blair

Analysis: Jackanory Politics

February 27th, 2008 by Steve Bowbrick

Analysis comes from the brainy end of the network, where orthodoxies are put to the test by clever academics and writers. This is the kind of journalism you find in places like The Economist or at the high end of the Sunday Papers. Self-confident, iconoclastic, open-minded: like the faculty common room at a good university (I can't confirm this since I didn't go to a good university).

Analysis has found room for many of the UK's more interesting commentators over the years and they're not always from the Beeb's liberal heartland: free traders and market evengelists are much in evidence, for instance - I think there must be a secret tunnel between the Analysis offices and The Economist's in St James's.

We've covered Analysis here before (and I've often linked to it from my own blog). Hugh Levinson, an editor at Analysis, has written to tell us the new series is on and that they've made some changes. There's a podcast now (hurrah!) and the programme's pages have been expanded to include more useful background. The show's tone appears to have changed too. The first show in the new series (MP3) is about storytelling in politics and presenter Frances Stonor Saunders is light-hearted, practically chirpy. Very good stuff.

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PM Poppy Portrait Piece

January 20th, 2008 by Roo Reynolds

I don't often listen to the whole of Radio 4's 'Broadcasting House' programme (because smug reviews of newspapers usually annoy me), but I was glad to catch the final five minutes of this morning's edition. Paddy O'Connell interviews the artist Jonathan Yeo, who unveiled his portrait of Blair yesterday. Here is a recording of just that final four-minute segment (MP3).

Photo: Reuters

In this slot, Jonathan Yeo talks eloquently about the way the poppy in the painting subverts the New Labour rose, as well as being an allusion to the the war(s) for which Blair will be remembered.

We don't often share just a short clip of a programme, and I wonder if you think it works. In case you did want to listen to the show in its entirety, the stream is now online too, and Broadcasting House has its own podcast too.

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