Episodes

  • Matt Vickers: the last remaining Tory MP in the North East | The fascinating hidden stories of Manchester you won't have learned about at school

    Matt Vickers: the last remaining Tory MP in the North East | The fascinating hidden stories of Manchester you won't have learned about at school
    Jul 26 2024
    On a brutal General Election night for the Conservatives, there were a few bright spots where their MPs managed to defy the swing to Labour and hang onto their seats. In the North East of England - where Labour otherwise swept the board - just one Conservative MP now remains, Matt Vickers, who won in the new seat of Stockton West despite pre-election polling which suggested it would turn red. He speaks to Rob Parsons about how he managed to defy the odds, what it's been like as a Tory MP since returning to Parliament and what the near Tory wipeout means for Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen. Meanwhile, Rob hears from the journalists behind a brilliant new podcast called Everything But a Beach, telling the fascinating hidden stories of Manchester you won't have learned about at school. Find out about 'God's copper' James Anderton, Manchester's scuttling gangs with names like the Bengal Tigers and the Meadow Lads, and where local words like ‘ticklebutt’ and ‘arsewood’ came from. You can listen to Everything But a Beach at https://everythingbutabeach.podbean.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    48 mins
  • 📈 Alarming Vital Signs in the North East

    📈 Alarming Vital Signs in the North East
    Jul 19 2024
    Doesn't it seem a long time ago that a victorious Boris Johnson took in the applause from Conservatives in Tony Blair's old seat of Sedgefield after winning a host of North East seats in Labour strongholds like Darlington, Redcar and Bishop Auckland in the 2019 General Election? Five years later, the Tories have been all but wiped out in the North East, reduced to just one seat. How did things go so badly wrong and is there a way back for the party in time for the next election? And was Rishi Sunak the right person to lead the party into the 2024 election? Rob Parsons speaks to Miranda Jupp, who up until a few days ago was chief of staff to Sir Simon Clarke, former Levelling Up Secretary and Conservative MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, who lost to Labour's Luke Myer by just 200 votes. And Rob takes a look under the bonnet of the North East of England, a region with so much going for it but with issues like poverty, economic inactivity and bad health continuing to plague it for decades. A new series of reports called Vital Signs single out the role civil society and the generosity of philanthropy can play in bridging the divide between the North East and the rest of the country. Rob Williamson, CEO of the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland, tells us more about the work. And you can read them for yourself at https://www.communityfoundation.org.uk/vital-signs/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    52 mins
  • From Wearside to Westminster: what's it like to be a new MP?

    From Wearside to Westminster: what's it like to be a new MP?
    Jul 11 2024
    This week's there's an induction like no other going on in Westminster's corridors of power, as dozens of newly-elected MPs from across the North are introduced to the bewildering intricacies and traditions of life in the epicentre of British democracy. But what's it been like for someone who a week ago was battling to be elected and now finds themselves rubbing shoulders with the nation's political leaders, hundreds of miles from home? Rob Parsons finds out from Lewis Atkinson, who last week was elected as the new Labour MP for Sunderland Central. He tells us about the white envelope with secret instructions that all new MPs get and how one aspect of life at Westminster pleasantly surprised him. And with the General Election already feeling like a distant memory in a frenetic first week for the Labour government, Rob chats to Jo Timan from the Manchester Evening News about Andy Burnham and Ben Houchen's trip to Downing Street and why it matters that Keir Starmer's Cabinet is filled with Northern MPs. Plus: Is Reform UK now the main opposition to Labour in Greater Manchester and the North East? Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    46 mins
  • Rishi, Binface and me: election night in North Yorkshire

    Rishi, Binface and me: election night in North Yorkshire
    Jul 5 2024
    It's General Election night and Rob Parsons has got himself a front row seat for one of the highest-profile counts in the North: Rishi Sunak's Richmond and Northallerton constituency in North Yorkshire. With Sunak's Conservatives facing near certain defeat to Labour in the polls, the media is waiting for the Prime Minister to show his face in the early hours of the morning - and that's if he can hold onto what used to be a safe seat. Hear Rob's dispatch from election night, where he speaks to some of the quirkier candidates including an intergalactic space traveller called Count Binface and the hopefuls from Labour and Reform UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    31 mins
  • Why voters in the North are so disillusioned by the General Election

