Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
25 FEBRUARY 2004
MS ELINOR
GOODMAN, MR
PETER RIDDELL,
MR GEORGE
PASCOE-WATSON
AND MR
MICHAEL WHITE
Q40 Chairman: Are there any other technology
points, the use of e-mail or the system?
Mr Riddell: In addition to what
my colleagues have said, one thing which has been a tremendous
advance is putting the uncorrected proofs of Select Committee
stuff on. I think that has been a tremendous advance where the
Lords are completely Neanderthal on and where you are way ahead
of the Lords. They do not understand the point. So I think there
have been tremendous advances but I think more to the point is
having summaries. It is all very well having the full report put
on but it is published report. What you ought to do much, much
more of—and this is where the journalistic talents are refined
and that is why I say it is a risk thing—is to have a summary
of what is said and a summary of the report because that is in
practice what people want to look at. It is perfectly possible
to do it in a balanced way and it will not be tendentious. A lot
of people will not want to go through even the executive summary
of all this stuff but will want to say, "Okay, here's what
the inquiry is about and here's what the conclusions are."
You have been very good to have on the website today, "Here
is the background to the Newton Report. Here is what the issues
are." It is a very complicated, difficult report. To have
done that and have that accessible so that we can use it and all
your constituents can use it if they want to, and an increasing
number will want to log on and are available to log on.
Mr Pascoe-Watson: Just to answer
your question, Chairman, as a very practical and simple thing
there is a company called epolitics.com, I am sure you are all
aware of it. Every morning when I come in and I have to arrange
and supply our head office with what is the parliamentary coverage
of the day, as I see it at 10 o'clock in the morning, I use their
bulletin for the morning, which gives me a pretty good run down
of what is coming up in terms of Government activity, in terms
of parliamentary activity. I do not see any reason why we in the
press gallery cannot be e-mailed that sort of information so that
it is with us by, say, 9.30, 10.00 in the morning every day, a
daily bulletin. It would be very simple and it would be up to
date and it would give us a very clear radar screen of what is
happening that day.
Q41 Chairman: Just on a practical working
level, you would log on when you get in and probably everybody
else, the journalists, apart from Michael White would do that
as well?
Mr Pascoe-Watson: Yes, absolutely.
Mr White: Including Michael White,
Chairman. We are online all day, all the time. You move in and
out of your desk, you go around the building, but you are going
to come back and hit your e-mail because you might go back and
there will be 25 e-mails.
Mr Riddell: To give an example
of what does happen and in fact the most effective political party
doing it is actually the Conservatives—and it is dreadful
if you have a day off because you have a whole list of e-mails
in your office—they are much more effective than any other
organisation about telling us what is happening. Sometimes it
is interesting, sometimes it is not, but they are quite effective
at telling us what is going on, that type of thing. It could be
done more concisely than they do but it can be done.
Q42 Mr Salter: Earlier you hinted that
you struggle with new technology. So do I and that is why I am
going to ask you a question on television because that is new
technology as far as I am concerned!
Ms Goodman: That is a paradox.
Q43 Mr Salter: It is, is it not, and
I represent Silicon Valley! It does seem to me absolutely absurd
in this day and age where we have got this constant traffic of
MPs and God knows who going out to the Green, going across to
Millbank, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, bashing
Japanese tourists over as we go. Should not the House of Commons,
we as the Modernisation Committee, actually be bringing or providing
broadcast facilities within the House far more than the little
cubby hole in Central Lobby that it took us for ever to get? It
does seem there is an inordinate amount of time wasted. Would
it make better television if we found somewhere in Westminster
Hall or wherever?
Ms Goodman: Oh, it undoubtedly
would, yes. I suspect Westminster Hall may have certain acoustic
problems because it is so high and I do not know the answer to
that, but yes. What you want to be able to do in television is
show MPs in situ, preferably with some activity going on
in the background rather than William Morris wallpaper, but William
Morris wallpaper is a great deal better, in my opinion, than the
rubbish that is up in the interview suite in Millbank which you
are so familiar with. So yes, I think that would be a very small
but positive development if that could happen.
Q44 Mr Heald: On the Select Committee
reports point, is there a problem about the timing and format
of publication of Select Committee reports because my observation
is that they seem to come out at all sorts of different times
with all sorts of different embargoes on them. There is not really
a format for them and I wondered if you had any comments on what
would be the best way of doing it. Is it better to embargo them
for twelve o'clock, midnight, and then have an early morning press
conference? What is the optimum way of doing it?
