Audio recordings
Including interviews, oral histories and radio programmes. Highlights here include an interview between Mark Abrams (social scientist and businessman) and his grandson, and interviews conducted throughout 2019 with Female MPs, Rebel MPs and Academics.
Showing 51 - 75 of 316 Records
Interview with Peter Clarke, Professor Emeritus of Modern British History at the University of Cambridge on 'Are the Conservatives entering their third historical political phase of self-destruction?'
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/52
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Date : - 2018-11-05 (creation)
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Description : - Clarke discusses Theresa May's leadership of the Conservative Party, the Brexit negotiations and the outcomes of her Chequers Deal. He looks back to the 19th Century Corn Law reforms which led to the resignation of the Prime Minister, Robert Peel and later the 20th Century tariff reforms under Arthur Balfour's Prime-ministership which ended disastrously for the party leading to a historic election defeat. Clarke believes that May dug herself into the subsequent difficulties she faced. Clarke believes that she 'needn't have done any of that', referring to triggering Article 50 and spelling out her 'red lines' in 2016. Clarke discusses how the UK arrived at the Brexit Referendum, referring to the United Kingdom Independence Party and how the Conservative Party became ideological, as they did before First World War when the issue of Tariff Reform. Clarke believed there could be both a People's Vote and a General Election and ended by warning that the Conservative Party have been most successful when they were the moderate party of pragmatism and they have left these sort of ideological contortions to the party opposite - be it Liberal or Labour.
Women MPs Of The World Debate: A First for the House of Commons
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/53
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Date : - 2018-11-08 (creation)
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Description : - Five women MPs who brought about change in their countries tell the stories of their parliaments. Over 100 women from over eighty countries and five continents took part in a special debate in the House of Commons Chamber - it was the first time women from around the world had sat and spoken in the UK Parliament. Sones heard from Linda Fairbrother.
UK Parliament Week: Why you need to persevere in politics
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/54
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Date : - 2018-11-14 (creation)
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Description : - Dame Caroline Spelman, the Conservative MP for Meriden and former Secretary of State for the Environment in David Cameron's 2010 government, hosted an event in Westminster to explore ways of encouraging more women to enter the Church.
Interview with Carolyn Harris MP: Fixed Odd Betting Terminals the Chancellor climbs down
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/55
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Date : - 2018-11-17 (creation)
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Description : - Carolyn Harris is Labour MP for Swansea East is the Chair for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fixed-Odds Betting Terminals. She discusses the u-turn the Chancellor Phillip Hammond did on introducing changes to the rules governing FOBT lowering the maximum stake that can be waged to just two pounds sooner rather than later.
50:50 Parliament #AskHerToStand
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/56
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Date : - 2018-11-19 (creation)
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Description : - In November 2018, 200 MPs took 300 women to the UK Parliament as part of the 50:50 Parliament campaign to encourage more women to stand for and become MPs. Sones hears from supporters of the campaign: Amelia Womack, Deputy Leader of the Green Party; Daniel Zeichner, the Labour MP for Cambridge, Frances Scott of 50:50 Parliament; Jackie Ashley, a former president of Lucy Cavendish College and Professor Dame Carol Black, Principle of Newnham College. Womack emphasised that 'women need to be asked to stand several times'. Ashley says that things were 'getting easier' for women in Parliament now as there were more women. In 2018, 32% of the 650 MPs were women and it is estimated that it could take up to 200 years before there was a 50:50 gender based parliament.
Interview with Helen Goodman - Amendable Vote
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/57/1
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Date : - 2018-11-28 (creation)
Interview with Sarah Wollaston MP - Referendum
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/57/2
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Date : - 2018-11-28 (creation)
Interview with Sarah Wollaston MP - Stalking Protection Bill
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/57/3
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Date : - 2018-11-28 (creation)
Interview with Anne Marie Trevelyan MP: why when you are an MP, Country has to be the first battle to fight
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/58
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Date : - 2018-12-11 (creation)
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Description : - 'Brexiteer' Anne Marie Trevelyan and Conservative MP for Berwick Upon Tweed represents a fishing constituency that voted to Leave the EU in the 2016 Referendum. Trevelyan resigned her junior ministerial position in the Department of Education. Trevelyan was disappointed with Theresa May's decision to delay the Brexit vote. Speaking about her decision to resign from the government she said that after reading the agreement she felt she had little choice and that as an MP your loyalty is to your Constituency.
209 Women Photo Exhibition in #Vote100 year of 207 women MPs
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/59
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Date : - 2018-12-14 (creation)
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Description : - MPs across party celebrated the 209 Women photo exhibition in Westminster, on December 14th 1918 women voted for the first time and in the same year, the first female MP was elected. Sones speaks to Joanna Cherry QC and the SNP MP for Edinburgh South West. Cherry is a fan of Georgina Markievicz who never took up her seat as an Irish nationalist and suffragist and whose portrait now hangs in Parliament for the first time. Cherry also helped to instigate the legal challenge to Brexit in the European Court of Justice which ruled that the UK can revoke Article 50.
