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Victoria Derbyshire's Scottish independence debate

2013-09-10T08:02:49+00:00

In a year’s time people living in Scotland will cast their vote in a referendum that could change the future of the UK. They'll be asked "Should Scotland be an independent country?" and that's what we'll be debating on Monday 16 September at 10am in our largest ever Victoria Derbyshire audience debate.

More on that to come, but first some facts.

Yes Scotland is the official campaign for independence, while Better Together is the group arguing to keep the Union. The Scottish National Party (SNP), Scottish Greens and independent MSP Margo MacDonald back independence, while Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are opposed.

The vote will take place on Thursday 18th September 2014. Everyone over the age of 16 who lives in Scotland will get to vote, but registered Scots who live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland won't get a vote. Non-Scots who're registered to vote in Scotland will get a say.

The question "Should Scotland be an independent country?" came about after protracted negotiations. The Scottish government's original version of the question, "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?", was dropped after the Electoral Commission raised concerns it could lead people into voting "Yes".

In the events of a “Yes” vote, Alex Salmond the leader of the SNP wants to declare Independence Day in March 2016, with the first elections to an independent parliament in May. However, before that happens though a constitutional settlement would need to be agreed with the UK government, involving weighty issues which may take a long time to resolve. The independence referendum has been described as a once-in-a-generation event, so a “No” vote would put the issue to bed for the time being.

On Monday 16th September at 10am Victoria Derbyshire will be debating the key issues. We’ll be joined by leading members of the Yes Scotland campaign, the Better Together group and around 300 5 live listeners from right across the UK.

Opinion polls show a large number of people are yet to make up their minds on how they'll vote, so during the programme we'll ask our studio audience to vote twice. Once at the beginning of the programme and once again after they've heard the debate. As well as the main question, we’ll be asking what the rest of the UK would be called if Scotland does vote for independence, what would happen to the monarchy and if Scotland would keep Sterling as a currency.

The economy will also dominate the debate. The Yes campaign says Scotland generates more money for the UK economy than is handed back by Westminster and that after independence that cash can be spent where it's really needed. The No campaign says Scotland's economy benefits from the security of being part of one of the world's biggest economies, from bank bail outs to green energy subsidies, and so cutting ties built up over 300 years would leave Scotland dangerously exposed in a volatile world.

The debate will be filmed and broadcast on the 5 live website, �� News Channel, Red Button and the �� News website from 10am on Monday 16 September. It will also be broadcast again on 5 live on Sunday 22nd September at 8.30pm.

To join in the debate you can call 0500 909 693, text 85058 or use the hashtag #5livedebate.

Follow us on Twitter here.

Associated content

Video: What would independence mean for Scotland?

At the head of the peloton with the 100th Tour de France

2013-06-28T08:54:04+00:00

5 live will be at every stage of this year's Tour de France - the 100th in its history. Here our team talk about their expectations for the race - a second consecutive British winner? - plus how they'll bring it to you:

Simon Brotherton - Commentator:

This will be 19th time I've covered the Tour. At first it was quite a battle to get 30 seconds on to the sports desks and now here we are with a team of four, providing full commentary on 5 live Sports Extra and the �� Sport website every day, along with a round-up for the 5 live Bespoke podcast after every stage.

It's an illustration of how far British Cycling has come. From the days when we were relieved just to have a British rider in the race, to finally seeing a British winner of the event last summer in Bradley Wiggins.

It'll be someone else's turn this year in this special 100th edition and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the race brings and painting the pictures from the commentary box on the finish line every day.

Listen an extract from 5 live's Tour de France preview where Britain's Mark Cavendish - with 23 Tour de France stages to his name - talks about the art of sprinting:

Olie D'Albertanson - Producer:

I’m lucky enough to have produced at some of the biggest sporting events in the world: the World Cup in South Africa, Euro 2012, Ryder Cups, plus the Olympics and Paralympics last summer. However, this is my very first Tour de France. I can't wait for it all to get started.

More than any other event I've attended, this one already feels like a travelling circus - and the race hasn't even begun.

This is the 100th Tour de France, and it all gets underway in Corsica tomorrow (Saturday 29th June). It’ll be on the island for three days before it takes a 12-hour overnight ferry back to the mainland to continue the journey.

The cyclists themselves will be riding nearly 2500 miles. However, the actual distance covered by everyone involved is probably more than double that; there can be as much as 350 miles between the end of one stage and the start of another.

