Inside the Foreign Office - Keeping power and influence That is the priority task of Sir Simon Macdonald, the Permanent Secretary – the c...hief civil servant - in a Foreign Office headed, for the moment, by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. Politicians may come and go, but civil servants remain. We follow the diplomats as they wrestle with a series of crises and challenges. At the United Nations in New York, as world leaders gather for the special General Assembly week, the UK team juggle tasks from the delicate matter of who sits where – and the pr
The office of Prime Minister This programme is a filmed interview of the Rt. Hon. Harold Wilson, M.P. It is conc...erned with Prime Ministerial office and power. Mr. Wilson is questioned by Dr. David Murray of the Open University and Dr. Norman Hunt of Exeter College Oxford. They question Mr. Wilson from a sceptical attitude concerning the extent of Prime Ministerial power. The interview ranges over the many constraints - political, administrative, Parliamentary, social and economic - on the Prime Minister's influence. The int
More or less, 22, Programme 1. Austerity, Thatcher, Mozart and dead birds Austerity: a spreadsheet error? Tim Harford tells the story of the student who unco...vered a mistake in a famous economic paper that has been used to make the case for austerity cuts. In 2010, two Harvard economists published an academic study, which showed that when government debt rises above 90% of annual economic output, growth falls significantly. As politicians tried to find answers to the global economic crisis, "Growth in a Time of Debt" by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff was cited by s
Modern day slavery The nature of crime in the UK is changing, and countering the complex offending of ...organized criminal groups is one of the biggest challenges prosecutors face. This film follows Eran Cutliffe - a senior prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service - over nearly two years, as she tries to build a case that will break new legal ground. What she is tackling is happening in plain sight up and down the UK's high streets: child trafficking and exploitation.
In gang-run nail bars, unsuspecting customer