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Politics UK Archive

A weekly look inside British politics from the BBC

*** This programme is no longer on-air, but please listen to our archive of available episodes ***

Issues affecting British social and political life.

*** This programme is no longer on-air, but please listen to our archive of available episodes ***

Politics UK is the weekly programme that covers British political and policy issues, economic and cultural change and Britain’s standing in Europe and the rest of the world in a way that is relevant to an international audience.  
It's the flagship programme for UK political analysis and debate on the BBC World Service.  
Leading politicians, commentators and intellectuals take part each week to discuss and reflect on the main events shaping British politics.

Politics UK

Politics UK Archive: 28/01/2011 Recession fears | Islamophobia | Posh and Posher

Factual: Politics

28/01/2011

28/01/2011 Recession fears | Islamophobia | Posh and Posher

BBC World Service - Politics UK Archive, 28/01/2011 Recession fears | Islamophobia | Posh and Posher

A weekly look inside British politics from the BBC with Dennis Sewell.

A weekly look inside British politics from the BBC.

This week it was announced that Britain’s gross domestic product shrank by 0.5% in the final quarter of 2010. Is it fair to blame the snow? We ask Andrew Lilico of the consultants Europe Economics whether Labour's new shadow finance minister Ed Balls is right in blaming the fall in Britain's GDP on the coalition government's public spending cuts, and what the coming months may hold for the economy.

Last week the Conservative Party Chairman Baroness Warsi, who is a Muslim, claimed that what she termed 'islamophobia' had become socially respectable at British dinner parties. She compared the way people talk of Islam today with the casual anti-semitism that was the social norm in Britain in the 1920s. And Lady Warsi went further - saying that it was wrong to talk about 'moderate' and 'extremist' Muslims. To discuss this, we were joined by Timothy Winter, an Islamic Studies scholar from Cambridge University, who is also known by his Islamic name Abdal Hakim Murad and Douglas Murray, the director of the think-tank, the Centre for Social Cohesion.

And is it true that privileged privately-educated schoolboys now dominate the higher echelons of British politics? Andrew Neil explored this subject in a BBC TV programme this week called 'Posh and Posher'. He joined us along with Harry Mount of the Daily Telegraph, himself a cousin of the Prime Minister David Cameron, to discuss whether the education system in Britain is to blame.

All that in Politics UK, presented by Dennis Sewell.

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