message of his music. ultimate message of his music. >> john, it's a great pleasure to talk to you today. you've lost none of your journalistic skill. you had us absolutely in the palm of your hand there, as you were describing your entry into lebanon. and let me just say again, the book is called in search of beethoven a personal journey by john suchet . thank journey by john suchet. thank you very much indeed for joining us today . and let me see. oh, us today. and let me see. oh, yes, after the interval, we're going to be talking about why young people are reading shorter novels rather than lengthy tomes like ulysses. but first we're going to have the news headlines with tatiana sanchez . with tatiana sanchez. >> michael, thank you very much . >> michael, thank you very much. the top stories from the gb newsroom. the king says he's greatly saddened by the sudden death of alex salmond, the former first minister of scotland. the alba leader died yesterday afternoon, aged 69, from a suspected heart attack

dunng from a suspected heart attack during a trip to north macedonia . during a trip to north macedonia. mr salmond had made a speech at the institute for cultural diplomacy forum and is understood to have collapsed at lunch in a crowded room . robert lunch in a crowded room. robert jenrick says he'll make sir jacob rees—mogg, chairman of the conservative party, if he triumphs against kemi badenoch in the party leadership contest. mr jenrick told gb news this morning that jacob has been a tireless campaigner for the grassroots and he understands better than anyone the need for party reform. >> i want to have a different way to select candidates, so we end the favoured sons and daughters of the leader being parachuted in. that was a disgrace. i want to stop members just getting emails asking for money, but never asking what do they want and where do they want they want and where do they want the party to go.7 let's they want and where do they want the party to go? let's build a mass membership democratic organisation. i think jacob will be a great asset to that. >> jonathan reynolds says it's not the government's position that p&o ferries is a rogue operator, despite a press release this week calling them a rogue employer. p&o ferries owner dp world will attend the international investment summit

tomorrow. they had previously threatened to pull out of the eventin threatened to pull out of the event in a £1 billion port investment. that's after the transport secretary, louise haigh, criticised their employment strategy and called for a boycott. the operator was criticised by politicians from both main parties in march 2022, when it suddenly sacked 800 british seafarers and replaced them with cheaper, mainly overseas staff , saying it was overseas staff, saying it was necessary to stave off bankruptcy. the business secretary told gb news camilla tominey that the billion pound investment will go ahead quickly on this issue. >> that's not the government's position. the issue obviously with p&o ferries is we're not going to recoil from that. we thought it was wrong to fire and rehire that. we saw those workers being sacked and then taken back on on fewer terms and conditions, but we have changed the law. it was lawful under the conservative government. it will be unlawful under this labour government, where companies accept that, acknowledge that can work within that framework. we will, of course, talk to them about investments. and i can tell you they're coming to the summit and the investment will go ahead.

>> and almost 500 migrants have crossed the english channel to the uk in one day. new figures released by the home office today show 471 migrants crossed the english channel on nine small boats yesterday. those latest arrivals bring the totals so far this year to 27,225, which is a 5% increase on the same time last year. but 25% less than two years ago. a home office spokesperson insists they are committed to dismantling people smuggling operations , people smuggling operations, saying the government will stop at nothing to bring these criminals to justice. and those are the latest gb news headlines. for now, i'm tatiana sanchez. more from me in half an hour for the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gb news forward slash

>> now welcome back to sunday with michael portillo. it seems that the younger generation's interest in literature is waning, with a preference for shorter, more visually engaging books over lengthy classics, partly due to the influence of smartphones and social media. academics argue that educational policies have failed to encourage reading for pleasure, contributing to declining numbers of english literature students and a shift towards young adult books rather than classic novels. according to 2023, figures from the national literacy trust , the number of 8 literacy trust, the number of 8 to 18 year olds who say they enjoy reading has sunk to its lowest level for almost 20 years, with a quarter fewer reading each day over that same time period. to share more with us about this topic, i'm joined now by the journalist charlotte lytton. charlotte. welcome back. lovely to talk to you again.

tell us your perspective on this issue. what is happening? >> well, speaking to academics, we can't deny it seems that there is a big problem here. >> and it starts right at school. as you read there, young children simply don't enjoy reading for pleasure as they did before. we can't deny that is also a massive part because of smartphones. smartphones? excuse me? because kids now are faced with all of these things vying for their attention. they just don't have to sit down and entertain themselves with a long book and nothing else as they did before. as we see from those figures, with people going to study humanities at university, the decline is just going all the decline is just going all the way because people simply are not interested in reading for pleasure as they were, and thatis for pleasure as they were, and that is just going to keep having knock on effects, both on the student population right now and going forward. >> do you get any feeling that education policy or that teachers are taking steps to counter this? >> well, there is a review of the curriculum going ahead right now, but school is a huge part

of it. one of the things that has come up in this conversation is whether teachers now are deaung is whether teachers now are dealing with crowd control, which means they can't simply encourage reading for pleasure because they're simply trying to get ahold of the students they have. so there's no doubt that a lot of this starts in the classroom, whether that's encouraging reading, giving people ideas of what to read , people ideas of what to read, talking about it, facilitating those conversations and really impressing upon people why it's so important to read. >> there's a very specific criticism of the gcse in english, which seems to have become rather technical and therefore is a sort of barrier to people wanting to take up a—level english. however, that can't be the whole story because this is happening certainly across the atlantic and probably across the atlantic and probably across the atlantic and probably across the world. >> well, this problem has been going on for a long time. there are also some massive macro factors going on here when it comes to taking study. further in english literature, such as kids today in the uk, they're paying kids today in the uk, they're paying three times what they were even 10 or 15 years ago for

university fees for jobs that in the news today, we've learned, are not paying well and are not going up salary wise. so people are getting less and less interested , both in the moment interested, both in the moment when it comes to the reading and in what that reading can give them down the line. people are forced to pay incredibly expensive fees. they're working part time jobs. that's taking time away from their studies at university as well, and time they might otherwise be spending reading for pleasure. and all of these factors are combining to a population that just reads less and less. >> and why are we even discussing this? why do we think there's an issue if people don't read jane austen or ulysses or war and peace ? what what harm war and peace? what what harm doesit war and peace? what what harm does it do to them? what harm does it do to them? what harm doesit does it do to them? what harm does it do to them? what harm does it do to them? what harm does it do to society if people don't read long books? >> i think there are two things. one is you learn so much indirectly and directly from literature. it's not about sitting down with a textbook. it's about understanding a world that you didn't live in through somebody else's eyes and all these different experiences that

you'll never be able to have yourself. but you can have a little window into by reading. the other factor is society is made up of all kinds of people who think very differently. if we funnel every student through the same path to do business studies , computer science, etc, studies, computer science, etc, we are going to have an incredibly lopsided society that only knows how to think in one way. and it's hard to imagine that's going to do us much good. >> so let me address those two points. as for understanding what happened in the past, you might