Michael Crick

Michael Lawrence Crick (born 21 May 1958) is an English broadcaster, journalist, and author. He was a founding member of the Channel 4 News Team in 1982 and remained there until joining the BBC in 1990. He started work on the BBC's Newsnight programme in 1992, serving as political editor from 2007 until his departure from the BBC in 2011. Crick then returned to Channel 4 News, as political correspondent. In 2014 he was chosen as Specialist Journalist of the Year at the Royal Television Society television journalism awards.

Early life

Crick was born in Northampton, the eldest child of teachers John Crick and Patricia Wright, and brother to triplets Catherine, Anne and Beatrice. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and in 1975 was a member of the winning school team in the English Speaking Union Public Speaking Competition. Crick joined the Labour Party at the age of 15, and while revising for his A-levels, he worked as election agent for the party's candidate Gerard Collier (now Lord Monkswell).

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster that began transmission on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public body established in 1990, coming into operation in 1993. With the conversion of the Wenvoe transmitter group in Wales to digital on 31 March 2010, Channel 4 became a UK-wide TV channel for the first time.

The channel was established to provide a fourth television service to the United Kingdom in addition to the television licence-funded BBC's two services and the single commercial broadcasting network, ITV.

History

Conception

Before Channel 4 and S4C, Britain had three terrestrial television services: BBC1, BBC2, and ITV. The Broadcasting Act 1980 began the process of adding a fourth, and Channel 4, along with its Welsh counterpart, was formally created by an Act of Parliament in 1982. After some months of test broadcasts, it began scheduled transmissions on 2 November 1982.

Channel 4 News

Channel 4 News is the main news programme on British television broadcaster Channel 4. It is produced by ITN, and has been in operation since Channel 4's launch in November 1982.

Current productions

Channel 4 News

Channel 4 News is the name of UK Channel 4's award-winning flagship evening news programme.

The news editor is Ben de Pear, appointed in July 2012. The programme is presented by Jon Snow, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Cathy Newman and Matt Frei and is on the air Monday to Friday from 19:00–19:55 on Channel 4 and at variable times on weekends. Alex Thomson is the chief correspondent.

Channel 4 News is among the highest-rated television programmes in the United Kingdom, winning a record five Royal Television Society Television Awards in February 2006. These included TV Journalist of the Year for Jon Snow, Home News Award for the Attorney General leak, and the International News Award for Congo's Tin Soldiers.

It won the News Coverage British Academy Television Award in 2004 and the 2004 International Emmy for the best news programme produced and aired outside the United States. Jon Snow won the Richard Dimbleby British Academy Television Award in 2005 for outstanding contribution to the world of news and current affairs.

Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (/kɔːrbɪn/; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who is the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983 and was elected Labour Leader in 2015. Ideologically, he identifies as a democratic socialist.

Born in Chippenham in Wiltshire, Corbyn attended Adams' Grammar School and later North London Polytechnic without attaining a degree. Before entering politics he worked as a representative for various trade unions. His political career began when he was elected to Haringey Council in 1974 and later was secretary of the Islington Constituency Labour Party (CLP). He continued in both roles until he entered the House of Commons as an MP.

Corbyn has received awards for his work as an international human rights campaigner. As an MP he is known for his activism and rebelliousness, frequently voting against the Labour whip when the party was in government under New Labour leaders Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Corbyn advocates an anti-austerity platform of reversing austerity cuts to public sector and welfare funding made since 2010, proposing preventing tax evasion and avoidance by corporations and wealthy individuals, reducing corporate subsidies, and pursuing an invest-to-grow economic strategy as an alternative. He proposes renationalisation of public utilities and the railways, abolishing university tuition fees, and financing "People's Quantitative Easing" to fund infrastructure and renewable energy projects. A longstanding anti-war and anti-nuclear activist, Corbyn supports a foreign policy of military non-interventionism and a unilateral policy of nuclear disarmament. Corbyn is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Amnesty International and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). He was the national chair of the Stop the War Coalition from June 2011 until September 2015.

Godfrey Bloom

Godfrey William Bloom TD (born 22 November 1949) is a British politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber from 2004 to 2014. He was elected for the UK Independence Party in the European elections of 2004 and 2009, representing UKIP until September 2013, when UKIP withdrew the party whip from him. He then sat as an Independent until the end of his term of office in May 2014. Bloom subsequently resigned his UKIP party membership on 13 October 2014.

During his tenure, he received attention for making remarks considered objectionable by his party leader, for his opinions concerning climate change and for making other controversial comments. On 20 September 2013, UKIP withdrew the party whip from Bloom after he struck journalist Michael Crick in the street with a conference brochure, threatened a second reporter, and at the party's conference jokingly referred to his female audience as sluts. Bloom resigned his party whip from UKIP on 24 September 2013 and thereafter sat as an Independent MEP until the end of his term in office on 2 July 2014.