Decision Time
- 24 Dec 06, 03:09 PM
Do we have to stop flying to save the planet from climate change? How great a threat is Iran? Two topics on the news agenda and - as it happens - which kick off a new Radio 4 discussion programme which I'm hosting and which begins just after Christmas.
Decision Time aims to lift the lid on how those in power make the big decisions that affect all our lives, inviting listeners to hear the sort of arguments, calculations and heart-searching that take place as the Government wrestles with a decision it simply can鈥檛 avoid.
Ministers like to claim that the Government makes its decisions purely in the national interest. The cynics insist they always put their own interests first. Decision Time will aim to show how any government of any political colour might deal with the conflicting interests they have to try to reconcile.
On Wednesday 27 December at 2000 GMT on Radio Four (repeated on Saturday 30 December at 2215 GMT) you can hear the first programme in which Steve Norris - a former Tory Transport minister - will argue that if he was in charge now he'd force aviation to pay for the environmental damage it does.
Roy Griffins (the head of civil aviation at the Department of Transport until a couple of years ago), Toby Nicol who's corporate communications director for Easyjet, Helen Goodman MP, who was head of the strategy unit at the Treasury, and the travel writer Simon Calder will confront him with the obstacles he'd meet if he tried.
A week later on Wednesday 3 January at 2000 GMT on Radio Four Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former foreign and defence secretary will argue that military action against Iran cannot be ruled out if she pursues her nuclear programme. He'll be in discussion with Sir Jeremy Greenstock, our man at the UN in the build up to the war with Iraq, Sir Stephen Wall, the prime minister鈥檚 former adviser on Europe who has since attacked Tony Blair's conviction that he has to hitch the UK to the chariot of the US president, and Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA specialist on the Middle East who has warned that we may have to fight a war with Iran sooner rather than later.
So that's a couple of things coming up. Otherwise Newslog is going to be taking a bit of a Christmas recess, barring any sudden unexpected incidents of high political drama. Thanks to everyone who's been reading and commenting this year. Let's do it all again in 2007!
EDIT (2300, 27 December): You can now listen to the first episode of Decision Time by clicking here.
