Moral Maze - 22/07/2009

Michael Buerk chairs a debate on the moral questions behind the week's news. Michael Portillo, Melanie Phillips, Clifford Longley and Matthew Taylor cross-examine witnesses. The Moral Maze considers 'the holiday'. It's that time of year when we can't wait to get away from work for a couple of weeks. Our one opportunity a year to jet off to far-flung and exotic destinations spewing carbon all over the place, where the human rights record is often appalling, to be waited on hand and foot by some poor waiter who is only paid a couple of dollars a day and to stay in a hotel where their idea of an environmental policy is to take our rubbish to a landfill for local people to pick over it, rather than dumping it at sea. Is it time we re-calculated the true cost of that self indulgent holiday? Should we stay at home to help the UK economy? And should we think of improving the mind rather than our tan? The witnesses are: Leo Hickman Author of The Final Call: In Search of the True Cost of our Holidays James Panton Manifesto Club; Campaign to Celebrate the Freedom of Flying Cole Moreton Journalist, currently writing a book about Englishness Jonathan Lorie Director of Travellers Tales Festival, an international festival of travel writing and photography.