Ms Goodman: We would all have
different views depending on what time our deadlines are, I suspect,
on that. As I said, midnight embargoes are very bad for all
but the Today programme and the newspapers, but equally with a
lunchtime embargo you then get the problem of it being anticipated
and the Chairman of the Select Committee being put on the spot
on the Today programme, or whatever, and being pressed to give
more than he wants to. Is there not also a problem, which you
would be much more aware of than I am, about having to lay them
when Parliament is sitting?
Q45 Chairman: George, you nodded when
Oliver asked his question.
Mr Pascoe-Watson: Well, I think
it is entirely down to the product really. The fact is for national
daily newspapers a midnight embargo is perfect. It is not good
for television and it is not good for evening newspapers. You
are never going to have a happy customer basically.
Q46 Chairman: Thank you. I would like
to then move on to the final two areas we wanted to cover. The
first is any observations you have on the change of sitting hours
which has operated now for just over a year, from the way you
do your work. Not on the merits of the case, I do not want to
open that up because there will be disagreements in the Committee
about that, but just on how you do your work.
Mr Pascoe-Watson: By and large
it seems to suit, I think, most people in the press gallery. For
instance, things like Budget statements and other major set piece
events, the statements themselves happen far earlier in the day
and that is a very good thing. It also means that when there is
a big Division we can get the entire event into our first edition,
running all the way through all our editions, rather than sort
of scraping it together for the third edition and not getting
a full picture. So broadly speaking, it is a good thing.
Ms Goodman: I would absolutely
agree and having a seven o'clock deadline, I mean, goodness! Thank
you very much for top-up fees and for the Iraq votes. It could
not be better. If I could just very quickly make one slight caveat.
Of course it does mean that people are tending to slip away from
the Commons basically on a Thursday so that the place becomes
very dead on a Thursday unless there is good private Members'
business on a Friday. So you are in a way compressing the week
in terms of having a pool of MPs whom we can interview and, let
us face it, that is what we often want.
Mr Riddell: I think it results
in better scrutiny. It has worked in the public's interest and
in our interest, sometimes the two coincide, on big complicated
announcements, Budgets and things like that. It is a real help
to have longer to do it. Previously it was a classic balance.
It was presented at 3.30 and it is completely ridiculous. It is
a bit showy. You try to make it look good and you realise what
you have missed the next day. You have got longer to think about
it, longer to analyse it. I think that is all to the good. As
the Chairman said, we are not discussing the merits of it, which
I realise would raise certain temperatures around the horseshoe,
but in terms of public scrutiny and the ability for the public
to be presented with complicated announcements in a clearer, better
and fairer way is an undoubted gain.
Mr White: I concur. I think it
has probably been good for us and one of my evening paper colleagues
stopped me on the way over and said, "You will make it clear
that the Budget and other things, for people with our deadlines
in the middle of the day it's been terrific." So thank you
very much. I am not sure how good it is for the procedures of
Parliament in some respects but it has been fine for us.
Q47 Ann Coffey: Bearing in mind what
you were saying earlier on, or seemed to be saying, that in fact
the best way forward to get better reporting of Parliament was
actually through the individual actions of MPs, and you were talking
about MPs making stories of what they did, of course Private Members'
Bills, which are on a Friday, are exactly that. They are individual
Members of Parliament trying to get legislation on to the Statute
Book and therefore, from where you are coming from, should be
very interesting. They are not actually reported, even though
they take place on a Friday morning. Do you think that moving
them to the middle of the media week would make any difference
or is it the way that in fact Parliament deals with Private Members'
Bills?
Ms Goodman: I think daytime coverage
is much better. If it was in the evenings I think you would lose
them even more. The reality is that most people presume that they
have not got any chance of succeeding except in the case of the
Sheridan Bill, for example, on gang masters on Friday. We know
the Government is taking it up and I think you will see coverage
of it because of that. I still think more could be done to draw
attention to those Bills. It would challenge many of my press
gallery colleagues, and I include myself in this, to actually
say what the 10 were at the top of the Bills—
Mr White: It used to be much better.
Ms Goodman: I think that is precisely
the kind of thing where this notional figure I have in mind who
would promote what was going on in Parliament would be going to
political editors at the beginning of the week and saying, "Look,
there's a really good story in this Bill," not so much in
terms of their chance of success but as a means of putting pressure
on the Government. Stephen Pound with Leyland made a lot of news
with that. Sir Nicholas Winterton will not like me doing this,
but straying perhaps beyond my own remit it seems to me that one
of the ways you could get much more coverage for the House of
Commons is if individual MPs were perceived to be more independent
and perceived to have more power. So if I was trying to get more
coverage for this place I would actually loosen up on the discipline.