My "office" for this trip is the back of a small people carrier which will carry all our broadcast equipment, our clothes for a month, some emergency brioche, as well as transporting your commentary team around France and (hopefully) up and down some it's most impressive mountain ranges. Due to the cramped conditions I can't help but think I've been chosen to cover this event as I’m not much bigger than a hobbit.

There are three people who will be bringing this event to life for you over the next few weeks, from the race itself to all the behind the scenes chaos: as well as commentator Simon Brotherton we have expert summarisers Rob Hayles and Graham Jones. As well as what you’ll hear on air they’ll be posting behind-the-scenes photos, blogs and videos here on the 5 live website.

If you have questions for the team you can leave your messages here, and for those of you on Twitter follow @bbc5live and use the hashtag #bbctdf. We will try to answers as many questions as we can during commentary.

Rob Hayles - Summariser:

I'm a triple Olympic medallist, double world champion and British national road race champion in 2008.

This will be the fourth Tour I have covered, although the previous three have been from the comfort of a studio back in London. So this year I am looking forward to witnessing the 100th edition first-hand. Having warmed up this year already alongside Simon Brotherton at the Giro, I feel (almost) ready for what awaits us in France.

The enormity of working on the biggest annual sporting event is something that can’t be taken lightly. I hope we’ll be able to convey the atmosphere of the Tour to everyone back home with the justice it fully deserves.

Last year the Yellow Jersey for the winner of the Tour came to Britain for the first ever time – Sir Bradley Wiggins. This year he’s not in a position to defend that title, but his team is. The burden of that possibility rests squarely with another Brit: Chris Froome. Can he do it? Well we will have 21 days of coverage to bring to you before we may know for sure.

Graham Jones - Summariser:

I am a veteran of the Tour; in fact this will be my 29th. I have ridden it five times, covered it four times as a press consultant for the Guardian, Herald Tribune and the Observer, and since 1995 I’ve been a summariser for �� Radio 5 live.

I was described by the late sportswriter Geoffrey Nicholson in his preface to one of his books as 'The Great Navigator'. It's a title I consider to be totally justified, as I believe I know France and all its roads better than 99% of French people!

I will be bringing you my tactical insight into the race, as well as brining to life what goes on once the microphones and cameras are packed up and moved on to the next stage.

5 live's coverage of the 100th Tour de France begins on Saturday 29 June at 3.30pm on 5 live sports extra. There will be a summary of each day's action on 5 live's Bespoke podcast, available here.

Life in a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan

2013-06-17T16:55:53+00:00

It would be hard to find a place more full of contrasts than Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan. This vast lunar landscape is now home to more than a hundred thousand Syrians who've fled the fighting in their own country.

It's a place of safety for sure, but also a place where understandable distress and frustration can quickly take on an ugly hue.

Water is in short supply despite the best efforts of aid agencies from around the world. Heat and dust seem to goad you every step of the way.

Surges in the numbers of people arriving a couple of months ago put even more pressure on the UNHCR.

Their senior man on the ground here, Killian Kleinschmidt, tells me he drops into people's tents and caravans (really they're nothing more than a container with windows and a door) to listen to their requests and complaints and to involve the refugees themselves in as much of the decision making as possible.

You lose a lot when you become a refugee. First your home, your possessions, then your passport, even your freedom.

The camp has a perimeter fence past which people cannot go. Some of it is topped with barbed wire and there are checkpoints too all around.

It looks and feels like a punishment and yet it's a refuge. People arrive every day but others are desperate to leave.

We stopped at the place where hundreds go daily to try to get on a bus back home. Clearly for these people today was the day they'd had enough of being refugees.

Whatever it was that made them flee Syria, Zaatari isn't enough to stop them risking their lives again and those of their children.

We asked the men there if we could speak to them but the atmosphere quickly turned from restlessness to aggression.

"We want out! We want out!" They chanted, banging heavily on our car. They had nothing more to say.

Away from there, the vast stoney ground is dotted with the tiny figures of the children living here.

One boy wearing a scary mask follows us and when he gets close up removes it to reveal a cheeky smiling face. The balm of make believe I suppose.

There are imaginative projects to keep them occupied and to make fun a part of their broken lives. Oxfam's public health team at the camp hold painting sessions where each child paints his or her own large tile in bright colours.

They lay it out in the scorching sun to dry then it's used to decorate their communal wash units. It's an opportunity to teach them the importance of sanitation and give them places they care about.

