us on 85058, you can comment below or you can contribute to the BBC News website's Have Your Say discussion on this.

One final thought.

I think I have found the most-uttered political cliché of 2010. Here it is: "Front line services." Politicians of every persuasion trot out the phrase, with the word "protect" usually cropping up somewhere nearby.

But what on earth is a "front line service?" How would you define it? Perhaps we would all agree that a teacher or a doctor, for instance, would count. But what about the person who picks up the phone when we have to dial 999? And what about teaching assistants? Do they count too?

Chris Mason is 5 live's political reporter

• 5 live Drive will be looking at the budget deficit all week
• Subscribe to Drive's Story of the Day podcast

Having spent the last five months mumbling about how I was "about to start training" for the BUPA 30th Great North Run, I thought it would be a good idea to do something about it. It is only two months away, after all.

The intention has always been there... but so have the excuses. I needed a reason to put down my wine glass, dust down my trainers and squeeze into my running gear. Nothing too strenuous - just a little push in the direction of a treadmill or pavement.

The challenge arrived via electronic mail with the words, "hope you're ready for tomorrow!"

I was booked in for a medical with physiotherapists Harris & Ross, who count Peter Schmeichel, Andy Robinson and Jenny Meadows as past clients. It would be almost identical to the kind of medicals you'd get before joining a Premier League club (such as Mr Joe Cole will be undergoing at Liverpool), with a few exceptions - but definitely no favours.

A five-hour timetable was attached with details of the various assessments, including the dreaded beep test.

I was in a sweat just reading it, and in desperate need of a muffin...

Juliette Ferrington is the north of England reporter for 5 live Sport

MPs packing up to leave Westminster for the summer might just have half an eye on the beach in a week or two's time.

But when they get back, the political elephant in the room won't have gone away. Cuts. The deficit. Tax rises.

So how big a challenge is the government taking on, trying to tackle the £156bn budget deficit? If you were Chancellor, what would you do? Next week, we want to hear your ideas.

Starting next Monday on Drive, I am heading across the country to hear how you would sort out the country's finances. Your suggestions don't have to be popular. They can be big or small, serious or outlandish. The aim is to drive down as much of the deficit in a week as your ideas allow. Who knows, maybe we can balance the books by Friday!

Of course, whether cutting the deficit within five years, let alone five days, is necessary is a matter of intense political debate. But we hope that by setting a ridiculous timetable we can explore the dilemmas, quandaries and difficulties facing Whitehall. Our guests will suggest where savings could come while others will be equally passionate in defending areas of spending.

Each day throughout the week, we will examine a different area of government spending. And then we'll switch the focus to look at raising taxes.

On Monday we will explore the home affairs budget - things like schools, hospitals, the police and the arts. How much could you change the NHS to save money? And what about schools?

On Tuesday we'll take a look at foreign affairs. Can we afford to slash the defence budget? Can we be generous to poorer countries when we are short of money?

On Wednesday we're planning to look at how much difference could be made to the national overdraft by selling off state assets. What do we own that we can do without and that someone else would want?

On Thursday we'll turn our attention to a massive proportion of government spending - the welfare budget, which accounts for about £1 in every £4 of spending from our taxes. The state pension, housing benefit and money for people on the dole - everything's up for debate.

On Friday we'll move from looking at spending to looking at tax. By then we hope to have taken in Berkshire, Northumberland, Fife and to have arrived in Nottingham. We will be at the splendidly named VAT and Fiddle pub. What we haven't paid off by today will be added to the tax bill. So ideas for new taxes will be welcome. Serious or seriously off the wall, we are all ears.

We'd love to hear your ideas for where cuts could come and where taxes could rise. Anything goes - there are no sacred cows, unless you want there to be. Nothing is ring-fenced.

Clearly, we're not saying any of this should, could or would happen in reality, but we hope our exercise, with your involvement, will help us all get a greater sense of where our taxes are spent.

Post your thoughts here. We would love to hear from you and we might get back in touch.

Chris Mason is 5 live's political reporter

Just hours after the Netherlands horror show, the editor and producer of 5 live Sport were sat in the office with me yesterday as we had our first planning meeting ahead of the new football season.

Sports report will be back in its full one-hour glory from Saturday August 14th. The team are already looking at ideas for enhanced football league news in the later part of the show as well as thinking about how they will round up the day's Premier League interviews, rugby union and racing. Mark Pougatch will host the whole Saturday programme from midday, including the Sports Report hour, from one of the main events of the day. For example, on the opening day, he will probably be at Wigan for Blackpool's first game of the season.

