In May 2012 BBC North inaugurated the annual Brian Redhead Lecture in honour of the legendary co-presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
This year the speech was delivered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon George Osborne MP on Friday 24 May 2013 at MediaCityUK.
"Brian Redhead was a huge figure in our national political life.
He spent nearly two decades as the chief interrogator of our leading politicians on the Today Programme - a period spanning from Harold Wilson’s second administration to the Clinton era.
I never met him, but Brian Redhead was known for being a big character.He recalled that in his final examinations at Cambridge he wrote: 'It seems to me that none of the questions set is worth answering, so I will write about the following four topics.'
Apparently, answering the question you would have liked to have been asked - instead of the one you were actually asked – turns out to be a vice of Today Programme presenters, and not just politicians...
Simon Hoggart, who Brian helped appoint to the Guardian, recalls that he was 'charming, extraordinarily talented... and a tremendous name dropper'.
He told one friend, “I met a lady the other day...well, it was the Queen, actually.”
But he wasn’t afraid to stand up to powerful people.
He was known for his tough questioning, including his famous bust-up with Nigel Lawson.
In the middle of a fierce interview, the then Chancellor accused him of being a lifelong Labour supporter.
Brian stopped the interview mid-flow, and demanded an apology on air and called for a minute’s silence until he got it.
Mind you, there are times when I wouldn’t mind being offered a minute’s silence in the middle of a Today Programme interview.
One bias he never apologised for was his strong northern bias.
He was a famous advocate of Manchester and the north.
It could sneak even into his weather reports.
As he said on air: "Now the weather; bright in the north, dull in the south. Just like the people really,"
Like many here today I didn’t know Brian Redhead.
But there’s still a lot we can all learn from his career.
He had a very non-London view.
So I thought I’d talk to you today about that non-London view.
First, why it matters to journalists and politicians alike.
Second, that the gravitational pull from our capital city is very strong indeed, and other parts of the country have to fight very hard to escape it.
And third, that both in our politics and journalism, we need to avoid falling into the trap I’ve already fallen into in this speech, of thinking about the North as a single block – because it isn’t.
Let me start with different perspectives.
For almost three years when Brian was working on the Today programme, Brian presented it from Manchester, while John Timpson presented from London.
The idea was to inject a non-metropolitan perspective into the coverage of national and international stories.
I think that’s important whether you aspire to be a national broadcaster or to be a national political party.
That’s why the move to Salford, and having more production outside London, is not just good for the BBC and good for its audience too.
Things often look different outside the capital.
For example, listen only to Londoners and you’d think that improving public transport is regarded as a much higher priority than reducing the price of fuel.
In London 22% think cutting fuel duty should be a priority.
But in the north it’s 43% - that’s because many more people outside the capital use their car to get to work.
When the fuel protests happened in 2000, it took broadcasters by complete surprise.
Why?
Because it started here, near Manchester, in my constituency – and London based broadcasters not only didn’t understand it.
They thought it was frankly eccentric.
In London 38% think cutting energy bills should be a priority.
In the north it’s 54%.
In London, 51% agree with the statement “we should allow almost no immigration.”
In the north 66% agree.
In the north 55% of people think that people in their area are nicer than average.
Sadly, only 20% of Londoners think the same way.
Whether it’s the economy, or immigration, or crime or schools, the big issues facing the country can look very different outside the M25.
And you know better than anyone that if you do a vox pop in a street in Salford you’ll get a different answer than you would in Wood Lane or Shepherds Bush Market.
Let alone the mean streets of Portland Place.
Brian Redhead was right about different perspectives being good for journalists.
But it’s good for politicians too.
One of Brian’s running jokes on the programme was about his imaginary support group 'Friends of the M6.'
As a frequent traveller up and down the M6 between Westminster and my constituency, I’m also a card carrying member – though calling myself a Friend of the M6 might be taking it too far.
He was a one-man promotional agency for Macclesfield, which he modestly described as “the centre of the Universe”.
As well as living in London, I’ve also lived around Macclesfield for 13 years.
It’s a great place – but the centre of the universe?
But I’m not going to dispute the rigorous impartiality of BBC journalism.
I was born in the centre of London.
I enjoyed growing up and going to school there, and I think it’s one of the greatest cities in the world.