209 Women Photo Exhibition in #Vote100 year of 207 women MPs
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/60
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Date : - 2018-12-14 (creation)
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Description : - Sones spoke to Yvette Cooper, Andrea Leadsom, Helen Whately, Kate Osamor, Lyn Brown and Marsha de Cordova about the Photo Exhibition
Interview with Jessica Elgot, Political Correspondent, TheGuardian.Com Newspaper
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/61
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Date : - 2018-12-20 (creation)
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Description : - Elgot discusses the last PMQs of the December 20th session and the 'Stupid Woman Gate' remark said to have been made by Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Interview with Emma Lewell-Buck, the Labour MP for South Shields
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/62
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Date : - 2019-01-09 (creation)
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Description : - The Charlie Cookson Foundation is run by parents Sarah and Chris Cookson, who lost a child, and helps to support children with life threatening conditions. [https://charliecookson.org.uk] Their child was found to have a heart condition and requires a transplant. On January 9th Lewell-Buck, Shadow Minister for Children and Families, asked Theresa May to help save their child. Theresa May declared that she would encourage people to make organ donations.
Interview with Caroline Spelman MP and Jack Dromey MP - Preventing a no-deal Brexit
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/63
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Date : - 2019-01-09 (creation)
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Description : - Sones discusses attempts by MPs to ensure that the UK will not leave the European Union with a no-deal. Over 220 MPs signed a letter trying to guarantee this. The no-deal letter was started by neighbouring Midlands MPs from opposite sides of the party divide, Dame Caroline Spelman, Conservative MP for Meriden and Jack Dromey, Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington who both said jobs had already been lost in their constituencies. Dromey tells Sones that MPs have to remain focused to do everything to get a deal and ensure that the economy. Spelman supports Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement.
Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement falls to a historic defeat in the House of Commons, interview with Justine Greening MP, Nicky Morgan MP and Stella Creasy and their solutions to the Brexit crisis
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/64
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Date : - 2019-01-15 (creation)
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Description : - On January 15th 2019, Theresa May's Withdrawal Bill was defeated by 230 votes. It was the biggest defeat for any government bill in modern political history. Sones spoke to Conservative MP Nicky Morgan who voted with her government and Justine Greening MP. Sones also hears from Labour MP Stella Creasy who voted against as did most of her Labour colleagues. Morgan wants a Common Market 2.0 while Greening supports a second referendum. Theresa May is expected to survive a no confidence vote.
Sones hears from Dame Vera Baird QC Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria and former Labour MP and Solicitor General
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/65
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Date : - 2019-01-22 (creation)
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Description : - Baird welcomes the publication of the government's new Domestic Violence Bill said she would like to see it go further and for the government to ensure that funding streams to DV support services are restored. The Bill, launched by Prime Minister Theresa May who said that throughout her political career she had 'worked to bring an end to domestic abuse and support survivors'. This looks to introduce a ban on the cross-examination of victims by their abusers in the family courts, the introduction of domestic abuse protection orders, which will place restrictions on offenders, and the introduction for the first time of a definition of domestic abuse to include economic abuse and controlling and manipulative non-physical violence. Baird ended by saying that if the government are serious about this Bill and they understand what it is costing day-to-day and properly fund and support services.
Speaking up for Fathers and why Westminster Hall is such a good debating Chamber
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/66
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Date : - 2019-01-30 (creation)
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Description : - Tracey Crouch, Conservative MP for Chatham and Aylesford and former Sports, Civil Society and Loneliness minister led the Fathers debate. Several of her male colleagues chipped in to say how left out they felt and often lonely as various health procedures made them feel 'outsiders' in the birth of their own children. The health minister responded to these after PMQs. Crouch was the first Conservative Minister to take maternity leave and welcomed the introduction of Proxy Voting, allowing Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, who delayed giving birth to attend the Brexit-deal vote two weeks before. Crouch talks to Sones about her Fathers debate and other campaigns. Crouch and her other half took shared parenting and she says her partner found it intimidating to go into any toddler and baby group not least because it was mostly badged mother and baby groups, or that they were mostly women.
Interview with Maria Miller MP: reviewing how the UK's World First Modern Day Slavery Act can be improved
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/67
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Date : - 2019-02-04 (creation)
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Description : - Maria Miller, Conservative MP for Basingstoke and Chair of the Equalities Select Committee is to undertake a review of a flagship piece of legislation that her government introduced - The Modern Day Slavery Act, which came into force in 2015. Women MPs across party working together, were instrumental in pointing to the growing numbers of trafficked women working in nail bars, domestic service, massage parlours and in prostitution itself. The economic and social costs of modern slavery are estimated to be in the region of 4.3 billion pounds a year. Miller told Sones that we should not have people who are subject to slavery and should not have people who their rights withheld.
