Be Excellent To Each Other

There's a better one than this somewhere in Newswipe which I'll try and dig out, but this is along the right lines:

(I'm not even sure it was Newswipe, but I've definitely seen something on the Beeb that tracked the seismic change in politics of 'politicians putting their beliefs out there and asking the public to get behind them' to 'why not just ask the idiots up front what they want and say that's what we'll do' - it really was fascinating.

http://youtu.be/0CbFNP96RjM?t=3m38s

As the article says though there are interviews where the understanding is that the interviewer can ask more tough questions and encounters like these where the understanding is that they are essentially just going deliver a statement. That's why the interviewer doesn't seem at all fazed or surprised by the manner of his response, he was just trying his luck and Milliband was refusing to bite. The whole thing just looked like business as usual for both of them, it looked unusual to us because it's not normally something we'd get to see, you'd normally just see one of the clips on the evening news.

Politicians have always been briefed heavily for interviews even those who appear as mighty orators through the rose-tinted glasses of the passage of time. If anything these days they probably end up in more situations where interviewers are allowed to ask them questions which they don't have a scripted answer to. Most of them used to just walk off in a huff if someone tried that.

I just don't buy it, sorry.
I listen to Today on R4 most mornings on the way into work; John Humphries and others seem to (quite rightly) give their interviewees a pretty torrid time of it, hardly in accordance with some pre-agreed scripted questions or whatever. See also Paxman/Newsnight.

I listen to Today on R4 most mornings on the way into work; John Humphries and others seem to (quite rightly) give their interviewees a pretty torrid time of it, hardly in accordance with some pre-agreed scripted questions or whatever. See also Paxman/Newsnight.

As I've said, to somehow excuse Miliband this performance on such a supposed premise strikes me as utterly absurd, but there we are.

What Mark said. It's also what Krishnan-Murphy says in that article.

And it's pretty rare to hear high-up politicians on Today anyway, since it's always such a set-up bun fight. When they do appear, it's to a much more compliant interviewer, not Humphries.

By now, there's a good chance you've seen the video of Ed Miliband using almost precisely the same words over and over again in an interview. If you haven't, it's well worth seeking out. The reporter asks him five different questions about the public sector strikes, and every time, Miliband says that he thinks the strikes are wrong while negotiations are still under way, that the government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner, and that it's time for both sides to put aside the rhetoric and get round the negotiating table. He repeats identical phrases ad nauseam. It sounds like an interview with a satnav stuck on a roundabout. Or a novelty talking keyring with its most boring button held down. Or a character in a computer game with only one dialogue option. Or an Ed Miliband-shaped phone with an Ed Miliband-themed ringtone. Or George Osborne.

Yes, George Osborne. Because shortly after posting a link to the Miliband video online, someone drew my attention to a similar clip of Osborne dating from late last year, in which the 14-year-old chancellor answers a series of different questions about the economy by reciting a single soundbite over and over, like a mantra.

This in turn reminded me of a clip I'd stumbled across during research for an episode of Newswipe, in which Alistair Darling spent five minutes repeating an identical phrase about "global recession" over and over. At the time I'd figured it was a one-off. Clearly it's not. It's a standard gambit.

All three clips are terrifying. First you think you're hearing things. Then you wonder whether time itself has developed hiccups. Finally you decide none of these people can possibly be human. Because they look absolutely, unequivocally insane.

And if it looks weird on tape, imagine how it felt actually being there, standing in front of them, asking the questions. Actually, you don't have to imagine it – you can read an insider's description of it. ITN's Damon Green, the reporter who was putting the questions to Miliband, has written an entertaining and very illuminating behind-the-curtain blogpost about the experience.

The first interesting thing is just how twatty the Miliband PR handlers appear to have been, demanding their man be positioned "in front of his bookcase, with his family photos over his left shoulder", and insisting on checking the shot themselves, like a trio of dull Stanley Kubricks. (Interestingly, Green also notes that David Cameron's handlers apparently "never let him be filmed in front of anything expensive, ornate, or strikingly Etonian". Presumably for similar reasons they also forbid him to be photographed in front of heartless chunks of moneyed shit.)

