- Oliver Shiell: I'm a small business owner that looks after trading and investment with China and the rest of the world.
- Oliver Shiell: I did see the pandemic coming. Last time I flew to China I was in the south of China and on the plane on the way over I had a sort of fleeting thought which was how lucky it was that I was travelling to China because I didn't know how long this would last, I didn't know how long international travel would last because it seemed to me that it just isn't sustainable to continue to operate as a global society from either an environmental perspective but also from a health perspective. So, I do, I have been expecting something like this for some time.
- Oliver Shiell: I didn't particularly get on well with structured education because I'm dyslexic so I spent most of my school life being told I wasn't good enough, even though I had creative and thoughtful ideas about many different subjects. I found it difficult to communicate that in a way which the established system valued.
- Oliver Shiell: The true privilege of Oxford is, actually, the people you meet there and the way in which you can become inspired by truly great minds. I was very fortunate because my boss was a sort of entrepreneurial academic who was very generous with me in terms of sort of mentoring and support and seeing the bigger picture in the world.
- Oliver Shiell: Whilst I was at Oxford University, working there, I took the opportunity to do as much executive education as I could. So, I did programmes on leadership negotiation. the final programme I did was a master's diploma in strategy and innovation. Whilst I was doing that programme it struck me that, actually, although China wasn't a core part of the programme or core focus for the programme, for my generation it's all about China.
- Oliver Shiell: I was employed by the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business by writing to them and suggesting that they might appoint me. At the time, I was working for Oxford University and delivering an Oxford business forum in China at the State Guest House, in Beijing. So, I had a letter which I'd crafted very carefully, translated into Chinese, and I sent it to them and said I was going to be in Beijing and perhaps we should meet up.
- Oliver Shiell: Building trust with China is a multi-phase process which requires a couple of key things.
- John Spellar: I got a scholarship to Oxford where I did Politics and Economics and then worked for over 20 years for the Electricians' Union. I was a Labour councillor in South London and then have been a member of parliament in the West Midlands for 27 years. In government I was a defence minister, transport, Northern Ireland and then Deputy Chief Whip in opposition, being incredibly busy. We have had a huge upsurge in case work from constituents. I've got one of the most multicultural constituencies in the country. The Guardian newspaper estimated there's about 134 languages spoken in my constituency.
- John Spellar: The particular nature of the Covid19 pandemic is unusual. However, as a government minister, I've been involved in planning for a pandemic basically around influenza. But, an influenza against which there was not any defences. And that's obviously been things like avian flu and also when influenza is combined with pigs. What slightly surprised me in the government's response is that many of the lessons and the basic practices and schemes that we had worked out don't seem to have clicked in as efficiently, as effectively, as I'd have thought.
- John Spellar: I think China has a considerable responsibility, particularly in the delays in letting the rest of the world, and particularly the scientific community, have access to the data. It's very clear that specialists in China were concerned at a much earlier stage and, basically, were repressed by the Communist Party machinery. And, China, but the rest of the world, has paid a very, very heavy cost for that.
- John Spellar: China is a fact. China is a major country but what it does mean, that there has to be a reset of British policy.
- James Hogan: The referendum shows that the British public had had enough. The British public voted in that referendum to put a stop to what had come to be seen as Europe grabbing control of British affairs and stealing British sovereignty. They wanted, most of all, an end to the free movement of labour and what they saw as uncontrolled immigration.
- James Hogan: It was a bitter blow to the pro-Europeans, both in the Conservative Party and in the Labour party. Both the pro-European wing of the Conservative Party and the pro-European wing of the Labour party were convinced that the British public would vote in favour of remaining an integral part of Europe. They didn't do so.
- Old-Nick: It may be better but in real terms, we are not that way: we are upside down! Our eyes filter the way we need to see otherwise our brain will panic as you did! We are all in fact upside down. Our real vision is blurred and more like the vision of a colour blind: again the filters behind our eyes made it all bearable.
