Margaret Thatcher | The End of Michael Foot | State Opening of Parliament 1983 | 22/06/1983

[@davidbeeney3751]

Thank you for sharing this and your other uploads. In the interests of balance, it would have been interesting to hear the contribution from Michael Foot immediately before, and also Callaghan and Foot in your uploads of Mrs Thatcher's contribution in previous debates. Are these available anywhere? I realise they would be available in the Hansard transcript, but it is often in hearing the delivery that the quality of those contributions comes through.

[@EugenusRex]

Thank you for your comment. I agree with you entirely and if I had free access to the opposition statement, I would have certainly included it. The audio from every Margaret Thatcher video I have uploaded so far is already freely available online. I would have to spend a considerable amount of money to buy the equivalent opposition statements to create the full debate. It has already occurred to me that uploading entire debates may be a good idea for the future but until this channel crosses the required thresholds for monetisation, I am somewhat hamstrung. Thank you for your interest and please keep watching.

[@davidbeeney3751]

@@EugenusRex Thank you for your reply - I completely understand your point. Do you know if they are publicly accessible anywhere? I would be interested in hearing for example comparable debates and PMQs from earlier on when Parliament's proceedings were broadcast, albeit on radio, which I believe was from around 1975. I realise that may come at a cost, perhaps from the BBC archives.

[@EugenusRex]

@@davidbeeney3751 Hello again. I have previously enquired with the Parliamentary Recording Unit as to how to gain access to the BBC’s trial run of parliamentary procedures from 1975. They have informed me that those recordings are not in their collection. I would therein presume that the BBC still hold the recordings and that they are being kept under the stewardship of the British Library or the British Film Institute, respectively. It is effectively impossible to obtain access to the BBC archive unless one is a large production studio seeking to spend a lot of money on archive material. Having requested access myself, the best I can say is that they’re generally rude about it upon being asked but that it is possible to view or listen to requested material in viewing rooms at the British Library or the BFI. I should also note that by 1975 the BBC had still not grown out of its perplexing habit of destroying its own archive material after broadcast. One would hope that the tapes have been preserved. I have written to the BBC to complain about how ineffectively their historically rich archive is being utilised online, particularly considering the model through which they are funded (one would think it is in the public interest for such material to be available to the public, for educational purposes if nothing else). I would like to see the BBC amass a presence as a large historical archive in the future, but I shall not be holding my breath. I hope some of that was informative. Thank you for your interest.

[@davidbeeney3751]

@@EugenusRex Many thanks for your detailed and informative reply and for taking the time. It is greatly appreciated. Best regards. David

[@rah62]

The decision was made by the electorate, and the opposition's opinions were wholeheartedly rejected. There is no need to include such discredited nonsense here.