Anyway, after posing several questions only to receive oblivious identikit responses from Miliband, Green says: "I began getting twinges of what I can only describe as existential doubt." By the end he wanted to ask him: "What is the world's fastest fish?", just to throw him off-stride. (Kudos to Green for a) being funny and b) describing how weird the Miliband encounter actually felt. Not usually a political correspondent, it was a new experience for him.)

The reason for the Speak-and-Spell tactic is obvious: in all three cases (Miliband, Osborne, Darling) the PR handler responsible must have figured that since the interview would be whittled down to one 10-second soundbite for that evening's news bulletins, and since they didn't want to risk their man saying anything ill-advised or vaguely interesting, they might as well merely ignore all the questions and impersonate an iPod with just one track on it. What's unusual is that it's taken until now for one of these unedited interviews to go a bit viral. The Darling interview took place at least two years ago. The BBC News site often plays host to what amount to unedited rushes, which are sometimes more instructive than a final packaged report. As far as I can tell, the "Miliband loop", as it shall now be known, first materialised there (despite being conducted by an ITN reporter, it was a "pool" interview for all channels to use). The BBC site is also where the Osborne and Darling clips ended up. In all three cases they were unaccompanied by any comment about the repetitive lunacy contained within. No "WARNING: WATCHING THIS MIGHT MAKE YOU FEEL A BIT MAD." None of that.

What this tells you is that many people working in TV news have grown so accustomed to seeing tapes in which politicians blankly replicate a single phrase as if they're summoning Candyman, it no longer strikes them as unusual.

But it is unusual: bloody unusual. You might say it symbolises everything that's wrong with everything. The modern world suffers from a cavernous reality deficit. You know it, I know it. Even "they" know it. Reciting the same line over and over like a Countryfile presenter practising a piece to camera, Miliband must have felt twice as mad as Green. Two men locked in a shared hallucination while the camera rolled.

It's no surprise that politicians gabble pre-scripted taglines in order to dodge awkward questions and avoid having off-the-cuff comments inflated into a full-blown gaffe. And it's no surprise the media routinely colludes in this surreal pantomime. But it's only when you stand back and watch the rushes that you see how crazy the situation has become. Honestly, it gives you vertigo.

Clearly an intervention is necessary. Next time you pass an MP being interviewed on the street, set off a party popper. Jump in and shriek. Get your bum out. Anything. Just to prompt some kind of authentic human reaction from either side.

Because we can't go on like this. It's just too damn weird.

There must be a good word or phrase to describe a situation where two sane, intelligent and educated adults sit opposite each other, and do something they both know to be utterly ridiculous.

This whole thing is one reason why the live TV election debates were incredibly important, and why wimping out and putting loads of restrictions on how they were run was a disaster.

I just can't be that cynical or bleak about this. It *is* possible to have belief and conviction in politics, even now, and I'm betting will come back into vogue soon enough.

All we need now is a rough, bold yet charismatic political streetfighter With A Plan, who can sweep aside all these PR-types that have infested the corridors of power for too long now, post Bliar!

Hmmmm....

There must be a good word or phrase to describe a situation where two sane, intelligent and educated adults sit opposite each other, and do something they both know to be utterly ridiculous.

Marriage?

I mean, think about this: What if there's someone in parliament right now doing exactly what you're saying we need someone to do? Hell, there could be five of them, but when would we ever hear about it?

My local MP went for the leadership against Brown - you'd disagree with a lot of his views, Cavey, but for standing up and saying shit you'd love him. He has no qualms at all about telling the party line to fuck off, and got into trouble once for touching the special ceremonial poncey mace as a protest over (I think) the heathrow runway thing, which was always going to shit all over his constituents, who he sticks his neck out for all the time.

Dying breed, really.

He would never get elected by all those new labour cockends and he knows it, but he stood anyway because he thought it wrong not to have some sort of contest.

John McDonnell? Spoke to him on a few ocassions, definitely a man who you'd call a conviction politician.

That's him, aye. Does bloody good work for his area, too - I suspect, in fact, that MPs like him (not necessarily sharing his views, but in working for their area) are the main reason that Labour still have a lot of support - people support their MPs, not the tossers in the cabinet. We vote for him, not for Labour.