Free Thinking: Calling to Account: Bronwen Maddox, Margaret Hodge, Matthew Parris.
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 16 December 2016
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Are public enquiries good government? At the end of a year where we have seen the Hillsborough and Chilcot reports are these the best way of calling to account? Margaret Hodge and Bronwen Maddox join Anne McElvoy to discuss. Plus, Matthew Parris considers the concept of scorn and those who are best at pouring it.
Matthew Parris has written an updated version of Scorn: The Wittiest and Wickedest Insults in Human History Margaret Hodge has written Called To Account: How Corporate Bad Behaviour and Government Waste Combine to Cost Us Millions. Bronwen Maddox is Director of the Institute for Government
Producer: Craig Smith.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Can I just say? |
| 0:01.5 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast. |
| 0:04.0 | It's such a wonderful listen. |
| 0:05.6 | So nice. |
| 0:06.5 | There are loads more like it on BBC sounds. |
| 0:08.8 | Different paces, different heights. |
| 0:10.6 | The roof is buckling. |
| 0:11.9 | Where you can also listen to live sports commentary. |
| 0:14.2 | It's right foot goes for goal. |
| 0:16.7 | And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories. |
| 0:21.7 | The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession. |
| 0:25.2 | And she's had to live with that. |
| 0:26.8 | So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion. |
| 0:29.7 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.7 | Sort of expecting that every week now. |
| 0:34.8 | On tonight's rethinking, in a year of seismic change, emotions have often run high, |
| 0:40.8 | and insults have been colourful and at times extravagant. |
| 0:44.6 | Will 2016 be remembered as much for the quality of its vitriol as it will for famous deaths |
| 0:50.7 | and political earthquakes? |
| 0:52.4 | The Times columnist Matthew Paris, compiler and chronicler of a new book, Scorn, |
| 0:58.0 | and political advisor-turned-turned-stand-up comic Aisha Hazarika, |
| 1:01.9 | have deigned to join me to deconstruct the perfect put-down. |
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