Across the great divide

08:20 Tuesday 19th May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Around 180 people attended a discussion in Peterborough last night, aimed at improving relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Teachers, police officers, NHS staff and schoolchildren were among non-Muslim attendees at the Holiday Inn’s Thorpe Wood hotel last night. The event was called The Answers to your Questions, and it was organised by the Masjid Khadijah and Islamic Centre. Our reporter Tom Horn went along to listen to the discussions.
(TAPE)
TOM HORN: A flyer for last night’s event at Thorpe Wood in Peterborough reads “it’s an unfortunate fact that past and recent world events have caused some ill feelings towards Muslims, and to misunderstanding of the true Islamic faith.” Organisers of the discussions no doubt had several headlines in mind.
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One week on – the parties find their feet

17:39 Friday 15th May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: They say a week is a long time in politics. Since the election results were announced last Friday we’ve had twists and turns, ups and downs, from all of the political parties. And our political reporter Hannah Olsson has been trying to keep up. She joins me in the studio now. It’s been quite a week, and today, well, the drama of the Labour leadership contest took another strange turn.
HANNAH OLSSON: It certainly did. Now since Ed Miliband announced he was resigning as Labour Party Leader after to his party’s disappointing defeat in the General Election last week, contenders have been throwing their hats in the ring. We’ve had Chuka Umunna, Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and Mary Creagh, all saying they wanted to enter the race. But then today Chuka Umunna surprised us all by announcing he was withdrawing. The reason he gave in a statement was that he wasn’t comfortable with the level of pressure and scrutiny that came with being a Leadership candidate. Now Chuka Umunna is a polished media performer, and was seen as a real contender for the job, so the announcement will come as a big shock for many people within the Labour Party. But former labour Leader Lord Kinnock says he has probably done the right thing.
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LORD KINNOCK: If he felt in his soul that he wasn’t prepared to subject himself, and more importantly his family, to the kind of attention which is fairly typical sadly these days, he has done absolutely the right thing. There’s no point at all in inflicting avoidable unnecessary misery on those that you love most.
(LIVE)
HANNAH OLSSON: Candidates must secure nominations from 34 colleagues, that’s roughly 15% of the Labour party’s MPs, by 15th June, to make it onto those ballot papers. So we may see more twists and turns in the race before then.
CHRIS MANN: Let’s move on to talk about UKIP. Yesterday I spoke to Patrick O’Flynn, who had very publicly criticised the party’s Leader Nigel Farage, calling him ‘thin skinned and aggressive’. Has there been more reaction to that?
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Richard Nicholl from Varsity on the Cambridge election campaign

8:21 Friday 15th May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Cambridge’s new MP Daniel Zeichner has called them ‘amazing’, the army of student Labour voters who campaigned tirelessly for him to be elected in the city. There are around 15,000 students in Cambridge who are eligible to vote, and with just 599 votes between Daniel and the LibDems’s Julian Huppert, it would be fair to say that it was the students wot won it for Labour. .. Let’s talk to Richard Nicholl who is the political editor of Varsity, Cambridge University’s student newspaper. Richard, they certainly seemed to think they made all the difference during Daniel Zeichner’s campaign. Do you agree?
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Julian Huppert on leaving the Commons

17:49 Wednesday 13th May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

CHRIS MANN: Speaking in his first broadcast interview since he lost his seat as Cambridge MP, Julian Huppert has told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire that the Liberal Democrats ‘failed to clarify their true values’ during the national election campaign. He went on to say that despite errors, forming a coalition was the right thing to do. But he wished they’d made public their frequent clashes and battles with the Conservatives. Dotty McLeod our Breakfast presenter caught up with him earlier.
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John Elworthy on the future of the BBC

09:21 Tuesday 12th May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Would you pay to keep the BBC? Is it worth it? This morning, after the appointment of a new Culture Secretary, there have been fears for the future of the Corporation, mainly in all the newspapers, but we thought it was worth investigating it. David Cameron appointed MP John Whittingdale, who in the past has said the licence fee is out of date and like a poll tax. He’s suggested a subscription style payment scheme would be a better idea. .. John Elworthy is the newspaper editor for a string of papers in Cambridgeshire and the Fens. Morning John.
JOHN ELWORTHY: Good morning Mr Stainton.
PAUL STAINTON: Do we need a huge overhaul?
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Peterborough Conservatives predict a coalition of the willing to rule the city

07:40 Monday 11th May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

DOTTY MCLEOD: Quite a lot of upsets in general as the results of the General Election came out on Friday, with the Labour Party doing a lot worse than many people thought, the LibDems doing far worse than many people thought. You had Nigel Farage resigning,. You had Nick Clegg resigning. You had Ed Miliband resigning. And then of course Marco Cereste the former Leader of Peterborough City Council lost his council seat. The person likely to step into councillor Cereste’s shoes will be chosen this week. He lost his seat of course in the local elections. Here’s what he said on Friday afternoon.
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MARCO CERESTE: Of course I would rather have been the victor, but you know, God’s will is God’s will and that’s what he’s decided. He’s probably got a different path for me to take.
(LIVE)
DOTTY MCLEOD: So a new Conservative Leader will now be elected. Councillor Wayne Fitzgerald of Peterborough City Council joins me now to talk more about this. Morning councillor Fitzgerald. .. So what happens next? Because at the moment the Conservative Group and indeed the City Council is without a permanent Leader.
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Cereste toppled

17:17 Friday 8th May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

WASEEM MIRZA: There’s been a day of drama already today. Let’s start with Peterborough, where there were 20 out of 57 seats up for election. Technically 56, because a councillor had resigned about a month or so ago. Today the Leader of that city council Marco Cereste lost his seat. A little bit of background, back in May 2013 Marco Cereste survived a leadership challenge, after being criticised for his support on major projects, including a multi-million pound solar and wind farm near the city. He survived that surprise challenge back then, but in today’s elections he lost his seat to the Conservative Ray Bisby, and UKIP’s John Whitby. Now the new make-up of Peterborough City Council now looks like this. Largely unchanged from the last election, Conservatives with 26 seats, losing 2 on the previous election. Labour 12, the same as before. The Independents 7. Again no change there. UKIP 4, that’s up on the previous 3. Liberal Democrats 4, again no change there. The Liberal Party 3, the same as before. So what does that mean? Well no party has overall control of Peterborough City Council, again, the same result as in the previous election. But with Marco Cereste no longer at the helm, there could be big ramifications there for the future. So, what next for Mr Cereste? Well he told this programme earlier the public will decide his legacy.

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Care home closures at Peterborough hustings

11:45 Friday 1st May 2015
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

PAUL STAINTON: Is it time we talked about adult social care in a serious way Stewart Jackson? Is it time we looked after our elderly in a better way, and spent more money on it? Surely not the time to be closing care homes, is it?
STEWART JACKSON: Well I’m not going to defend the City Council’s decision on care homes. They’ll have to come on and defend that themselves. My view is that in a sense adult social care and the co-ordination between acute district hospitals, GPs and the City Council is almost an issue above politics. Because none of us can stop the demographic change, the number of over 85’s doubling in the next twenty years.
PAUL STAINTON: And it’s time to do something now isn’t it Lisa Forbes, and everybody get together on this before it’s too late In thirty years time we’re all going to be looking after each other on zimmer frames, aren’t we?
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