Simon Gilbert | |
---|---|
Born | Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England | 6 June 1984
Education | Liverpool University Liverpool Hope University |
Occupation | Journalist / Author |
Simon Gilbert (born 6 June 1984) is an English journalist and author. He is a political reporter on radio, online and TV for the BBC and has worked on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire , BBC WM , Midlands Today and Sunday Politics Midlands. [1]
Previously, he was the chief reporter at the Coventry Telegraph [2] and a regular contributor to the Daily Mirror . [3] [4] [5]
He led the Coventry Telegraph's #bringCityhome campaign in the summer of 2014. [6] The campaign played a role in Coventry City F.C.'s return to the city following their exile at Sixfields in Northampton. Gilbert and the campaign were shortlisted at the Press Gazette British Journalism Awards 2014 in the Campaign of the Year category [7] and Gilbert won the Campaign of the Year Title at the 2014 Pride of Trinity Mirror Awards. [8] The campaign also resulted in Gilbert becoming the only regional newspaper journalist in the country to be shortlisted in the Sports Journalist of the Year category at the 2014 British Journalism Awards. [9]
His work was praised in the House of Commons by then Coventry North East MP Bob Ainsworth and the MP for Folkestone and Hythe, Damian Collins. [10]
Gilbert's coverage around the Ricoh Arena fiasco led to him producing a book which documents the history of the stadium project and Coventry City F.C.'s subsequent fall from grace. The book entitled Coventry City: A Club Without a Home: The Fight Behind The Sky Blues' Return from Exile is published by Pitch Publishing and was released in October 2016. [11]
In 2015, Gilbert was awarded Highly Commended prizes at the Midlands Media awards in three categories: Sports Journalist of the Year, Scoop of the Year and Campaign of the Year. [12]
In 2016 he was shortlisted for Business Journalist of the Year at the Midlands Media Awards. [13]
In 2017 he was shortlisted for Sports Journalist of the Year at the Midlands Media Awards. [14]
In 2019 he was shortlisted in two categories at the Midlands Media Awards: Television Journalist of the Year and Radio Journalist of the Year. [15] He was Highly Commended in the Radio Journalist of the Year category. [16]
In September 2014, Gilbert broke a national exclusive which reported English Premiership rugby union side Wasps RFC were in talks to permanently relocate to the Ricoh Arena, in Coventry, from their home at Adams Park, in High Wycombe. [17] The club later confirmed the takeover of the stadium and moved to the Ricoh Arena in December 2014. [18]
In March 2015, Gilbert revealed that long-serving MP Geoffrey Robinson had told party activists he would step down to allow Greg Beales, Director of Strategy and Planning for the Labour Party and a former aide to Ed Miliband, to contest his seat. An email seen by Gilbert appeared to show Beales and Robinson discussing introductions to prominent members of the local Labour party. The email, apparently sent before any announcement of Robinson's resignation, suggested selection of a new MP would take place within two weeks. [19] A second email, addressed to senior members of the local party, was also later exposed by Gilbert. It stated categorically that Mr Robinson would stand down before the next election; it appears the local Labour party was concerned Labour HQ would deprive them of an opportunity to freely choose the next candidate by strongly referencing Beales. [20] A u-turn would appear to have taken place, due to the Coventry Telegraph coverage and Robinson eventually contested and won Coventry North West. [21]
In September 2015, he broke the news that Maryam Namazie had been banned from speaking at the University of Warwick. [22] The story prompted outcry from the likes of Brian Cox, Salman Rushdie and Richard Dawkins and the ban was overturned a few days later. [23]
In October 2015, Gilbert reported from the scene of the fatal city centre bus crash in Coventry which claimed the lives of two people. [24] [25] He was interviewed live on BBC News and Sky News as the national media sought clarification of the details surrounding the tragedy. [26] [27] [28]
Throughout 2016 and 2017, Gilbert undertook a series of interviews for national newspapers on the situation at Coventry City. He provide comment for The Guardian , [29] Vice Sports [30] and the i . [31]
Gilbert's work on Coventry City led to a Parliamentary debate over the off the field issues at the club, and subsequent mediation, between various parties involved in the dispute. [32]
In April 2017, Gilbert appeared on BBC One's Football Focus discussing Coventry City's off-field problems. [33]
Gilbert exclusively revealed details of a leaked letter by Warwickshire Police to the Home Office in reports aired during September 2019 across the BBC. The letter, signed by the force's chief constable and the Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner, talked about the potential collapse of the police force and lives being "put at risk" as a result of the alliance with West Mercia Police being terminated. [34]
Mobico Group, formerly National Express Group, is a British multinational public transport company with headquarters in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, United States, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Germany, Bahrain, and Morocco and long-distance coach services across Europe. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Geoffrey Robinson is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Coventry North West for 43 years, from 1976 to 2019. He was Paymaster General from May 1997 to December 1998, resigning after it was revealed that he had lent his government colleague Peter Mandelson £373,000 to buy a house. From 1996 to 2008 he was the owner of the New Statesman, a centre-left weekly political magazine.