It is up to some MPs at certain times to provide more time—
Ann Coffey: I think the Government feels
they are quite loose already.
Q48 Mr Pike: You will know I tabled an
EDM calling for Private Members' Bills to be taken on a Tuesday
and the reason for that is quite simply for an MP who does not
have a south-east constituency if he or she wants to do something
in their constituency when business, schools, their local council
and other things are working—and I am not looking for a
day off, as The Evening Standard might have given the impression.
Would you not accept that if I stayed down for a Private Member's
Bill and then there is no vote—
Ms Goodman: I think there is a
real tension there but if it was happening late at night on a
Tuesday or after seven o'clock—you might be right. There
still are evening bulletins at 10.00 and 10.30.
Chairman: Could I just bring Patrick
McLoughlin in because he has been straining at the leash.
Q49 Mr McLoughlin: I specifically want
to ask Peter a question because he said, and I think I jotted
it down, that the new hours suit most people in the press gallery.
One of the problems with the new hours, I think, if you just look
at today's Order Paper, is the amount of Standing Committees that
are sitting and Select Committees that are sitting. What was your
reaction, Peter, for The Times a few weeks ago that printed
the picture of the empty House of Commons and saying it was a
disgrace?
Mr Riddell: I am not responsible
for that. I thought it was a powerful portrait. You must, of course,
remember the subject of the debate. So let us say it was a double-edged
thing, to have something on truancy. Let us say it was an open
goal on both sides on that one. That was not truancy. It was a
fair cop, I would say. But taking your point, there is a more
general point which has been touched on by Peter Pike about when
you are in your constituencies. You can do a lot of breast-beating
about how we portray a number of people in the Chamber and all
that, and it is a fair cop, and you are busy over here and you
are busy doing constituency stuff and so on. We can go down that
road, but I do not disagree with you. I appreciate there are separate
arguments about you being busy on Standing Committees and Select
Committees. The question Ann Coffey was asking was a much narrower
question. In terms of Government announcements, are there advantages
for us? We would all agree there are advantages in presenting
it, analysing it and looking at it which are undoubtedly there.
I can accept that on certain days it is a problem for you all
but in practice a lot of these things would not be covered. If
I look at the Order Paper today, perhaps there is one other Select
Committee we might have looked at. Standing Committees, as we
have freely admitted, we do not. If I could just add on the point
of Private Members' Bills, far more important than when they are
in a sense is that we know what is in them. I freely admit to
the ignorance which Elinor talked about, about knowing what is
in them. Again, a proper briefing would make an enormous difference.
If you could say, "Oh, X or Y has got this rather interesting
Bill coming up," we could look into it.
Mr White: Could I just add to
that, because I am puzzled about the collapse of Private Members'
Bills as a sort of sub-industry of our trade and yours. They used
to generate years ago—Peter Pike is an old campaigner—staying
down on Fridays, ambushes, talking out and there was genuine drama
and genuine interest. You always get stories about good Private
Members' Bills. Will it make it? Will it be stopped in the Lords?
That side of the business seems to have collapsed and I suspect
it may be something to do with one aspect of today's discussion
which has not been mentioned, which I would register. From your
point of view, part of the difficulty you have in engaging us
is the very obvious fact, so obvious it is the elephant in the
room, that for most of the past 25 years since 1979 one party
in turn, one and then the other, has had a huge, impregnable majority
and therefore there is no question of the uncertainty of votes
and the drama which goes with this. There are exceptions. The
Iraq War was one and social issues tend to be the other one—hanging,
hunting, the genetic regimes involving the unborn, those are the
relatively few occasions, social issues. But the fact is that
most of the time on most nights, whether it is a Private Member's
Bill or a Committee, we know what is going to happen. There was
of course an interval between 1992 and 1997 when that was not
the case and boy, you got a lot of coverage then. I am not sure
the Whips were all that keen. But that is part of the larger context
and since nobody has mentioned it I thought I should.
Q50 Mr Tyler: Could I come in on that
point because I want to dispel this illusion that we sat round
in this Committee and wanted to change the hours in this place
just for our own convenience. It was precisely for the reasons
that Peter was indicating earlier. The people who send us here
I think are entitled to see us at work. In the days when we had
narrow votes—I have been in two such Parliaments—at
10 o'clock, it was extremely difficult for anybody out there to
know what the hell was going on. We had constantly through the
main news bulletin of the evening, "Something's going on
in the House of Commons. We don't know what. We haven't seen the
result yet." That was ridiculous. So I think it is extremely
important that we lay to rest the idea that we just changed the
hours for the benefit of our convenience. We did not. We also
did it because we wanted to be more accessible and more visible
and it was precisely for the reasons that Michael has just been
indicating because just occasionally there are parliamentary occasions
when our constituents are entitled to see what is going on in
parliament at a reasonable hour.