Also, our 606 producer Jo has been busy working up plans for the new 2-hour long Saturday night show (from August 14 at 6.06pm) which will be co-presented by Mark Chapman from our studio in London, and Robbie Savage from either a football ground or a BBC studio. On August 7th, we'll bring you live commentary of the biggest championship match on the opening day of the season - Derby County's visit to Leeds United - which is the early evening game. That means Robbie Savage will be hot-footing it directly from the dressing room to the microphone for the first show of the new season!

The first "Kicking off with Colin Murray", will be live from Blackpool on Friday August 13th. There will also be in-depth previews of the football league season on 5 live Sport in the week running up to the August 7th start date. And we'll keep running the 5 live Football Daily podcast right the way through, to keep you up to date on the build-up to the new season.

Those are some of the early headlines as the 5 live sport team move their attention from Cape Town to Swindon Town, and from England fatigue to the Premier League.

I will try to keep you updated.

Jonathan Wall is 5 live's Commissioning Editor

• 5 live will bring you live commentary of Derby County v Nottingham Forest on 7th August
• 5 live will bring you live commentary of the first match of the new Premier League season, Tottenham v Manchester City, at 12:45pm on Saturday 14th August
• A full list of the 2010/11 football season fixtures is on the BBC Sport website
• Photo used under license, copyright Getty Images

I wanted to tell you more about three new programmes we've got this weekend on 5 live.

On Sunday night at 7.30 you'll be able to hear Men's Hour for the first time. There's been so much discussion and comment about the programme that you may feel you've already heard it - but this Sunday will be the chance to judge the show on its content, which in the end is what matters. But before Tim Samuels even gets things underway, let me explain what we're trying to do.

Firstly it is worth pointing out it's a one hour programme for six weeks on a Sunday evening. One challenge with slots like this is to do something a bit different which gets us noticed - we're always looking to increase awareness of 5 live because that's the way of attracting new listeners. Men's Hour has certainly been talked about over the last few days so that's a real plus.

Editorially, is there value in trying to understand men's role in the world and to give space to talk about some issues which to be honest do not get aired very often in broadcast media? I think there is as long as we do that in a way which is smart, relevant and thought-provoking - and that's what the programme will aim to do. We'll deal with topics like work, relationships and health. And don't be misled by the title - just as Woman's Hour has almost 40% male listeners, we hope female listeners won't feel they can't listen to Men's Hour. To help prove the point, Woman's Hour presenter Jenni Murray is a guest on the first show and Men's Hour presenter Tim Samuels is a guest this week on Woman's Hour on Radio 4.

Also new this Sunday at 11am is Chart the Week with Richard Bacon. Over the past year we've tried to use the Sunday morning 11am slot to take a different look at the week's events using humour and comedy in a live, topical format. The Christian O'Connell Solution and Seven Day Sunday with Chris Addison have been the first two shows and Seven Day Sunday will return for another run in September. But this summer we're trying a third format with the same aims in mind. It's a simple idea - a panel looks back at the week's top ten most talked-about events. We want it to be sharp, flexible and funny - something perfect for a sunny Sunday morning.

Our new trio of programmes for the weekend is rounded off by Gethin Jones' return to Saturday mornings between 9 and 11. It's Gethin's third summer with us in this slot and the programme will be a mix of familiar features and some fresh ideas with the aim of reflecting the sound of summer - from sport to festivals to music. Hopefully amongst those three shows there's something everyone can enjoy this summer - do give them a listen and see what you think.

Adrian Van-Klaveren is Controller of BBC Radio 5 live

It says something that I am the first departing Editor of 5 live Breakfast to be asked to write a blog about it. When I took over the job at the end of 2002, editors weren't required to contribute such things. We didn't have a blog. We barely had a website. The media wasn't very social, it was only birds that tweeted and we never had to update our status.

In fact, thinking back to when 5 live went on air in 1994, we were quite excited at the prospect of people being able to email us, although not many did. Audience response often involved people writing you a letter, and not many did that either.

The text message changed everything. Suddenly we got instant feedback on everything we did, whether we liked it or not. You told us when we got things wrong, when we were discussing the wrong things, when you didn't like a question and when you hated the answer. We got an immediate (and usually damning) verdict on every new travel jingle.



The numbers 85058 became as important as 909 and 693 to 5 live. But it wasn't just spleen that was vented. A postman in Scotland texted us to tell us police had just captured, with his help, a wanted man in a remote car park. We were first with the news. The boss of a major retailer texted us when he heard customers complaining on air - and was on the programme within minutes. When cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed dominated the news, our text number was targetted by campaigners and the system crashed under tens of thousands of texts.