I met a young couple expecting their first child, a group of mothers at a wash block trying to clean clothes (and children) with limited success, and a huddle of men who told me they would return to Syria tomorrow if Britain and others would arm them in their fight against President Assad's forces.

Later, a former fighter in the Free Syrian Army tells me the world has left it too late for that now.

Ahmed saw his mother shot dead by a sniper when she went to rescue a child shot seconds before. His handsome, young face tightens at the telling of it and does again when he describes being beaten and stabbed while under arrest by Government forces.

All the while his four tiny children potter in the tiny caravan they all live in, clinging to him from time to time.

Everywhere we go, what little people have is offered anyway. Syrian coffee, sugary tea, juice, water, sweets. Tiny displays of dignity made vital to people who have lost everything.

Farid, a singer, feels like his dignity has gone. "Refugee. It's a small word but it means a lot to me. A refugee is humiliated. Being a refugee is the height of humiliation".

You can listen to Shelagh Fogarty present from the Syrian border in Jordan on Tuesday 18 June at 12.00

Covering the Enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury

2013-03-20T15:59:20+00:00

On Thursday the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, will be enthroned at Canturbury Cathedral.

5 live will be there all day, with Shelagh Fogarty describing the build-up, and pomp and ceremony on this most important day for the Church of England.

The Close surrounding the Cathedral is normally a tranquil place disturbed only by birds, bells and tourists. But recently it’s taken on a more frantic mood amid preparations for the enthronement.

Everywhere is action; gardeners plant flowers, scaffolders assemble the TV broadcast positions, and police scour the area for security risks. But traditions persist. Every day a group of younger residents emerge from a door into the Close, then walk serenely through the mayhem into the huge church.

Inside, they proceed behind a gate then disappear up a narrow stone spiral staircase to their own private area. They are the Canterbury Cathedral Choristers, led by choirmaster David Flood. And for one session only, 5 live was invited to hear them practise.

Their rehearsal room must be at least 600 years old, it’s a warm space above the north transept with small windows in the thick stone walls and venerable timbers holding up the steeply pitched roof.

About 20 choir boys aged between nine and 13 stand at little lecterns arranged in a horseshoe around the grand piano, from which David Flood conducts the choir. He wastes little time, going straight into Britten’s ‘Te Deum’ in C.

It’s a piece specially chosen by the new archbishop for his inauguration. I stand behind David’s shoulder to record the session as he plays while simultaneously directing the choir with nods, shouts and encouragement.

Earlier I met some of the choristers. For a bunch of schoolboys they show a highly professional attitude. Max, 12, tells me the importance of getting everything perfect. They are delighted to find themselves in the choir for an enthronement.

Archbishops tend to stay in the job a while, so it is not something that most Canterbury choristers will experience. A few are nervous, but there is no doubt what’s the best thing about taking part; ‘being on telly’.

What a huge privilege it was to be allowed to witness the inner workings of England’s greatest church. Earlier that day I had been into the Cathedral archive, stepped through the cloisters and gazed at medieval bibles in the library.

But at the end of the day I was haunted by a nagging question: How on earth did they get that grand piano up the spiral staircase?

Full coverage of the enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury throughout the day on Thursday 21 March on 5 live.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced for Octoberfest 2012 line-up

2012-09-19T11:42:27+00:00

Octoberfest, 5 live's free three-day festival of shows and off air events, is only a few weeks away now and we're putting the finishing touches to the programme line ups.

One guest who'll be joining us is Nick Clegg, who'll take part in a special one-off show hosted by Shelagh Fogarty from 12pm on Friday 12 October. The Deputy Prime Minister, leader of the Liberal Democrats and MP for Sheffield Hallam, will face questions from 5 live listeners about the coalition government.

The debate is just one highlight of the festival, run in partnership with �� Radio Sheffield, which will also feature many other 5 live programmes including 606, 5 live Breakfast, Fighting Talk, Richard Bacon and Kermode and Mayo's Film Review.

There'll also be off-air events too that anyone who can get to Sheffield will be able to come along and enjoy in the 5 live activity 'Igloo', which will be located in Tudor Square. On top of all that we're also trying to break a world record forChildren in Need (more details of this one will come in the next few days).

The shows will all take place in the Crucible and Lyceum Theatres and free tickets are available now.

Click here for full line up and ticket information.

Adrian Van-Klaveren is controller of �� Radio 5 live and �� Radio 5 live Sports Extra.