Women's Parliamentary Radio is a website that broadcasts audio and video interviews with women MPs of all parties in the U.K.
All the interviews are pre-recorded and put on the website as reports which can be streamed and listened to immediately or downloaded as podcasts so that they can be listened to later. It covers topical current affairs that are of interest to women and their families. Where the issues that concern women are also championed by men, male MPs are interviewed, too.
WPR has stated its aim as being "the Woman's Hour of Westminster, reporting fairly and accurately on policy issues of concern to women and their families". [1] It was the creation of its executive producer, former BBC political editor Boni Sones OBE. Using her broadcast knowledge, she foresaw the huge technological shift that was in broadcast journalism through the relaxation of broadcasting laws in 2005 and advances in new technology taking place. Boni taught herself sound engineering techniques assisted by Peter Cook of the CART lab University of Cambridge and pioneered the first "as live" broadcast interviews online encouraged by women MPs at a Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet level including Theresa May MP, Caroline Spelman MP, Harriet Harman MP, Vera Baird MP, Sandra Gidley MP and Jo Swinson MP.
Boni took her web broadcasting work into Cambridge University's Judge Business School where she reported on business and economics leading up to, during and after the financial crash of 2008 and 2009. The London School of Economics now has an archive dedicated to her Parliamentary and university work as an early adopter of broadcast web journalism: the "Boni Sones Archive". [2]
The British Library has a collection of 82 audio interviews Boni and her team conducted for a book on women in politics. Boni named the archive "The Harman Shephard" collection. [3]
Boni used her web skills and modern developments in technology to self-publish books about her childhood growing up in Sizewell in Suffolk in the 1950s and being part of a family who lived off "the fat of the land". The books include The Mermaid's Tale, A Portrait of Suffolk, Two Mermaid's Together, Food on the Table - All in One, Dear Alex - All in One, All4Now, and Home Fires: 20 poems 4 2012. All are deposited in the British Library, and all are on Amazon. [4]
From January 2012 to January 2013 www.wpradio.co.uk and www.parliamentaryradio.com got over 2,000 visitors each month. In October 2012 it had 3,697 visits in one month. For the year it had 400,482 hits, 12,650 unique visitors, and 35,518 visits.
The project has grown out of the publication of the book by Methuen in September 2005 Women in Parliament: The New Suffragettes 'Women in Parliament: The New Suffragettes] by Boni Sones, Margaret Moran and Professor Joni Lovenduski, where women talked frankly about their lives in Parliament and their achievements to date. The project's founders are concerned that, over ninety years after women won the right to stand for elections to the House of Commons in 1918, only one in five Members of Parliament is a woman. [5]
The publication of the book led Roy Greenslade, then media commentator in the Guardian, to offer his own “mea culpa” to women MPs for the descriptions he has used of them. His article ended: [6]
“It is sobering to realise that the suffragettes' original demand was simply to have the vote. Some saw that as the end in itself, others as the first step on a long road towards genuine equality. Modern women MPs are still travelling down that road and are right to complain that their feet are sore.”
Boni has been helped throughout in her work by journalist colleagues Jackie Ashley of the Guardian, Deborah McGurran of BBC East, Linda Fairbrother formerly of Anglia TV, and MPs working at a Senior Level across party including Gisela Stuart MP, Eleanor Laing MP, Baroness Susan Kramer, and Penny Mordaunt MP. The charity campaigner, Boo Armstrong, provided much-needed encouragement and support as an Advisory Board member in the early days.
Since WP Radio began in spring 2007, [7] over 250 interviews nationally and internationally and 30 documentaries have been broadcast. It celebrated its sixth year of broadcasting and will become an Archive site only from summer 2013.
In January 2013 Boni's four portraits of women MPS party by party by Kieran Doherty who took the famous "Blair's Babes" photograph went on display at the National People's History Museum in Manchester as their “Object of the Month”. [8] The United Nations has also collected them.
In October 2009 Boni displayed at the National Portrait Gallery and later in the Commons. These four group portraits to celebrate 90 years of women and the vote. She published a DVD of her and her colleagues' interviews and these portraits and sent to all women MPs. [9]
In 2011 a new platform was launched — www.parliamentaryradio.com — after the London School of Economics took the www.wpradio.co.uk site into its Political Archives to preserve for historians. [10]
Earlier in 2011 wpradio broadcast interviews with women MPs in the UK Parliament interviewing women MPs from other Parliaments using the telephone in place of a "line booking". One of the stated aims of wpradio was to "link in" women in Parliaments all over the world, thereby creating a radio online "World Service" reporting parliament by parliament.
