Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Journalist who became a household name as the BBC's political editor, reporting on Britain's political scene.
On the island
Eight records
Water Music: Suite in D Major, HWV 349, II. Alla Hornpipe
Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Part of Handel's water music, The Hornpipe. I suppose this is partly because it's a very good tune, but it's also because it's associated with the Thames. It was originally performed there for one of the Georges. And great rivers flowing through cities do excite me, and particularly perhaps because I worked for the latter part of my career at Westminster.
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125: IV. Finale. Presto – Allegro assai (Ode to Joy)Favourite
Berlin Philharmonic & Vienna Singers
Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Symphony No. Nine. As I understand it, Schiller originally did not write 'Ode to Joy' … he wrote 'Freiheit', Freedom. But in those little German courts of the period … the word freedom wasn't too popular and he was persuaded to change it. Now I suppose the French Revolution … together with the English Civil War are my formative political touchstones. They're about democracy, the removal of tyranny and despots. And this music would … conjure that up for me.
I thought I should have something from Ulster. There's a man called Phil Coulter who produces rather nice tapes … Our family … we were all considerable singers at home, usually when we were washing up after Sunday lunch and it was Irish folk music … so although this is not singing music, it still would remind me of that period.
So Thou Liftest Thy Divine Petition
It's a duet from Sir John Stainer's Crucifixion. My elder brother Desmond, who was a rather good solo singer, a bass baritone, sang the solos and duets in Stainer's Crucifixion.
Va, pensiero (Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves)
Orchestra and Chorus of the German Opera House of Berlin
The Prisoners' Chorus or Slaves' Chorus from Verdi's Nabucco. This is really … for no other reason that it's a very good tune.
I'm a supporter of West Ham United Football Club. This came about because … after the 1966 World Cup my family became very excited by England's victory … three important players were West Ham players, Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. … So the song I asked for is I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles, which is sung, I think, by the West Ham squad.
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525: II. Romanze. Andante
Record number seven is part of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart. Again, it's principally because it's a good tune, but I've got a bit of a long distance love affair with Vienna. I first went there youth hostelling while the city was still divided between the four powers … and it was all slightly Harry Lime-ish.
Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer (Cwm Rhondda)
The last record is another church music dating, I suppose, originally from my church choir days, but also I've taken part in singing it at many Welsh nights at miners' conferences or Labour Party conferences. It's 'Guide me, O Thou Great Redeemer' to the tune Cwm Rhondda.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:21But I presume it's impossible to imagine your life without politics. I mean, politics all your life is is what's turned you on, really, isn't it?
Well, politics and journalism, you know, both of them they they ran together at least in the later stages of my career. But most of my friends are either politicians or journalists or broadcasters, so uh inevitably I spend a lot of time with them and I enjoy them.
Presenter asks
1:42What is it that's made you so fascinated by Westminster? Is it the thrill of the chase or politics for itself?
Well, originally it was the thrill of the chase. I mean, I suppose my formative job as a political journalist was as labour correspondent of The Guardian, and I used to chase stories there. … I appointed Alf Robens chairman of the National Coal Board before Harold Macmillan got around to announcing it, and that gave me a great deal of … it was a detective kind of story because somebody gave me a hint about it and I checked it in all the proper places and everybody said it was nonsense. And then someone made a speech that showed guilty knowledge, and I just phoned him up and said, 'What would you say if I wrote this?' And he just said, 'My God, be careful.' So I said, 'Thanks for the confirmation.'
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Marcel Proust
I've read most of the first volume of the English translation, but I would like it in French, because I assume my French is sort of tolerable, but not very good. But I assume if I came across rather a lot of words that I didn't know in a book of that length they would be repeated so often that the context would make their meaning clear, and it would certainly improve my French.
The luxury
Well, I would like to ask for a B B C engineer because I just know it was my luck and technical incompetence that the gramophone would break down in the first week, but I know you won't look at it. So I think what I better have is a typewriter. And you'd write the novel, would you? I would probably write the novel on the typewriter or write something. I wouldn't be happy if I wasn't doing a bit of writing.
Were you in receipt of well-sourced factual information [during Mrs Thatcher's demise], or were you actually reading the runes?
Well, both both really. I mean, principally reading the runes, but there were a few people talked at key moments very frankly to me, or reasonably frankly, enough for me to use my own nouse and go ahead and … predict what was going to happen.
Presenter asks
11:20How difficult has it been maintaining your impartiality [as BBC political editor]?
Well, I made a deal with myself when I joined the BBC that a limited number of people have the responsibility and the right to report politics on television and that it was fair deals for everybody as far as I could give them.
Presenter asks
13:23Has the fact that you're an Ulsterman and a strong Protestant and reportedly in favour of the Union, has that stood in your way professionally?
I don't know. I mean I suppose at The Guardian and I wrote the leaders there at a crucial phase. I mean I would claim to be the first person … in the British media that advocated power sharing between Catholic and Protestant politicians, which is now the received wisdom of the only way to run the province. I advocated that early on, but I also backed internment, as others did at the paper at the time, and that made me rather unpopular with some of my colleagues.
Presenter asks
33:05Given your time again, would you rather have been editor of The Guardian than political editor of the BBC?
Oh, I would have been editor of The Guardian, yes, undoubtedly. I mean, print was my first love and I spent most of my time in it. … I missed the editorship of The Guardian, but I've enjoyed what I've done. I mean, life consists of … picking yourself up, dusting yourself down and carrying on, doesn't it? And … enjoying what you're doing, and I've got no complaints.
“I once said when I came to the BBC I was asked for some unaccountable corporate reason to sign the Official Secrets Act and I said to the man who had appointed me, 'I thought you had appointed me in order to persuade Privy Councillors to break their Privy Councillors' oaths and tell us some news, because that's what open government is all about.' He had the grace to laugh.”
“I think politicians are, on the whole, good people, and I mean politicians of all parties, that they go into politics with a sense of public duty. I've absolutely no time for these people who stop me and sympathize with me with having to spend my time with politicians. I sometimes am rude enough to say, in my opinion, they're rather better than the rest of you.”
“I think one becomes more strident if one's not careful, more aggressive, and occasionally more vain. I think many of us are less nice people than we would be if we had chosen some less frantic profession.”
“I do think actually it is a bit ludicrous in this day and age that it's assumed that the only two ways of speaking are like a Cockney taxi driver or the rather boring Oxbridge standard. I mean people throughout these islands speak with a wide variety of accents, which add, I think, to the richness of our life, and I'm glad they're being increasingly reflected in the BBC, and if I've contributed a bit to that, well, I'm pleased.”