Interview with Emma Lewell-Buck MP on her Food Insecurity Bill - What gets measured gets mended
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/68/1
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Date : - 2019-02-27 (creation)
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Description : - Lewell-Buck's bill looks to ensure that the Government knows how many people are going without food. There are record levels of in work poverty and childhood poverty. The Food Foundation and the UN have suggested that eight million households and four million children live in food poverty. Although Lewell-Buck's Bill will not become law, the government has said that it will be adopting its recommendations and collecting and publishing information. Lewell-Buck gave her response to the Department of Education's announcement that the government will introduce relationship education in primary schools and sex and relationship education in secondary schools from September 2020. Lewell-Buck proceeds to tell Sones why she believes the Labour MP Chris Williamson should be suspended from the Party over his comments on Antisemitism and why the party needs to take a tougher line. On the breakaway Independent Group, she admits feeling 'flat'. As a Remain MP in a Leave voting constituency and she does not support her leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
Interview with Baroness Susan Kramer: Brexit and Food Standards
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/68/2
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Date : - 2019-03-06 (creation)
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Description : - Baroness Kramer is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Treasury and the Economy and has expressed concerns about the standards of food production in the UK falling when the UK leaves the EU. The Soil Association published a report expressing its fears over chlorine washed chicken, hormones, antibiotics, food colourings, pesticides and animal welfare. A former DEFRA Minister, George Eustace has also written of his concerns over food standards. Kramer sets out what she thinks the important issues are on food standards and why her party are against a no-deal Brexit.
International Women's Day 2019
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/68/3
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Date : - 2019-03-07 (creation)
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Description : - Guest interviewer, Jackie Ashely, picks up some 'scoops' on #IWD2019 in the latest of podcasts from Parliament. Heidi Allen MP and Ann Coffey MP on why women voters should be attracted to their new Independent Group. Crossing the floor of the House has always been a difficult thing for an MP to do, and they have received much criticism for doing so. A new political group was created when eight Labour MPs and three Conservative MPs crossed the floor of the House to sit together. They all support Remain in the Brexit debates and are in favour of a Second Referendum or People's Vote. Seven out of eleven are women, Jackie Ashley was keen to talk to them about finding a 'nicer way' of doing politics. Neither Allen nor Coffey said they would be standing down to re-fight their respective seats but that they did want to stand again for the same constituencies. Allen states that she had two-thousand-five-hundred positive emails and only forty-one negative ones. Allen says that government changes to welfare and Universal Credit was a factor for her leaving the Conservatives. Both ended by saying that they had no idea what rosette they would be wearing at the next election.
#IWD2019 Rachel Reeves MP "Women of Westminster - The MPs who Changed Politics"
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/68/4
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Date : - 2019-03-07 (creation)
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Description : - In an interview with Jackie Ashley, Reeves spoke about writing her first book 'Alice in Westminster - the life of Alice Bacon', who won her Leeds North East seat, the first woman to do so, in the 1945 General Election. Reeves is an economist and has served Leeds West since 2010, she was made Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions in 2013 but did not return to the role post-maternity leave. She tells Ashley that 'it is a bit of a club being in Westminster and women haven't always fitted in'. Reeves thinks that progress has been made - including having two-hundred-and-nine women in Westminster. Reeves still thinks progress needs to be made as Parliament is a long way from being 50:50. Reeves discusses the murder of Jo Cox, the targeting of black women and Jewish women like Diane Abbot and Luciana Berger. Reeves spoke about her favourite story of a female MP - Eleanor Rathbone an Independent MP who worked across the political spectrum who got the first family allowances paid directly to women.
Interview with Shadow Whip Thangam Debbonaire MP on Parliament's Brexit chaos
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/68/5
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Date : - 2019-03-14 (creation)
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Description : - Debbonaire is the Labour MP for Bristol West, a shadow whip for her party with a special interest in DEFRA, the Environmental Food and Rural Affairs. During this week, Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement had suffered another defeat - by one-hundred-and-forty-nine votes, and a day later, MPs ruled out a no-deal by a majority of forty-three. In all, thirteen government and cabinet ministers abstained on that vote to defy their own Prime Minister and whip while one minister resigned and voted for it. The pair also discuss the new Independent Group of break-away MPs, Philip Hammond's new money for Leave Towns and how she's campaigning for more education funding for schools. Debbonaire believes that Article 50 would have to be extended and that there should be another referendum.
Interview with Siobhan McDonagh, Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/68/6
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Date : - 2019-03-15 (creation)
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Description : - McDonagh speaks about Brexit, the Labour Party, antisemitism and knife crime
Interview with constituents after Heidi Allen, MP for South Cambridgeshire holds a public meeting - Do Voters like TIGs?
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Reference Code : - SOBA 1/68/7
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Date : - 2019-03-16 (creation)
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Description : - Sones interviews David, Rebecca, Bruce, Vivienne and Emma as they attended a public meeting in Cambridge to hear from Allen discuss why she decided to leave the Conservatives to join the new Independent Group of MPs. Four support her and one is not sure about any of the political parties. Nearly 150 people attended the meeting, with the majority in favour of Allen's decision.