Scott Lucas on BBC Radio 5 Live

In a change from the latest on the elections and Barack Obama, I was part of a discussion on Simon Mayo's show this afternoon on father-son relationships. Still, I have to thank US politics for the 15 seconds of fame: the BBC is quite intrigued that Ryan, with The State of the United States, and I may be Britain's unique father-son bloggers on "America"....

It's the last item on the programme, beginning just before the 2:44:00 mark.

Scott Lucas on BBC World Service "Newshour"

I had the chance to discuss today's Bush-Obama "transition" meeting --- in a very light-hearted spirit --- with Robin Lustig of the BBC at 1300 GMT today.

The interview is just after the News Update at the halfway point of the programme.

Scott Lucas on the BBC World Service: What Now for the Republican Party?

I was called up by World Update, who devoted several minutes to the latest stories of in-fighting amongst the Republican Party. Interesting that Sarah Palin continues to occupy the media's focus, but also intriguing that this --- in contrast to Obama's victory --- is occupying so much attention.

The discussion begins just after 44:00 in the programme. If you have a player without a timer, it is the penultimate item, just before the interview with the comedian John Culshaw.

Race and the US Elections: Thumbs-Down for the BBC?

Dr Robert Beckford takes issue with the BBC's presentation of the issue of race in politics:

On the BBC Special Newsnight on Tuesday, Jeremy Paxman ended the show with a brief interview with Baroness Amos and the grime rap star Dizzy Rascal. If this was a very unfamiliar pairing in most cases, with a cabinet minister and a south London lyricist speaking on the subject, it was a very familiar BBC editorial on black British life.

The BBC's ideology asserts that there exists an 'authentic blackness' that come from 'da street.' So rather than have a politician and historian or a sociologist and politician, there needs to be someone from da street to 'keep it real'. Amos brilliantly projected the Obama victory into the UK, specifically focusing on the unresolved and generally ignored questions of the structural transformations necessary for inclusion in public and private sectors. After all, Obama and many of his generation were at the tail end of affirmative action and one of its main exports, the emergence and mainstreaming of African American intellectual life. But for all Amos' brilliance, any meaningful discussion was derailed by Rascal's lack of understanding. It was akin to pairing Andrew Young with the likes of (deceased) rapper 'Dirty Old Bastard.'

In contrast to the plethora of African American intellectuals, politicians and commentators rolled out on CNN over the past few days I think the BBC's offering reduced black British comment to the level of farce — rendering it at best irrelevant and at worst a bit of a joke.