Adebayor's started so well for Man City
How the Phone-in Subject is Chosen
This came up last week when a listener (Mark from Halesowen I think) accused us of being racist because we were discussing the two British jails which now house only foreign prisoners; we asked on the phone-in "should foreign criminals be sent straight home?".
Mark said "only the day before" we'd covered the story from the Office of National Statistics about how many people would live in Britain by 2030 - and that "all these stories about immigration were whipping up racism". But when I asked him if he thought we should stop covering such stories - censor ourselves in other words - he said no.
Often I get emails from listeners asking "why are you talking about this today when people are being killed in xxxxx?".
The way we go about selecting what to talk about at 9 o'clock on each given day is obviously by seeing what's in the news AND seeing evidence that people are talking about that issue/story. So we'll check texts/emails to the breakfast programme, check the google blog search, Technorati (altho' that's quite American-dominated), see what Radio 1 and 1Xtra are upto, and look at how many hits certain stories are getting on the various news wesites etc.
Sometimes we go our own way - for example the interview we did with Amy Winehouse's in-laws was exclusive to us, so we ran that at 9am and that was then picked up by loads of other radio stations, TV stations and most of hte next day's newspapers.
And hopefully you know by now that our programme is about listeners, your stories, your lives and your opinions, so if you think there is a story out there we should be covering and haven't, then you have to tell us..
Victoria
Hello Victoria,
We appear to have a lot of anti-Scottish/anti-English antagonism going on at present with claims and counter claims going back and forth between Scotland and London.
Can you not organise an honest to goodness discussion between Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond and Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London?
There is a number of reasons for discontentment with the UK in Scotland and not only in England.
David Cameron's opposition to immigration on the basis that England might be overpopulated is just one of them. Scotland accounts for one third of the land surface of Great Britain but has less than 9% of the UK population.
We want more immigrants not less! We could happily sustain another 20-30 million people and that's before we start discussing finance.
Jim, i think your suggestion would be great ( though not too sure why Red Ken would be a pick because much as the Beeb thinks it is England is more than just London ) as long as it didn't degenerate into a" we subsidise Scotland" " no you don't what about North Sea Oil " type of discussion.
The reason i feel discontented with the present situation is that i feel devolution was a botched job and we ( the English ) have been the losers .
logic says that if the UK is to have A Scottish Parliament , a Welsh Assembly and a Northern Irish Assembly then there should have been an English Parliament/Assembly as well with Westminster acting as the Federal Government.
Wonder if your countryman Gorrmless Gordon would have hankered after that job as much .
We all know why it didn't happen but the continued practice of Scottish and Welsh MPs voting on matters that are purely English is a nonsense to my mind as illustrated by the contributor on the show the other day ( forgotten her name sorry :-) ) when she highlighted that the Bill to allow tuition fees in England was effectively carried by the vote of SNP MPs .
Whereas she seemed to be blaming the Scots the blame obviously lies with the British Government and the ludicrous way that Devolution was implemented to ensure that Labour didn't lose a sizable chunk of its majority in " English only " votes.
Victoria,
Ever thought you might just be playing to the prejudices of Mark from Halesowen ( you think ) by having 2 discussion about Immigration this week .
I bet his Guardian nearly self combusted with the indignation pouring from him .
He may have a point though.
TTFN
Hi Mickey
You're right, he may have a point...I'm not sure whether there is a right or a wrong here. We're certainly not right about some things but we do try. It seems slightly perverse NOT to do a subject when it's the lead story and there's evidence that people are talking about simply because some people think it's pandering to a right-wing agenda. If we didn't report stuff licence-fee payers would be pretty cross I suspect - and then we'd be accused of being liberal/PC-types.
Have a good weekend
Victoria
Mickey,
I don't disagree with anything you said.
The people of England should have a parliament dealing with English affairs.
Few Scots oppose such a thing.
SNP MP's at Westminster withdraw and don't vote on English domestic issues. They only vote when a bill or issue has repercussions, financial or otherwise, for Scotland.
That's fair.
The SNP strongly support the creation of an English parliament.
Also,per head of population, public expenditure is higher in London than Scotland. It's a well kept secret!