''The Week in Westminster'' is a weekly political radio programme, which is broadcast on Saturdays on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

. It is the fifth longest-running radio broadcast on British radio, between '' Daily Service'' (2 January 1928) and ''

Sunday Half Hour ''The Sunday Hour'' was a long-standing show broadcast on the BBC Light Programme and then BBC Radio 2 in the United Kingdom, broadcast for 78 years between 14 July 1940 and 28 January 2018. For most of its life it occupied a Sunday evening ...

'' (14 July 1940).

History

Women in parliament

It was first broadcast on 6 November 1929 on the

BBC Home Service The BBC Home Service was a national and regional radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 4. History 1922–1939: Interwar period Between the early 1920s and the outbreak of World War II, the BBC ...

Ramsay MacDonald James Ramsay MacDonald (; 12 October 18669 November 1937) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first who belonged to the Labour Party, leading minority Labour governments for nine months in 1924 ...

was the Prime Minister at the time, after the 1929 General Election on 30 May 1929, when the Labour Party had won the most seats (287) in a general election for the first time. The 1929 general election was known as the

Flapper Flappers were a subculture of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts (knee height was considered short during that period), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptab ...

Election because it was the first general election in which women over 21 had been allowed to vote. The

Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This act expanded on the Representation of the People Act 1918 which had given some women the vote in Parliamentary elections for the ...

had been given

Royal Assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in other ...

on 2 July 1928. Men were also allowed to vote when over the age of 21. Only in the

Representation of the People Act 1969 The Representation of the People Act 1969 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This statute is sometimes known as the Sixth Reform Act. The Act lowered the voting age to 18. The United Kingdom was the first major democratic country ...

would the age be lowered to 18, but people aged under 21 could not stand as MPs. Women's broadcasting on the Home Service had been initiated by

Hilda Matheson Hilda Matheson, OBE (7 June 1888 – 30 October 1940) was a pioneering English radio talks producer at the BBC and its first Director of Talks. After resigning from the BBC in 1931, she published a book on the development of broadcasting. Though ...

OBE (7 June 1888- 30 October 1940). The programme was at 10:45 am on each Wednesday and first known as ''The Week in Parliament''. As parliament, and its affairs, was thought to be a new institution to most women by the patriarchal-run BBC, it was decided to create a radio programme whereby female MPs would broadcast short talks to the nation's women, to help them familiarise the parliamentary processes and significances. The first presenter was Scottish.

Margaret Bondfield Margaret Grace Bondfield (17 March 1873 – 16 June 1953) was a British Labour Party politician, trade unionist and women's rights activist. She became the first female cabinet minister, and the first woman to be a privy counsellor in th ...

was the first British female cabinet minister, when she became

Minister of Labour Minister of Labour (in British English) or Labor (in American English) is typically a cabinet-level position with portfolio responsibility for setting national labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, traini ...

in June 1929.

Lord Reith Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...

approved of the programme, and wrote of it, "it is chiefly for the benefit of

housewives A housewife (also known as a homemaker or a stay-at-home mother/mom/mum) is a woman whose role is running or managing her family's home—housekeeping, which includes caring for her children; cleaning and maintaining the home; making, buying a ...

but covering also a large mixed audience of shift-workers, unemployed, invalids, etcetera". In 1931, male MPs were also given a slot on the programme to expound their opinions. The programme had become more well known by then. In the late 1930s the programme's producer was

Guy Burgess Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (16 April 1911 – 30 August 1963) was a British diplomat and Soviet agent, and a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the Cold War era. His defection in 1951 ...

, later found to be a Soviet spy.

World War II

During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the programme had an (enforced) eighteen month break.

Wider coverage

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

gave the broadcast on 10 April 1965. By the late 1960s presenters other than actual MPs, such as political journalists, were given slots. In the late 1990s, the Controller of Radio 4 moved the programme to late Thursday nights. A protest ensued and it was restored to Saturday mornings.

Content

The programme today is not presented by actual MPs, as it was before the 1960s, but by

political journalists A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

. They interview a small group of backbench MPs in the studio, interspersed with other features. It is broadcast for 30 minutes on Saturday mornings, usually at 11:00 am, and is available as a podcast. It is not broadcast when parliament is in recess. Audio broadcasting from the Houses of Parliament began in 1976. Television entered the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

in 1985, and the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

in 1989.

Regular hosts

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman, Lady Walney (born 5 May 1986), is an English political journalist and the assistant editor of ''The Spectator''. In 2015, she was named Journalist of the Year at the Political Studies Association's annual awards. Early life Born ...

Anushka Asthana Anushka Asthana (born 1980) is a British Indian journalist and television presenter, who is currently deputy political editor of ITV News. Early life Asthana was born in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, and raised in Stalybridge, Greater Mancheste ...

Steve Richards Steve Richards (born 6 June 1960) is a British TV presenter and political columnist, who has written columns for the ''Guardian'', ''Independent'', ''New Statesman'' and ''Spectator''. He regularly presents Radio 4's ''Week in Westminster'' and ho ...

References

External links

''The Week in Westminster''

Getting on Air: The Female Pioneers
{{BBC News 1929 establishments in the United Kingdom 1929 radio programme debuts BBC news radio programmes BBC Radio 4 programmes Parliament of the United Kingdom Political podcasts Works about British politicians