But in an extraordinarily long economic expansion, much of Britain’s dynamism has come from the towns strung out on the motorways out of London. Newbury is the headquarters of Vodafone, Europe’s biggest company; Cambridge has been transformed by its science parks; Kent is choking on the traffic generated by trade with Europe. I feel that we have been closest to capturing how modern Britain is changing when we have run stories about Romford’s efforts to create a “night-time economy” and Reading’s efforts to overcome its labour shortages by retraining prisoners.Now, having castigated London for being dominated by an introspective, self-absorbed élite that speaks a language only it understands and that is out of touch with the ordinary people it is attempting to govern, I am making a clean break and moving somewhere totally different. Brussels.Adapted from an article in the February 2001 issue of ‘Prospect’ magazine, www prospect-magazine.co.uk. The grandaddy of all television pop shows, Top of the Pops, is in line for yet another revamp. The grandaddy of all television pop shows, Top of the Pops, is in line for yet another revamp.
The BBC’s longest-running music show, first broadcast from a disused church in Manchester in January 1964, is being rescued from a Friday night slot, which pits it against Coronation Street on ITV.As well as a new time in the schedule, thought likely to be its original home on Thursday evenings, it is getting a new home and a completely new set.The show must move out of Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire to make way for increased production of EastEnders.

It will have a temporary home in west London until a permanent location is found Producers will then start work on a full relaunch. “We always aim to improve the show and revamp it on a weekly basis,” said Chris Cowey, executive producer and director on TOTP “We are moving studios some time in late April or early May. A new time slot is yet to be decided.”The move will not disappoint a production team that is used to squeezing an audience of 150 and several performing acts into just 6,000 square feet each week.. The BBC is to upgrade its coverage of the arts with changes to flagship programmes and a two-hour, prime-time slot on Saturdays.

The BBC is to upgrade its coverage of the arts with changes to flagship programmes and a two-hour, prime-time slot on Saturdays.
The corporation will scrap its much-heralded Sunday night Art Zone – 90 minutes of arts documentaries and performances that has failed to establish a regular audience.Late Review, which after several years in a successful Thursday night slot was incorporated into the Art Zone, will now become part of an extended Newsnight on Friday nights, adding half an hour to the programme. The segment will run for 50 weeks a year, and will be the first time Newsnight has taken on such a clear commitment to the arts.In addition, Later with Jools Holland, the music programme that has brought artists such as Moby to British audiences, will have a “ring-fenced” Friday slot at 11.30pm after Newsnight, rather than taking its chances at the end of the Saturday night schedule.These radical changes to programming are detailed by the new BBC arts chief, Roly Keating, in an interview in today’s media section of TheIndependent.Late Review, he says, “is a late-night programme and the critics on it are late-night people”. He says he is particularly pleased that the programme will now officially be a part of Newsnight.Significantly, Mr Keating’s arts producers will be incorporated into the Newsnight team, so they will be able to suggest far more coverage of arts news in addition to the usual coverage of politics and social affairs.One other key change will see Omnibus, BBC1’s arts documentary strand, being shared with BBC2 Indeed, most Omnibus editions will now be on BBC2. The move could raise eyebrows in the corporation as it had been said BBC1 would not drop Omnibus despite talk of the channel’s new remit to provide general entertainment.Mr Keating said that BBC1 would still present some Omnibus programmes when they had “a sense of the scale and excitement to feel like a national event”.

But he agreed that Omnibus would more often be found on BBC2 in the future.The BBC’s chart music show, Top of the Pops, is also in line for yet another revamp. The grand-daddy of all music shows is being rescued from a Friday night slot, which pits it against Coronation Street on ITV, and is thought likely to move back to Thursday nights.The show will be getting a new home and a completely new set when it moves out of Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, to make way for increased production of EastEnders. It will have a temporary home in west London until a permanent location is found.Producers will then start work on a full relaunch. Chris Cowey, the programme’s executive producer and director, said: “We always aim to improve the show and revamp it on a weekly basis We are moving studios some time in late April or early May.

A new time slot is yet to be decided.”* The BBC’s director general, Greg Dyke, told staff yesterday that spending on programmes by the end of the financial year 2002-03 would be £450m more than in 1999-200, an increase of 24 per cent.But in an address to mark the end of his first year in office, he also said that the corporation would have to continue to make savings elsewhere to help fund the increase in programme budgets.Mr Dyke said that cutting the number of management consultants had already saved the corporation £17m.Gerry Morrissey, assistant general secretary of the broadcasting union Bectu, warned standards would fall if there were more job cuts. He said: “We would oppose any reduction in jobs in the programme-making and technical areas as this would undoubtedly compromise the quality of programmes.”. Growing evidence of problems caused by teacher shortages will be outlined in the annual report of the chief inspector of schools today. Growing evidence of problems caused by teacher shortages will be outlined in the annual report of the chief inspector of schools today.
The assessment of schools in England and Wales by Mike Tomlinson will point to rising standards in secondaries. He is expected to say that only 6 per cent of secondary teaching is bad, compared with about 30 per cent a decade ago.But he is also expected to warn of the potential dangers posed by teacher shortages, the growing use of supply teachers, higher staff turnover and an increase in the mismatch between the subjects teachers are required to teach and their qualifications and experience.Overall, the report, based on evidence collected by inspectors from the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), which Mr Tomlinson heads, will be upbeat.