Coventry City Football Club is a professional football club based in Coventry, England. The team currently play in the EFL Championship, the second tier of the English football league system.
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David John Nellist is a British Trotskyist activist who was the MP for the constituency of Coventry South East from 1983 to 1992. Elected as a Labour MP, his support for the Militant tendency led to his eventual expulsion from the party in late 1991. He is the National Chair of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), a member of the Socialist Party, and was a city councillor in Coventry from 1998 to 2012.
The Coventry Telegraph is a local English tabloid newspaper. It was founded as The Midland Daily Telegraph in 1891 by William Isaac Iliffe, and was Coventry's first daily newspaper. Sold for half a penny, it was a four-page broadsheet newspaper. It changed its name to the Coventry Evening Telegraph on 17 November 1941. On 2 October 2006, the Telegraph simply became the Coventry Telegraph, reflecting its switch to a morning publication.
The Coventry Building Society Arena is a complex in Coventry, England. It includes a 32,609-seater stadium which is currently home to football team, Championship club Coventry City F.C. along with facilities which include a 6,000 square metres (65,000 sq ft) exhibition hall, a hotel and a casino. The site is also home to Arena Park Shopping Centre, containing one of UK's largest Tesco Extra hypermarkets. Built on the site of the Foleshill gasworks, it is named after its sponsor, Coventry Building Society who entered into a ten-year sponsorship deal in 2021. For the 2012 Summer Olympics, where stadium naming sponsorship was forbidden, the stadium was known as the City of Coventry Stadium.
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University Hospital Coventry is a large National Health Service (NHS) hospital situated in the Walsgrave on Sowe area of Coventry, West Midlands, England, 4 miles (6 km) north-east of the city centre. It is part of the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, and is the principal hospital serving Coventry and Rugby, providing a wide range of services. It works in partnership with the University of Warwick's Warwick Medical School. It has a large, progressive accident & emergency department providing a trauma service to Coventry and Warwickshire.
Travel de Courcey was a bus and coach operator based near Coventry in the West Midlands region of England. It operated local bus services in the Coventry and Warwickshire area and National Express contracts.
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Marcus Charles Jones is an English Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nuneaton since 2010. Previously he had been the Leader of Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council. He has been serving as Government Deputy Chief Whip and Treasurer of the Household since October 2022.
West Midlands bus route 360 was a 31-mile route that circumnavigated Coventry. Operated by Travel de Courcey, it was the longest urban bus route in Europe.
Colleen Margaret Fletcher is a British Labour Party politician. She was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Coventry North East in the 2015 general election. Prior to her parliamentary career, she was a local councillor.
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The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) is a combined authority for the West Midlands metropolitan county in the United Kingdom. It was established by statutory instrument under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. It is a strategic authority with powers over transport, economic development and regeneration. The authority formally came into being on 17 June 2016.
The inaugural West Midlands mayoral election was held on 4 May 2017 to elect the Mayor of the West Midlands, with subsequent elections to be held every four years from May 2020. The election took place alongside five elections for English metro mayors and other local elections, and ahead of the general election on 8 June 2017.
The Bedworth Echo was a weekly paid-for newspaper which was founded in 1979. The Echo was the only newspaper to exclusively serve Bedworth. It was further distributed to the neighbouring market town of Nuneaton, as well as Atherstone, Coventry, Hinckley, and Market Bosworth.