Liam Halligan speaks to Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid about the state of house building in the UK.

Sajid Javid on getting Britain building again

James Barr is the author of “A Line in the Sand” – a riveting book on how British and French diplomats re-made the map of the Middle East during and after the First World War.

This British historian tells a tale of hubris and political skulduggery, as two colonial powers cooked up the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, dividing the region by drawing a line across Syria, from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier.

Now Barr has written a follow-on book – Lords of the Desert – about the UK and America competing for influence across the Arab World during and after the Second World War.

“People have been fighting over Syria for as long as we have written records,” he says, during this wide-ranging discussion on post-colonialism and pipeline politics. Amidst today’s tragic Syrian conflict, with foreign powers still vying to control the region, Barr’s beautifully written books are of huge relevance.

JAMES BARR - HISTORIAN OF THE MIDDLE EAST - OCTOBER 2018

Sir Martin Jacomb was born in 1929. After Eton and Oxford, he was a  barrister, before starting a career in business. He has been Vice-Chairman of Kleinwort Benson, Deputy Chairman of Barclays and was Chairman of the Canary Wharf Group, the London Docklands property company, during the epic takeover battle of the early 2000s.

Sir Martin has also held senior board position at Rio Tinto and Marks and Spencer, been Chairman of Prudential and served on the Court of the Bank of England.

SIR MARTIN JACOMB - CITY FINANCIER - FEBRUARY 2020

Lend Me Your Ear is a series of extended one-to-one interviews with economists, politicians, policy makers and entrepreneurs conducted by Liam Halligan. Our guests range from leading academics to campaigners, opinion-formers and front-line lawmakers – all of whom share an interest in the interaction of economics and politics, that vital interface between ideas and vested interests where policy is made. In each episode, Liam leads an informal yet detailed discussion, a conversation designed to inform, illuminate and entertain. If you like what you hear, please subscribe – and encourage others to do the same. Lend Me Your Ear – Conversations Worth Hearing.

SIR MARTIN JACOMB - CITY FINANCIER - FEBRUARY 2020

LEND ME YOUR EAR

Related tracks