09/05/2011

Nick Clegg has said that protecting the NHS is now his number one priority, claiming that "no bill is better than a bad bill". Meanwhile, one of his own MPs says the whole NHS reform exercise ought to be "stopped rather than paused". Tonight Michael Crick will be examining the politics of this - one of the most radical plans in the history of the health service - and Paul Mason will be asking if the opportunity to really reform the NHS has been lost for this generation. Stephen Smith goes in search of the flat white drinking, Guardian reading, progressive North London "commentariat" who voted 'yes' in last week's referendum on the alternative vote. Jeremy will be asking the former US assistant secretary of defence Joseph Nye what power is. And Will Gompertz meets film maker Terry Gilliam - the man who ran away from Minnesota to join Monty Python's Flying Circus - to find out how he got on with his operatic directorial debut, The Damnation of Faust for the ENO.