Drum: DEMOCRACY I
To a politician most problems are about image – and
they have a point. These days, for example, we are
unlikely to elect a bald prime minister. However, it’s
not simply personal presentation that counts. I’m
just as unlikely to see a black prime minister in my
lifetime. The overall image of politics needs urgent
attention, which brings us to the media.
Media and politics are inseparable. The media,
although it loudly complains, is generally compliant
in this malignant partnership, invariably reporting
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studio would be thrown into confusion! Political
interviews are like playing ping-pong – except the
ball never comes back.
Interviews, like speeches, are a way of avoiding
communicating with people. My most enduring
images of the last few elections are of John Prescott
hitting a young man in Rhyl for throwing an egg,
Tony Blair caught by a woman called Sharron Storer
who complained about inadequate funding for the
NHS, and Margaret Thatcher arguing with Diana
“Ministers are incompetent, hopeless muddlers. The one area that
seems to be working well – the economy – does so due to the
absence of political interference from the Chancellor.”
ministerial ‘initiatives’ as news, only to be quietly
dropped later. But like all bad marriages, things get
worse as we watch.
Media presents politicians as self-important,
pompous, unrealistic, attention-seekers, always on
the make. Meanwhile, locked in its partnership role,
media has become nosy, scep F