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06/12/2014

Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Thought for the Day and Weather.

2 hours

Last on

Sat 6 Dec 2014 07:00

Today's running order

0710

A committee of MPs has said laws that allowed the police to trawl through records of phone calls made by journalists are not "fit for purpose" and should be changed. Keith Vaz is chairman of the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Affairs Select Committee.

0715

A hospital has launched a review into the care given to a mother with mental health problems after she and her newborn baby were found dead on a deep gorge in Bristol. It's believed that Charlotte Bevan, who had schizophrenia and depression, killed her child Zaani and herself.
So, how can family and friends try and help prevent such tragedies if they become aware that someone might be at risk of killing themselves? Jane Dreaper, is our health correspondent.Β 

0720

About half a million people have fled coastal areas in the Philippines to get out of the path of a typhoon which is expected to hit the islands today. Many others have taken refuge in schools, churches and makeshift evacuation centres. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports.

0730

Following our series on immigration this week, we ask at what point immigrants to the UK consider themselves to be British. Professor Paul Ward is author of β€œCall Yourself British? National identity in the United Kingdom in the Twentieth Century”. Trevor Phillips is former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

0740

The death of Jeremy Thorpe has revived one of the great political scandals of modern times : the appearance at the Old Bailey of a front-rank political figure and former party leader on a charge of conspiracy to murder. The former Liberal Party leader was acquitted after a trial in 1979 that was the climax of years of rumour and melodrama. Tom Mangold is the investigative journalist who first investigated the Jeremy Thorpe case in 1979.

0750

In its report accompanying the Autumn Statement, the Office for Budget Responsibility announced that spending on public services is heading for an 80-year low. Β The OBR said public spending would have to fall to 35.2% of GDP by 2019/20 if Mr Osborne is to eliminate the deficit by the end of the next parliament. Β 

So is it time to have an honest discussion about what size of a state we really want, what we are prepared to pay for and what we can really afford? Β Where do other countries draw the line? Ann Pettifor is a director of Prime Economics Policy Research in Macroeconomics. Liam Halligan is an economist and Telegraph columnist.

0810

Time is running out for a photojournalist with British and American nationality kidnapped by Al Qaeda in Yemen. A video released on Thursday showing the photojournalist, Luke Somers, said he would be killed in three days unless the US government responded to Al Qaeda's demands. Mr Somers appears in the video at the end saying he was born in England and carries US citizenship and he was kidnapped in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, over a year ago. The US government said yesterday that a special forces mission had failed to rescue him. Meanwhile his family have appealed in a video to his captors "to show mercy". We speak to a friend of Luke Somers and our security correspondent Frank Gardner.

0820

Many thousands of people in the United States are planning to protest again today over a decision by a grand jury not to prosecute a white police officer who choked a black man to death when he was trying to restrain him. Β The dead man, who was not armed, had kept begging the policeman to let him go and telling him: "I can't breathe". Bryan Pendleton is from the national black police association.

0825

This week the annual fashion show by the American multi-billion dollar lingerie business Victoria’s Secret was held in London for the first time. Young women, dubbed Victoria's angels, paraded in skimpy, see-through underwear to performances by pop stars including Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift. Images from the show were plastered all over the papers. Was it exploitative or liberating? Sarah Vine is a Daily Mail columnist and Harriet Reuter Hapgood is a freelance fashion journalist.

0830

Police chiefs and church representatives from across the world are concluding a conference in London today aimed at combatting human trafficking more effectively. Its focus is on enabling an international approach to ridding the world of its second most profitable crime. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe is commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

0845

The largest ever audit of the high street by disability access experts DisabledGo has found a fifth of shops excluded wheelchair users, fewer than a third of department stores have accessible changing rooms, two thirds of retail staff have no training in how to help disabled customers and 40% of restaurants have no disabled toilet. Β The Government has described the results as "shocking" and is urging shops and restaurants to act. Lady Grey-Thompson is a crossbench peer and former Paralympic champion wheelchair racer. Mike Cherry is chairman of Federation of Small Businesses.

0850

Later this month, Ridley Scott’s biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings is released; earlier this year Russell Crowe starred in Noah, and there was another American film about Jesus, called β€œSon of God”. Why is Hollywood turning to the Bible for inspiration? And are we seeing a trend towards adaptations of well-known stories rather than original screenplays? Thomas W. Hodgkinson is a film critic and screenwriter. Sally Hitchiner is Anglican chaplain at Brunel University.


All subject to change.

Broadcast

  • Sat 6 Dec 2014 07:00