But if I’m being honest I think it’s been good for me to represent a northern constituency.
Representing a northern seat has given me a perspective on the country I would never have got if I’d continued to live in London – and exposed me to views about Britain I would not have heard before.
Brian Redhead lived in a village called Rainow – also in the Peak District, and would use it as a litmus test of politicians’ ideas.
He would say to politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Jim Callaghan, 'What will the villagers of Rainow think...' about this education policy or that tax policy.
Well at least I’ve got a better chance of answering those questions than many, because I actually lived in Rainow for a decade – the same village as Redhead.
This different perspective affects my politics and my political judgements.
I don’t think I would have been such a big supporter of High Speed 2 if I hadn’t been an MP in the North of England.
When I pushed for us to go ahead with it, despite all the opposition, I knew what a difference it would make to our economic geography up here – and how much support it would have in cities like this one.
And when I decided to go ahead with electrifying the Trans-Pennine railway, it was much easier to understand why it matters, living in the foothills of those Pennines.
Nor would I have understood just how important rural broadband is to those who don’t live in a wifi zone.
Along with other North West MPs, I was a big supporter of the BBC’s move to Salford.
I championed the idea when it was first proposed; I visited the site when it was under construction; I think it’s fair to say I was the leading advocate in my party for the change.
In a speech at Manchester Business School six years ago, I said the BBC’s move to Salford must go ahead. Such a move would be good for Salford and good for Manchester. And it would good for the BBC too. Our national broadcaster would have a different perspective on our country.
That was six years ago.
Six years later the move has taken place – and been a spectacular success.
We have to make sure it stays that way.
And that brings me to my second point.
I told you Brian presented the Today programme from the North.
But it didn’t work and didn’t last.Despite his passion to present that northern perspective, Brian wasn’t able to keep the Today programme being presented from Manchester.
Eventually the whole operation was moved to London.
It wasn’t the first that had happened to Brian.
He was working at the Manchester Guardian when it moved its editorial team to London in the sixties.
Some say he missed out on becoming the Guardian’s editor because there was a vote of staff, at a time when most of the staff had moved to London while he remained in up Manchester.
So my second reflection on Brian’s life would be about the powerful gravitational pull that London has.
We have a very dominant capital city that sucks in talent and business not just from all over Britain but from all over the world.
Having access to London – the fourth biggest city in the world by wealth – brings a lot of advantages to people all across Britain.
But Manchester’s Independent Economic Review argued, there are “powerful market forces” pulling activity into London and the South East.
Other towns and cities need to work hard to resist it.
I think Manchester has done a pretty good job at doing so.
The renewal of the city centre.
The growth of the university.
The transformation of Salford Quays.
There has been real success of civic leadership – and I pay tribute to people like Sir Howard Bernstein who have made it happen.But it’s an uphill task – and it requires constant thought and attention.
For the facts are these.
In the decade or so before the crash, during the boom years, the north-south economic gap widened.
In terms of value added per head, Yorkshire fell from being 12% behind the national average, to 20% behind.
The North West fell from 13% behind to 17%, and the North East from 23% to 25%.
In fact, by 2005 the output of just the financial services in London had overtaken the entire North East economy.
Brian Redhead’s career shows is that it’s easy for institutions and activity to get gradually sucked into London as the result of piecemeal decisions.
Over decades, politicians of all parties have tried to counteract that by moving government call centres and back office jobs out of London, and that’s sensible as far as it goes.
But we need to think about moving the most highly skilled jobs and the centres of institutions as well.
And we need to think about how we use relocation to drive job creation in the private sector, not just move government jobs - particularly where we could build on existing hubs and clusters of private sector strength.
That’s why the BBC in Salford is so different.
The BBC has long had regional bureaus – in Birmingham, in Bristol, in Leeds, and there has long been a bureau on Oxford Road that I’ve visited many times.
What’s completely different about MediaCityUK is that entire departments – like BBC Sport, Children and Radio 5 live - have relocated here, as well as flagship news programmes like BBC Breakfast.
It’s about so much more than the jobs at the BBC – more even than the BBC better serving audiences in the North of England – important as that is.
You haven’t just 'moved jobs'.
