Telegraph Column: The BBC Should Get on the Front Foot and Stop Navel Gazing
- 7 Mar 2020
This article appeared in the Daily Telegraph on 6 March 2020. The Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, didn’t beat around the bush in his first major speech yesterday. He said the BBC must do more to reflect the country and avoid providing a “narrow urban outlook”. There must ...
Coronavirus: It's About Time Public Health England Stopped Hiding
- 1 Mar 2020
As a radio presenter you often face dilemmas covering controversial subjects. When there's a terror incident, at what point does it become OK to speculate about who perpetrated it? And this week we've faced this question: how do you cover the Coronavirus without scaremongering...
Ten Sayings That Really Annoy Me
- 26 Feb 2020
Iain, please add me to your LinkedIn Network No, because I don't know you Iain, you're better than that I'm really not And joining Iain Dale are Grace Blakeley and Nihal Arthanayake Go figure So... Why does everyone start their answer with 'so'. yes, I'm looking at yo...
Is the BBC in Peril? Does it Deserve to be?
- 26 Feb 2020
I've got a chapter in a new book, which is being published this week. It's all about the future shape of the BBC and contains contributions from all sorts of people with views on this important subject, including David Cox , Rob Wilson, Brian Winston, Jean Seaton, Ivo...
Regulatory Equivalence Maybe, Regulatory Alignment No
- 22 Feb 2020
I wonder if you’ve read David Frost’s speech in Brussels. If not, do yourself a favour and do so. Future historians will look back on it and regard it as just as significant as Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 Bruges speech. It’s actually a speech that Boris Johnson should have mad...
My Take on the Reshuffle Fallout
- 16 Feb 2020
It seems the estimable editor of ConservativeHome, Mr Paul Goodman, was the only one to foresee the departure of Sajid Javid as chancellor. That’s why he’s on the big bucks. Clearly Boris and his team thought that Sajid would cave, just as all the other ministers did, who w...
How Princess Diana 'Introduced' John and Me Via Her Audi Cabriolet
- 6 Feb 2020
In the summer of 1994 I decided to order my dream car - a brand new Audi Cabriolet. This was the car to be seen in in those days. I had ordered it to be delivered at the beginning of July in order to go on a European motoring holiday with my American friend, Daniel Forrester l...
Diane Abbott: Oops She Did It Again
- 5 Feb 2020
Diane Abbott fascinates me. Always has. She's clearly a clever woman, but boy does she say - and tweet - some bloody stupid things. Today she was at it again. However, apparently, according to Twitter, we are not allowed to comment on it or criticise her because it's unkind an...
Announcing the 'Iain Dale - The Whole Show' Podcast
- 4 Feb 2020
Back when I started on LBC in 2010 people's listening habits were much less complex than they are today. Very few people listened to podcasts in those days. Most listened to radio on normal linear platforms.There were few online listeners. Ten years on, things have changed dra...
Should a New Law of Treason Enable Daesh Adherents to be Imprisoned Indefinitely?
- 3 Feb 2020
I always like being on Jo Coburn's Politics Live show, and today was very enjoyable. I was on with Conservative MP Bim Afolami, Labour rising star Florence Esholami and Laura Hughes from the Financial Times. Naturally, we were all asked to react to the terror attack in ...
I Just Asked Henry Kissinger a Question
- 2 Feb 2020
An hour ago I got a Facebook message from my friend Daniel Forrester, who was on a train in the US heading from Newark, New Jersey to Washington DC. What's a question you would want to ask him? I replied... Ask him what is his one memory of Richard Nixon. ...
'For the Many' Podcast Reviewed in The Observer
- 2 Feb 2020
Since November 2017, Jacqui Smith and I have been recording a weekly podcast, called For the Many. We chat about politics, current affairs and the media and anything else that takes our fancy. Over time we have built up a very loyal audience and at the end of the podcast we ta...
It Shouldn't Happen to a Radio Presenter 72: Nine Minutes With Mike Pompeo
- 1 Feb 2020
My email pinged. "Phone me soonest," it said. It was from a very well connected contact of mine. So I did. I like to oblige, you see. "The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is visiting London next week. I've recommended he does an interview with you and you'll soon recei...
The Best Case for Brexit You'll Ever Read
- 1 Feb 2020
This morning, a friend sent me this piece, which had appeared on his Facebook feed from someone called Sean McCarney. To me it summed up the whole Brexit debate, and indeed most of my own reasons for voting to leave the EU. He articulates the case for leaving in 500 words in a...
My Thoughts on Brexit Day
- 31 Jan 2020
I'm at home in Tunbridge Wells tonight. You might think I'd be at some swanky dinner or intending to join the throngs in Parliament Square at 11pm to mark our departure from the European Union. You'd be wrong. I was indeed invited to all these events, and I have no hesitation ...
Wanted by the BBC: Professional Northerner
- 26 Jan 2020
This article is an updated and amended version of a piece I wrote for ConservativeHome on Friday. The latest madcap idea dreamt up in the corridors of power to prove that the BBC is in touch with the whole country is to despatch Nick Robinson to be Today's "Friend in t...
My Top Thirty Podcast Recommendations
- 25 Jan 2020
I find that I'm listening to more and more podcasts. Some of them are very well known and others I discover by accident or through personal recommendation. There's little doubt that listening to audio, as opposed to music, is on the cincrease, whether it's live speech radio, p...
My Box Set Bingeing with 'Madam Secretary'
- 15 Jan 2020
I always like a good binge over Christmas – no, not on babysham or egg nog, but on a box set or two. Last Christmas it was Game of Thrones, which somehow I had avoided over the years. I got to the end of Season Three, by which time I was thoroughly confused by the plot (is ...
My New Year's Resolutions for 2020
- 2 Jan 2020
These were my new year's resolutions from this time last year. So how did I do? To read at least 5 novels this year. I didn't read a single one in 2018. FAILED. I haven't read a single one. To avoid rising to the bait trolls lay for me on Twitter. LARGELY ACHIEVED...
Twenty Five (Good & Bad) Personal Reasons to Remember 2019
- 29 Dec 2019
New Year is always a time to reflect on what's happened over the previous twelve months - the good and the bad. Friends you've made, loved ones you have lost. Workwise, 2019 was a great year for me. The move to the evening slot tuirned out to be a great thing, given much of...