Channel 4 Privatisation is OFF: The Scoop
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2023
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A letter sent from Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was intercepted by our very own Lewis Goodall before it was ever made public.
In it, she sets out her reasons for ditching Boris Johnson and Nadine Dorries' plan to privatise Channel 4. Cue sighs of relief at Channel 4 and howls of frustration from a previous culture secretary who saw her own work being undone. We discuss what the move says about this government's direction of travel - and take in Rishi Sunak's first big speech of 2023.
Also - what on earth is going on in the US Congress? Absolute scenes as the Republicans struggle to complete the first and fundamental act of Congress: the formality of choosing a Speaker of the House.
Socials: Georgia Foxwell
Video: Will Gibson-Smith
Planning: Alex Barnett
Production: Gabriel Radus
Deputy Editor: Tom Hughes
Executive Producer: Dino Sofos
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.8 | We've got a scoop for you today. Lewis intercepted a letter that was sent to the Prime Minister from his culture. |
| 0:19.8 | Can that make it sound like I'm standing outside Downing Street just to know he's whisking it away. |
| 0:24.2 | No, he mugged some poor postman who was doing, he had a bag, sack of his back, sack of his back. |
| 0:27.9 | We've let us on his back, a Lewis rifled through it and nicked a letter that was on its way to the Prime Minister. |
| 0:35.2 | What did that letter say? We're going to tell you in just a moment. Welcome to the Newsagents. The Newsagents. It's John. It's Emily. And it's Lewis. And we are all together in Newsagents HQ because the lurgy that I was fighting off, consider yourself fought off. |
| 0:54.8 | That's told it, hasn't it? |
| 0:56.0 | That's told it. |
| 0:56.8 | Do you always talk to your illnesses? |
| 0:58.3 | I do. |
| 0:58.9 | I speak to them patiently whenever I can, but sometimes I'm irritable. |
| 1:03.0 | But what a day. |
| 1:04.5 | It's not every day that you get a letter directed from a secretary of state to a prime minister intercepted by one Mr. Lewis Goodall. |
| 1:16.3 | Well, we aren't news agents, aren't we? |
| 1:17.9 | What an amazing story. |
| 1:18.8 | You have to check people's post. |
| 1:19.6 | Amazing story. |
| 1:20.6 | So this is a letter that was sent yesterday from Michelle Donnellan, the Culture Secretary, |
| 1:26.3 | to the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, |
| 1:28.4 | and it is effectively asking for permission to confirm what is effectively now going to be |
| 1:35.3 | government policy, which concerns the privatisation or rather the non-privatisation of Channel 4. |
... |
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