Radio 5 mention

I listen to Radio FiveLive every day at home. I even go to bed with it playing in the background. The morning 9-12 show hosted by Victoria Derbyshire is a lively phone-in discussion programme which only seems to allow views from the two opposing sides of an argument have their say. You could never get on there if you think both sides have a point to make, you have to be one side or the other. And all the time Victoria play Devil’s Advocate enraging the callers more and more. She’s not as viscious as Nicky Campbell but she gives a good show of herself.

Today I heard there was going to be a discussion on global warming and I decided to send in an eMail in the hope it will be read out on air. The discussion revolved around whether the UK should continue to cut it’s carbon emissions even though countries such as China, India and the USA have not signed-up to do so yet. There’s a possibility that the UK could lose out competitively with these countries.

To get my message read out on air it had to be a strong view, perhaps inflammatory, and it had to be short and to the point but I’ve listened to the show long enough to know the kind of message they read out. So I thought why not mix climate change with slavery! And guess what? My message was read out 3 minutes after sending the eMail. Here’s what I said:

“Should the UK have waited the extra 60 years it took America to abolish slavery? Most arguments FOR slavery were economic but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have abolished it. The same goes for Climate Change. We need to make a start now!”

Ha! It worked. Now I’m going to try one every day, mixing a relevant issue with an unrelated one. I can’t work out whether to keep to the left-wing eco viewpoint or to sometimes switch over to a right-wing bigot. I’m sure it’s easy to get a “bring back the birch!” eMail read out next time there’s a program about hoodies. I’ll let you know if I have any more luck.