And we also got some texts that didn't seem meant for us. I've kept a few.

Some were mundane...

Be 5minutes late filling up with derv

Others were functional...

Gona b 10 mins late, have got coco pops but i left the photos at kevins! Have u got dog shampoo? x

Others were downright racy...

Wow,ur an awazing lover-what a night! C u tomorrow!

Hey sexy cant wait to [censored]. See you up the forestry tonight.

And despite the emergence of blogs, Facebook, Twitter et al, the text message has, so far, remained the most powerful, popular, instant, pithy form of interaction with the audience. If you disagree, text 85058.

Richard Jackson was the editor of 5 live Breakfast, 2002-2010.

The former 5 live presenter Allan Robb has died at the age of 49.

I met Allan when we were 5 years old. We went to the same schools, and then we went to university together, where we shared rooms and then flats. We were both at Northsound Radio in Aberdeen together, then later at Radio 1, then at 5 live. Our careers went in tandem. He was my oldest friend, and he was my closest friend. He was my best man, and I'm godfather to his son, and I can't believe he's not with us any more.

Allan was a fantastic journalist: he had a very quick and agile mind, and he asked questions which people could not hide from. He was as much at home interviewing Nelson Mandela as....well, anyone, really. He did some great stuff from Northern Ireland at the time of the Good Friday agreement, and from Sydney at the dawning of the new millennium. When Allan was working on Newsbeat on Radio 1, he interviewed the then-Prime Minister, John Major. Spitting Image was on at the time, and John Major was portrayed as an utterly grey man who was obsessed with eating peas. There was a lull in the interview, and the only thing Allan could think to say was, "do you like eating peas?" John Major clearly didn't know what Allan was talking about and said, "I like a variety of vegetables...but peas I am relatively neutral about." Which was classic Allan, as well as classic John Major.

He was perfect for 5 live. He understood where we were coming from. He had a certain contrariness: he was brilliant at taking the other position for the sake of it, of making you question your own prejudices.

He was great company: he was a dynamic personality with a risqué sense of humour, and he could make you laugh until you were crying. He was rather more formal on the radio than in person, and I think that was a great strength. This rod of steel went into his backbone when he went on the air. He had a rather endearing old-fashioned view of Being On The BBC, which came from his sense of awe at what we do. I remember walking up Oxford Street in London with him once, and he pointed at Broadcasting House and said "we work there. We work there, for the BBC". And he never forgot that. There was never one moment when he didn't think, "I'm a journalist for the BBC, and I'm doing the most amazing job in the world, and it's a fantastic privilege."

His MS had become more and more debilitating, but his humour always shone through. I was in hospital with him fairly recently, when his health took a bad turn. In the chaos of an emergency situation, this plate of what can only be described as mush was delivered to him. It must have been sitting around for hours. The doctor was in the middle of speaking to him, and Allan looked up and said to the nurses, "excuse me -- I ordered the lobster".

The Allan I will remember is a wonderfully eccentric, fiercely intelligent, amazingly loyal friend. He was at his happiest when with his 12-year-old son, Jamie. I will cherish so many memories of Allan: the years when we were kids, the years we were teenagers, when we were running amok, when we were being bad, when we were being appalling, when we were being good. But I will cherish the memory of the happy father with his son more than anything.

For me, it's one of the saddest days of my life. He was my greatest friend and he was a great broadcaster and professional, and I'll really miss him so much.

Nicky Campbell presents 5 live breakfast every weekday morning

You can carry your phone all day and no-one calls. As soon as you put it down for five minutes, your boss, your superiors and the boy you've been pretending to ignore for days phone. In my case, my boss called and left me two text messages involving the words: "urgent."

A little unnecessary - all they wanted me to do was go to the roof and read texts for John McEnroe. Yes, he's a cult figure, yes, I know his reputation (McEnroe that is, not my boss) but what was he going to do, eat me?

Far from it. In fact he barely spoke to me, I spoke when spoken to and posed the questions we invited listeners to send in. My favourite: "where would you rank the number one women's player in the men's ranking?" A fair bit of goading and the inclusion of Andy Murray led to some pretty inflammatory remarks.

A year ago, I might have jumped on the defensive, arguing about women in labour and making the point that in a recent ultra-marathon only 50% of the men's field finished but 100% of the women made it across the line. I didn't for once - I kept schtum. I kept irrelevant facts to myself and listened.

No I haven't abandoned my burning bra. For one of the first times in this tournament I thought before I opened my mouth: you can't compare the two. It's like saying, "Is that apple as good as that banana?" They're different. You see, every day really is a school day.