Mr White: I would take issue with
you to the degree that the reforms were also invoked in the name
of progressive, modernising, family-friendly hours, which I am
sure is a divisive issue on this Committee, as on others.
Ms Goodman: Just briefly on Private
Members' Bills business, I think we are all tuned to the idea
that they only matter if they get on the Statute Book, but where
they can also be interesting is actually in the ministerial response
because it is one instance where you do not always know how the
Minister is going to respond and where the pressure of opinion
on the floor of the House could actually influence what the Government
does. Again I am getting back to this idea that that is where
we could be made to be interested, perhaps, if the issues were
not so much explained but if a spotlight was shone on them in
advance.
Q51 Ann Coffey: At the risk of labouring
what I said some time ago, it appears to me what Michael White
has said is exactly the nature of the problem we have got because
we cannot always provide theatre. Parliament is not about theatre,
it is actually about trying to get decent legislation on the Statute
Book and a lot of what Members of Parliament do is not dramatic.
We are not going to make the six o'clock news or the seven o'clock
news. I am understanding where you are coming from but it is not
possible just to report large bits of a Parliament going around
its daily life. That is not possible any more. What do we actually
do about that, in a sense to reconcile what you are looking for
with actually what Parliament is about? The theatre does not always
help us because people say, "Well, you are just a bunch of
whatnots down there. You're always arguing and falling out."
That is the theatre you are so fond of. It does not actually help
us persuade people that Parliament is actually quite a serious
institution, so where do we go with that?
Mr White: The Chamber is fullest
for the theatre, in my long experience. When is it fullest? We
all know it is fullest at 12 o'clock on Wednesdays, which is usually
nothing but theatre.
Q52 Ann Coffey: That is the only thing
that is televised. You do not show the rest of it.
Mr White: Another illusion shattered.
I think it works on lots of levels. We have all made the point
here this afternoon that the access which voters have to Parliament
today is unbelievable. They can get Hansard on the Internet,
they can get a free-to-air digital cable channel and watch it
all day if they want to and, heaven knows, some people actually
do and there are the local papers. I think the answer to your
question is the most important paper which you have are your constituency
weeklies and evenings and that is where people see you unmaligned
by people like us, where it matters, where the people cast their
votes.
Ms Goodman: Just to take a slightly
more optimistic note, I think you are all thinking in terms of
the main news bulletins and the main daily newspapers. There is
the point Michael makes about the regional and local papers, which
is absolutely valid, but there is also a whole lot of outlets
on radio and television. If you listen to You and Yours or those
kind of mid-morning programmes on Radio 4 or Radio 5 actually
a lot of MPs are getting issues covered on those and you will
hear MPs' concerns being taken very seriously. The message comes
over much more there that MPs are addressing the issues which
concern the constituents.
Q53 Sir Nicholas Winterton: Could I just
come back to Private Members' Bills because I think Michael is
right and I am interested in the EDM that Peter Pike has tabled
supported by Paul Tyler and others. I am wondering whether Private
Members' Bills might become more popular in the public eye than
the media eye if in fact there were rather more people attending
the debates on Private Members' Bills. Are there going to be more
people attending Private Members' Bills debates if they actually
take place during the week after seven o'clock, between say 7.00
and 10.00, when there is a lot of people, other than those who
are living in the immediate environs of London and who can get
home, who have actually nothing more to do other than to go out
and drink or eat or go to the theatre but who would actually prefer
to be in the House doing the job for which their electors sent
them here? I think there would be more interest in Private Members'
Bills. But Michael is right, of course. You have got to launch
a Private Member's Bill with a press conference to whet the media's
appetite. Michael has mentioned Teddy Taylor. Teddy Taylor is
quite popular and well-reported because he is an individual as
well as a Conservative politician. There are too many people in
this place who are Conservative politicians, Liberal Democrat
politicians or Labour politicians but they are not individuals
in their own right and I believe the media is interested in people.
Ms Goodman: Absolutely. We are.
Q54 Sir Nicholas Winterton: I think Peter
Riddell was kind enough to make reference some moments ago now
to people who actually do have a reputation for being individuals
as well as party politicians.
Mr White: The delay in the receipt
of your knighthood is testimony to that point!
Q55 Sir Nicholas Winterton: I could not
be expected to comment, Michael! But seriously, I do believe that
the media is attracted to people who actually believe, not just
trot out what they are told to say.