In 2010 the broadcasts of wpradio were featured on a wall where audiences using headphones could listen to ten of its interviews at the well-received and reviewed Tricycle Theatre's Women Power and Politics plays.
In 2008 Women's Parliamentary Radio was shortlisted for Channel 4's Hansard Society Democracy Award. [11] Boni Sones, executive producer of the channel, was nominated for the Dods and Scottish Widows female political journalist of the year award. In January 2009 she was appointed an OBE for "Services to Broadcasting and Public Relations". [12]
www.wpradio.co.uk is based partially in the Parliamentary Lobby and was assisted by Muir Morton, the then Deputy Serjeant-at-Arms in the House, and the late Brian Shallcross, of GCap Media, and a former chairman of the Lobby who saw the need for a new broadcaster on behalf of women MPs themselves and the potential of new media.
Their resulting 550 interviews over 15 years can now be found in one of four audio Archives nationally at the British Library, the London School of Economics, The History of Parliament Trust and now the Churchill Archives University of Cambridge [13] . Sones has also written four books about these podcast interviews and archives which are in all the major Libraries of the UK.
Prime Minister's Questions is a constitutional convention in the United Kingdom, currently held as a single session every Wednesday at noon when the House of Commons is sitting, during which the prime minister answers questions from members of Parliament (MPs).
Harriet Ruth Harman is a British politician and solicitor who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Camberwell and Peckham, formerly Peckham, since 1982. A member of the Labour Party, she has served in various Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet positions. Since 29 June 2022 she has been Chair of the House of Commons Privileges Committee.
Janet Anderson was a British politician from the Labour Party. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Rossendale and Darwen from 1992 until 2010, when she lost her seat. She was the Minister for Tourism from 1998 to 2001, a period which included the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak. In the 2009 United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, she was found to have claimed costs for journeys she had not made.
Karen Patricia Buck is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Westminster North, previously Regent's Park and Kensington North, since 1997. A member of the Labour Party, she was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport from 2005 to 2006 and has served as Shadow Minister for Social Security since 2020.
Maria Eagle is a British politician who served in the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. She later served in the Shadow cabinets of Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn. A member of the Labour Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Garston and Halewood, previously Liverpool Garston, since 1997.
Jacqueline Margaret Ballard has been a charity senior manager, politician and journalist in the United Kingdom. She served as Liberal Democrat MP for Taunton from 1997 to 2001.
Daphne Barbara Follett is a British Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Stevenage from 1997 to 2010. During this time she held several parliamentary and ministerial positions.
John Timothy Grogan is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Selby between 1997 and 2010 and for Keighley between 2017 and 2019. He is currently chair of the Mongolian–British Chamber of Commerce (MBCC).
Julie Kirkbride is a British Conservative politician. She was the Member of Parliament for the Conservative stronghold of Bromsgrove from the 1997 to the 2010 general elections.
Dame Caroline Alice Spelman is a British Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Meriden in the West Midlands from 1997 to 2019. From May 2010 to September 2012 she was the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in David Cameron's coalition cabinet, and was sworn as a Privy Counsellor on 13 May 2010.
Margaret Mary Moran is a former Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. Moran was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Luton South from the 1997 general election to 2010. In November 2012, jurors at Southwark Crown Court ruled that she had falsified her parliamentary expenses; she had been unable to stand trial because of mental health issues, but the case was nevertheless heard without her. Her fraudulent claims totalled more than £53,000, the highest amount by any politician in the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal.
Lorely Jane Burt, Baroness Burt of Solihull is a British politician, who was the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Solihull from 2005 to 2015. She was nominated for a life peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours.
Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey is a constituency of the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. As with all seats since 1950 it elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
Ross, Skye and Lochaber is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster). It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
Celia Anne Barlow is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hove from 2005 to 2010. She also worked as home news editor at the BBC.
John MacKenzie Nicolson is a Scottish journalist, broadcaster and Scottish National Party (SNP) politician.
Susan Elan Jones is a former British Labour Party politician, who was elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Clwyd South, replacing the previous Labour MP Martyn Jones after his retirement. She returned to the voluntary sector after leaving Parliament.
Emma Elizabeth Reynolds is a British Labour politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wolverhampton North East from 2010 to 2019, and the Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in 2015.
Sarah Elizabeth Dines is a British Conservative Party politician. She has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Derbyshire Dales since the 2019 general election. She has been serving as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding since October 2022. She served as Lord Commissioner of the Treasury from September to October 2022.
Robert Largan is a British Conservative Party politician, who was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for High Peak at the 2019 general election. He has been serving as Assistant Government Whip since October 2022.