    Why voters in the North are so disillusioned by the General Election
    Jul 1 2024
    This week voters across the North will be going to the polls for the General Election with all the national polling pointing to a big Labour victory. But Rob Parsons wants to hear what's happening at local level across the North of England and has reassembled a panel of top political journalists, Liam Thorp from the Liverpool Echo, Joseph Timan from the Manchester Evening News and Graeme Whitfield from the Journal in the North East. They discuss why voters in the North are so disillusioned, what Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have been saying on their trips to our region...and perhaps most importantly their go-to snacks to keep them awake through a long election night. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    27 mins
  • Northern election rivals taken to task

    Northern election rivals taken to task
    Jun 24 2024
    In the run-up to the General Election, we've heard so much from the likes of Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak, Nigel Farage and Ed Davey - wouldn't it be interesting to put the local candidates bidding for voters in the North in the spotlight for a change? This week on the Northern Agenda podcast, election rivals in the North East are taken to task over how they would combat soaring child poverty rates, the future of the NHS, pollution in our waterways, and more. Candidates from the five main parties contesting seats at the July 4 election took part in a special hustings hosted by ChronicleLive in Newcastle, two weeks before the UK goes to the polls. Clashing over issues including the two-child benefit cap and Tory plans for a new national service scheme were candidates Catherine McKinnell (Labour, Newcastle North), Nick Oliver (Conservative, Gateshead Central and Whickham), Natalie Younes (Liberal Democrat, North Northumberland), David Francis (Green, South Shields), and Lynn Murphy (Reform UK, Easington). As well as taking questions sent in by Chronicle readers during the debate, chaired by Journal editor Graeme Whitfield, a group of students from St Joseph’s Academy in Hebburn also challenged the candidates on key issues affecting young people. *** Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • Will Orgreave miners get the truth after 40 years? | A postcard from Southport

    Will Orgreave miners get the truth after 40 years? | A postcard from Southport
    Jun 20 2024
    We're 40 years on from the so-called Battle of Orgreave, when thousands of picketing miners were attacked by riot police in South Yorkshire in what has been described as one of the most violent clashes in British industrial history, with police using ‘paramilitary’ tactics. And to mark the occasion a new report, chronicling what campaigners say is decades of multi-agency cover up of state-orchestrated violence, has just been delivered to the leaders of the UK’s main political parties and the Home Office. With Labour promising a new investigation if they get into power on July 4, will we finally learn the truth about what happened on June 18,1984? Rob Parsons spoke to Chris Peace from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign. And after visiting Richmond in North Yorkshire last week, Rob goes about 100 miles south west to the seaside resort of Southport. It's the only area of Merseyside that doesn't have a Labour MP - but could that be about to change? And what, if anything, can politicians do to restore the fortunes of seaside resorts who are trying to reinvent themselves? *** Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    42 mins
  • The hidden poverty in Rishi Sunak's leafy Yorkshire patch

    The hidden poverty in Rishi Sunak's leafy Yorkshire patch
    Jun 13 2024
    ​W​e're three weeks into the General Election campaign and Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives are staring down the barrel of an historic defeat that will see them reduced to just a handful of seats in the North of England and potentially scrapping with the Lib Dems and Reform UK to be the opposition to the next Labour government. It's been a torrid week for ​t​he Prime Minister - who's been hammered from all sides for skipping out of the D-Day 80th anniversary events early. So where better to get the view of voters than​ his own North Yorkshire constituency, home to the country's biggest Army base​? That's what​ Rob Parsons did - before the big D-Day row kicked off - to hear from voters in the market town of Richmond and find out about the hidden poverty in what most people consider a safe and leafy Tory seat. He also speaks to Jim Blagden, Associate Director for Research and Insights at More in Common, the think-tank founded after the murder of Yorkshire MP Jo Cox in 2016, about Labour's manifesto launch in Manchester, why the Tories lost the red wall and who exactly is 'Whitby Woman'. *** Northern Agenda is a Laudable production for Reach. This week's episode is presented by Rob Parsons and produced by Celeste Adams. You can subscribe to the daily Northern Agenda newsletter here: http://www.thenorthernagenda.co.uk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    32 mins