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Seriously...

The Privatisation of British Gas

Seriously...

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.1885 Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Historian Phil Tinline explores why, 37 years ago, the Thatcher government privatised British Gas, how what followed has shaped today's energy price crisis - and what should happen next.

Contributors: Professor Michael Bradshaw, Derek Davis, Dr Amy Edwards, Mathew Lawrence, Tim Lefroy, Sir John Redwood Producer: Phil Tinline

Transcript

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0:00.0

This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box.

0:05.0

The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from.

0:09.0

And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape.

0:12.0

The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape.

0:12.5

The IRA inmates who found a way.

0:14.5

I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path

0:19.5

through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history.

0:25.0

The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them.

0:28.5

Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds.

0:35.0

BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:39.0

All right there, fellow podcast lovers,

0:42.0

this is seriously from BBC Radio 4.

0:46.1

And I'm your host Vanessa Casile.

0:48.7

This podcast finds the world's best audio documentaries and puts them all in one place. Here's a little

0:55.3

something to expand your mind. I don't know about you but like a lot of people this

1:00.1

winter I found myself thinking twice before I put the heating on and a lot of people have

1:04.7

had it a lot worse than that.

1:08.5

We knew this was coming last summer when prices were soaring.

1:11.8

Energy extractors have been making eye-watering profits. Some energy

1:14.8

sellers have been going to the wall, and the government has found itself forking out huge sums

1:19.6

to subsidize our bills. I've spent most of the last decade digging back through our

1:24.9

recent history for documentaries and a book to try to make sense of the crises

...

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