Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share What on earth is the national interest?
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
What on earth is the national interest?
Should we be sceptical when politicians claim to act in "the national interest"? The phrase is frequently trotted out to elevate policy and actions as unimpeachably serving us all. But what does it actually mean? So far the Oxford English Dictionary has steered clear of pinning down this "slippery" term.
Mark Damazer digs up its historical roots and talks to politicians, prime-ministerial speechwriters and policymakers to define a term that can obscure as much as it elucidates. Is its use just cynical high grounding or does it speak of a sincere effort to disentangle policy from personal or party interests? Is the national interest best served by a strong civic landscape where differing visions of “the national interest” are free to battle it out?
Presenter: Mark Damazer
Producer: David Reid
Editor: Clare Fordham
Contributors:
Michael Gove, Minister for Levelling up, Housing and Communities
Angela Rayner, shadow deputy prime minister and shadow levelling up secretary
Phil Collins, former prime-ministerial speechwriter
Munira Mirza, former Director of the No10 Policy Unit
Dame Linda Colley, Professor of History at Princeton
Fiona McPherson, Senior Editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, specialising in new words
View all episodes
By BBC Radio 4
4.6
195195 ratings
Should we be sceptical when politicians claim to act in "the national interest"? The phrase is frequently trotted out to elevate policy and actions as unimpeachably serving us all. But what does it actually mean? So far the Oxford English Dictionary has steered clear of pinning down this "slippery" term.
Mark Damazer digs up its historical roots and talks to politicians, prime-ministerial speechwriters and policymakers to define a term that can obscure as much as it elucidates. Is its use just cynical high grounding or does it speak of a sincere effort to disentangle policy from personal or party interests? Is the national interest best served by a strong civic landscape where differing visions of “the national interest” are free to battle it out?
Presenter: Mark Damazer
Producer: David Reid
Editor: Clare Fordham
Contributors:
Michael Gove, Minister for Levelling up, Housing and Communities
Angela Rayner, shadow deputy prime minister and shadow levelling up secretary
Phil Collins, former prime-ministerial speechwriter
Munira Mirza, former Director of the No10 Policy Unit
Dame Linda Colley, Professor of History at Princeton
Fiona McPherson, Senior Editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, specialising in new words
More shows like Analysis
View all
In Our Time
5,409 Listeners
From Our Own Correspondent
373 Listeners
The Documentary Podcast
1,839 Listeners
Start the Week
159 Listeners
Global News Podcast
7,686 Listeners
Science Weekly
412 Listeners
Thinking Allowed
307 Listeners
Profile
105 Listeners
6 Minute English
1,831 Listeners
Learning English Conversations
1,078 Listeners
The Bottom Line
32 Listeners
More or Less: Behind the Stats
891 Listeners
The Infinite Monkey Cage
1,930 Listeners
Newshour
1,065 Listeners
Moral Maze
61 Listeners
The Audio Long Read
832 Listeners
BBC Inside Science
404 Listeners
The Inquiry
754 Listeners
Curious Cases
820 Listeners
The Briefing Room
76 Listeners
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
105 Listeners
Newscast
659 Listeners
Americast
740 Listeners
You're Dead to Me
2,969 Listeners
Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government
25 Listeners