Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Politician and Home Secretary who uses his personal background to inform his approach to crime and justice.
On the island
Eight records
Les Arts Florissants, directed by William Christie
It's just a very beautiful piece of spiritual music.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
get off my cloud whenever I hear it, makes me chuckle, uh and takes me straight back to an evening I only partly remember uh at a hop at a s student union in Aberdeen
Philip Langridge, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras
I've chosen this because when I look back on my school days what I remember with greatest affection is the music.
John Phillips and Michelle Phillips
This is a great, very cheerful record which transports me right back to the months in nineteen sixty seven when I was trying desperately to catch up on all the work which I had missed
This is a sad record, but it reminds me of quite a sad time in my life when uh my first marriage broke up and that was not a good time.
this will remind me of. Their music, coming through the walls, of my occasional pleas for could we have a record mark Silence had to be put on
Trumpet Concerto in D major: Adagio
Håkan Hardenberger, with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Iona Brown
This is also quite a melancholy piece. I think if I'm on that desert island alone, every so often I'll need to have a good cry, and this would bring it on.
Soave sia il vento (from Così fan tutte)Favourite
from Cozy Fantuti, where the uh two women who believe that their two lovers have gone off uh on a military adventure are standing on the quay wishing them the best of luck
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:30How has [becoming Home Secretary] changed your life?
it's changed my lives in some ways quite profoundly, and in other ways not at all. Life's changed because I have to make loads and loads of decisions and I think one of the the things that's different about being Home Secretary from most other ministerial jobs is that you have to make decisions day by day, week by week, which affects people's liberty directly.
Presenter asks
7:53What do you mean when you say that if your income was working class, you were culturally middle class?
Well, my father worked for an insurance company. My mother was a teacher. So we were I think say some of the neighbours might have said, slightly stranded on this estate. We were the scholarship kids.
Presenter asks
12:43How did it affect you, [your father] going?
There was no counselling. In those days. You just had to get on with it. But of course it does affect you, things like that. And looking back on it, it obviously affected me a great deal, like any family breakdown.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Presenter asks
Why do you think we need parenting lessons?
The idea of parenting order. which is now in the Crime and Disorder Bill, came from very detailed conversation which I had with the mother of a young offender on a run-down council estate… And she said to me, Mr Story, you know, I can see that things went wrong, but if only someone had said to me, look, why don't you talk to your son in this way?… She said, That would have been terrific. And I think if I'd had it, my son would now not be locked up.
Presenter asks
20:50How does [your tinnitus] feel, and how bad is it?
I have no hearing whatever in my right ear and in place of that I've got this very, very loud continuous noise called tinnitus. And it is very distracting, especially where there's a lot of noise. And of course there's a lot of noise in the House of Commons. You can't tell where the noise is coming from. And that does mean that there's a split second delay if I'm dealing with interventions in a noisy house. And that in turn can mean that if you're not careful, you can lose the house.
Presenter asks
25:46Did you ever consider resigning [when your son was involved with drugs]?
No, I didn't. And I didn't because I didn't think that the charge of hypocrisy could be made against me. Although I have been banging on about parenting I mean, I've been banging on as much about my own parenting as about anybody else's. I've never ever suggested that I know the answers.
“I've got three citizens' arrests. You give chase and then you sit on him until the policeman comes.”
“I don't believe there's any more or less uh homosexuality today than there was thirty or forty years ago. What there is, however, is a good deal more happiness amongst people who are homosexual, because they're not branded wholly unjustifiably as criminals.”
“I was just very, very sorry for him that this had happened, as well as obviously concerned that he'd done something wrong. And I thought we had to deal with it very swiftly and firmly.”
“I think that uh however, as a society we need to recognize that there is far too much Me Tooism, far too much of people seeing uh rights as things that they just grab without understanding that they have responsibilities”