The BBC coming here has helped to drive growth in the private sector, and to build on the creative strength that was already here thanks to the likes of Granada.
It has been catalyst for what is now the biggest creative digital hub in Europe outside of London.
It’s created opportunities for Manchester’s young people to build their skills – through the BBC and Salford University’s digital media programmes, and the BBC’s apprenticeship scheme.
And it’s meant new jobs – not just in established companies like ITV, doc10 and SIS...but also in SMEs, and independent app and game creators.
Media City would not have worked if it had been plonked down in a city that didn’t already have a history in the creative industries, hadn’t been the home of Granada, and where exciting things in the media weren’t already happening – albeit not on a big enough scale.
It works because it goes with the grain.
It’s already a place people want to live.
And because it’s got a critical mass.
So the challenge for the country is how to build on this model to bring prosperity to other parts of the country.
But there’s also a challenge for the BBC.
You need to keep Salford going.
The task of everyone, from the Director General downwards, is to make sure senior jobs stay here, and you’re absolutely right to look to move more departments here.
To escape from the London’s gravitational pull you need to keep the rocket boosters firing.
So when I talk about the non-London view – I mean a different perspective; and the constant battle to overcome the gravitational pull from London.
But we also need to make sure we don’t fall into the London trap of thinking everything outside London is the same.
That’s my third point.
The media, the politicians, we talk a lot about the North and the South.
But we’re not actually in an Elizabeth Gaskell novel.
And I say that as the person who represents the real life “Cranford” in Parliament.
Brian’s own life captures the diversity of the North well.
He’s remembered as Mr Manchester, but was originally from the North East.
He championed this City, but he lived high up in the Peak District – in one of the more affluent places in the country – about as far from lazy clichés about the industrial north as you can get.
Despite this, London-based commentators still often talk as if it’s one monolithic block...
The reality is totally different and much more diverse.
Income differences within regions are larger than between regions.
The median income in the North West in 2010/11 was around £18,000 pounds while it was £23,000 in London – significant, but not as far part as the cliché would have us think.But within London median incomes vary from an average £17,000 in West Ham to an average of £36,000 in the Cities of London and Westminster.
The most deprived town in the UK isn’t in the north – it’s in Essex.
People sometimes imply that the north is totally dependent on public sector jobs.
In fact, Cheshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Cumbria have a higher proportion of people working in the private sector than London does.
The media falls into this trap too often – I’m reliably told that when putting together one package on Lancashire during the last election, the opening sequence was considered so predictable by the VT editor that he dubbed in the Coronation Street theme tune over the top as a jibe.
Obviously the bigger mistake for the BBC there was not the stereotyping – it was choosing an ITV show....
Broadcasters need to reflect the north’s successes as well as its problems.
And successive governments have made the same mistake of acting like the North is one big block.
Trying to attract business to the 'North West'. As if what works for the centre of Liverpool would work for rural Cumbria.
Different places have found different routes to success.
Salford and Manchester are an increasingly powerful creative hub.
Sunderland is having great success in car production, helping Britain export a record number of cars last year.
Tyneside and Teesside are world leaders in marine engineering. Preston has capitalised on its good connections to the motorways, so deliver one of the fastest rates of private sector job creation in the country.
The only way our cities can compete with the pull of London, is to play to your strengths – and that’s something we’ve been trying to support – helping areas to set their own business strategies that actually make sense – just as Manchester has done in MediaCity.
That’s why we’re trying to help setting cities free from Whitehall control - devolving powers and funding under City deals and the Heseltine review.
For me, this comes back to the non-London perspective.
The best people to drive success stories around the country are not in London.
Let me end by saying this.
The last thing I want to highlight about Brian was his pride.
Brian claimed that: “Manchester … is the capital, in every sense, of the North of England, where the modern world was born”.
You can see why.
It’s the city that gave us the first splitting of the atom, the world’s first railway station, the first stored-program computer, the suffragettes, the football league, Marks and Spencer, Rolls Royce, as well as the Smiths, the Stone Roses, and Oasis.
Brian Redhead was a man who thought differently.
He was someone who thought locally.
And he also had a great sense of local pride and optimism.That spirit lives on today, and this place is a great embodiment of that spirit.Here in Salford you are not just reporting the changes to our country – – you are part of those changes. Long may that continue."
