1. Kirsty, I’ve been made aware of your tweets and would like to respond.
‘Mrs Thatcher would be spinning in her grave.’
It is very clear in Mrs Thatchers memoirs, ‘The Downing Street Years,’ that she very much wanted to sell C4 in 1988.
2 ‘C4 should be preserved as it is’ - with decreasing advertising revenue and decreasing investment in new content, that is not possible.
‘at least to let it change as it wants, not as the Gov dictates’ - The Government own C4. This fact appears to be lost in the outrage.
3. If C4 were ever unable to repay borrowings or liabilities, the burden would fall on the taxpayer, presenting the Gov with limited options. We have chosen an option to allow C4 to do exactly as you wish, thrive.
4. There is of course the bonus a sale will bring to the entire sector which is that the proceeds of sale will be invested back into people from all backgrounds, especially those from left behind communities because talent is everywhere, not just in the SE.
5. We will invest in skills in order to benefit from incoming demand
due to our booming film and TV sector due to the favourable tax benefit/relief and funding this gov has put in place to encourage film industry to regard Britain as its home.
6. I also love C4, especially Location Location, but as I say in my article, it’s time to look to the future.The channels salad days are in the past. Being owned by the Gov is restrictive. Time for C4 to fly the nest towards a very exciting future.
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There is much speculation about the time at which I become appointed the bailiff of Northstead Manor, as part of the arcane resignation process when standing down as an MP.
To put an end to this…
I am awaiting responses to my Subject Access Requests submitted to HOLAC, Cabinet Secretary and the Cabinet Office. where I will then take the time to properly consider the information I am provided.
I have requested copies of WhatsApp’s, text messages, all emails and minutes of meetings both formal and informal with names of senior figures un redacted. My office continues to function as normal and will of course continue to serve my constituents of Mid Bedfordshire as we… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
There is something fundamentally wrong with arms length bodies such as @ace_national being given large amounts of public / tax payer funding over which the Secretary of State with departmental responsibility has no say and no control.
The public don’t pay their taxes for unelected individuals on generous salaries to sit in swanky offices deciding how they think it should be spent.
The reason it happens is to ensure decisions taken are not made with undue political bias.
However, this reasoning is now nonsensical as political bias in the decision making process is rife. I saw it over and over when I was a health minister and I had to deal with it as a SoS at @DCMS
This is not the fault of civil servants, who have to pick up the fall out.
1/6 For the year I served as SoS in @DCMS Molly Russell and her family were in the back of my mind as we knocked the online safety bill into shape. This week has obviously been utterly harrowing for them and they have been heroic to campaign in the selfless way they have.
2/6 I was proud of where we had got to and grateful to @DCMS officials who worked flat out over the past year to get young and vulnerable people to a place of safety in the complex online world of big tech.
3/6 There were opportunists who didn’t want to be seen to support the bill and playing politics, blocked the last three hours of debate meaning debate time expired before Parliament rose. A dark and shameful day.