- Old-Nick: Henry Purcell is probably the greatest British musician and composer that has ever lived. The King Arthur opera is a fantastic masterpiece. I will never be tired of playing or singing the whole opera. A 17th-century composer of a unique form of baroque music: actually elements of very early jazz and rock. He was buried in Westminster Abbey no one can say for sure when he was born. He composed the opera "King Arthur".
- Old-Nick: King Arthur was more than a legend, he actually existed in the late 5th century. Rumour has it that he came from Pict -then Scotland- to the Kingdom of Marcia -Wales- when they fought the Irish who came over to England to the loot as the roman armies had left but were still in Gaul / France and had to return briefly as it was chaos.
- Old-Nick: They say that the Knights of the Round Table, Lancelot and the Holy grail were added afterwards and in France as the legend was spreading all over Europe. across France stories of the sword of Excalibur spread like wildfires. When King Arthur died in Italy and all over the new roman empire everyone started to talk about England, Britain and this one Kingdom. It may have been added to the British heritage and this is a very interesting point at what point a foreign culture becomes our own?
- Old-Nick: Without the Knights of the Round Table who started everything, in Britain there would have been no culture -except Stonehenge- no power and probably no civilisation-.
- Christine Peterson: Women in British history? I think it all comes down to literature really. Yes there are plenty but of course and this is only my humble opinion and many will disagree with me but a few stand out. Emily Brontë is one of them. And my other favourite being Nick's favourite too, George Eliot. I think both writers has the output that a man has. When George Eliot wrote "Scenes of Clerical Life" -a masterpiece- it was to me written under the eyes of a man. In fact it is staggering how many people believe that George Eliot is actually a woman and not just outside Britain. Men fear women's writing. Harry Potter was initially advertised very confusedly by being written by a man. They believed that young boys would not have bought it if they would have known that it was written by a man. Women writing is still mainly marketed to woman.
- Christine Peterson: I'm firm believer that Shakespeare is a brand name written by a mythological character and "his" entire work has actually been written by many people. Again to me, Othello and Twelve Nights are the works of a woman.
- Christine Peterson: Of course we have a Queen as a head of state and had one on many occasions through our history. I'm not sure if you can say if that it is being a feminist, but somehow it is a phenomenal achievement. Feminism is mostly an advancement from the left of the political divide and as a result the Queen is not regarded as an achievement which is a shame, really.
- Kieran Williams: My name's Kieran Williams. I'm 29 years old. I'm from South London. I grew up in Brixton. Currently residing in Kennington, which is where my mum lives. I'm one of five, the eldest of my mum's children. I was in care for most of my childhood. I was in non-contested care and I've got four other siblings that were all adopted on my mum's side and my dad's got many children.
- Kieran Williams: Yeah, I grew up in South London from about the age of, you know, probably about four, I'd say about from four years old I was out and about, you know, so very quickly I was around older children, I learned about, you know the street life and my parents were heavily influenced at the time in drugs, they were selling drugs, my dad was selling drugs, my mum was taking drugs and my dad was taking and smoking weed. And so I learned about all of those things very quickly.
- Kieran Williams: I've been through some traumatic past. I had this sort of abusive situation going on when I was a child, not directly but there was basically a sex offender who was around the house, who was like a lodger, in my grandma's house. That affected me from early, I had to watch my cousin, a female suffer some abuse and then luckily I stood up to him and kind of got wrapped up in the end but yeah, towards the end of that I sort of grew out of that and then like I said I went into foster care, I was the last.
- Kieran Williams: You know, when you've got nobody around you, like I said, I'd come out of care at this point, you... there's a sense of accountability that's not... it's not the, you know, you should have done this and you should have done that; it's having someone to talk to and somebody to sort of like explain you know when you go through things that are hard, or whatever. It's that part of life when I think... when a person misses that or doesn't have somebody to fill that gap in. That energy can fester and it can... it can manifest in all types of things for people, you know, in their life, like arguments, you know, all kind of bad things that people don't really want to be dealing with.