Mr Riddell: That is an interesting
point. There was a poll done in 1988 and they showed people photos
of the best known members of the Government and it revealed Edwina
Curry and David Mellor to be up in the 60s and down 13% was the
then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who within two and a half
years was Prime Minister. You could do a similar one now. On the
point you make, I think Michael did raise a very interesting question
which we have not thought about for a long time. There is a kind
of falling out about Private Members' Bills, I think Michael is
right. Sir Nicholas referred to launching the Bill. It also involves
explaining the Bill. I think a lot more can be done. I sometimes
look at the list on a Friday and you dismiss the last two because
you do not think they are probably going to be debated and you
think, what the hell is all that about? Something can be done,
not just individually (let us say you have got one of the first
seven) but also institutionally to say, "Okay, this is what
this Bill is about," and I think more can be done in that
way to explain the purpose of it. Something came up today and
I was actually first alerted to it on the Today programme, which
is the D-Day celebrations. The Minister was on and there was a
Westminster Hall debate about it. That is something which would
have got far more coverage if, instead of us being lazy and not
looking through the Order Paper, someone had alerted us at the
beginning of the week or, exactly as George said about the epolitics,
which was a very good point, someone had said, "This debate
is on and this is a classic issue. It is of considerable interest
to a lot of readers, viewers," and so on. If we had been
more alerted to it we would have produced a bigger coverage.
Ms Goodman: The Today programme
is much maligned but it does do a very good job in looking ahead
to what these issues are. I absolutely pick up on your point and
come back to it that if MPs are perceived as being independent,
if they are perceived to be using the procedures of the House,
even if they sometimes seem a bit arcane, there are other forms
of, if you like, parliamentary graffiti which can generate stories.
If an early day motion goes over 100 we start taking an interest
in it by and large. It is not really convenient for the Government
but independent MPs are much more interesting, and to be fair
to you we in the press gallery have been rather late in waking
up. It probably took the student loan debate to wake us up to
the fact that the new intake of Labour MPs whom we derided so
cruelly as "Blair's babes", with respect, have actually
now developed interests and personalities and we would have to
admit we took rather a long time in recognising that.
Mr White: Procedural reforms have
favoured the governments too much, let us leave it at that.
Mr Pascoe-Watson: I come back
to what I have said. It might sound slightly pessimistic but your
Private Member's Bill is only as reportable as the strength of
the story. We are not altruistic in the sense that we will go
and cover it just because you are making a point. If it is not
a story and it is not interesting to the reader particularly then,
I am sorry, we cannot guarantee we can cover it.
Mr Riddell: The Times or
The Guardian will take a slightly different position to
The Sun.
Mr Pascoe-Watson: Of course, yes.
Nobody disputes that.
Mr White: Only the broadsheet
edition of The Times!
Mr Riddell: There is more of a
convergence. To give an example, the classic thing which occurred
recently was the Fireworks Bill, Bill Tynan's Bill, or Act I should
say. Now, that is someone whom one would not normally regard as
a terribly well known member, as appeared at the recent Channel
4 awards where a number of my journalistic colleagues and a number
of your colleagues were rather stumped to identify him. It actually
both increased his profile and created interest because it was
an inherently interesting subject.
Q56 Mr McLoughlin: I am sorry I had to
leave for a few seconds, but could I just go back to something
I think Elinor said earlier on in this part of the exchange when
she was talking about Thursday becoming much more low profile
these days. Would you like to comment on the way in which business
is targeted in the parliamentary week. Do you think it would be
better for the media as such if we did more serious business on
Thursdays and you had more Members about? If this idea, which
seems to be gathering a bit of steam, about Private Members' Bills
on Tuesday, went ahead is it not going to be flooded out by other
issues which are on Tuesday anyway? If you take the fact that
really there are three days in which the Government seems to make
major announcements in the House and that is Monday, Tuesday or
Wednesday, if you start debating Private Members' Bills on a Tuesday
that could easily be swamped by the mighty machine of the Government
in announcements they are trying to get over anyway.
Ms Goodman: To take the first
point, I think in fact it is bad for the perception of the House
that the House is empty on a Thursday. It feeds the idea that
MPs are working short hours and are hoofing off. You may say you
go back to your constituents and it enables you to get back and
that may be quite legitimate but the fact is if you cannot find
an MP to interview on something it does tend to make you think,
well, where are they? From our point of view in television, that
is often what we want MPs for, to interview on a particular subject.
I was actually very interested in the arguments Peter Pike made
for Tuesday, or was it Sir Nicholas, and I think it does sound
a convincing argument, that you have more people around for the
debate. But against that, of course, you have got the problem
that there are other things happening on Tuesday. But I also put
into the equation that for Saturday papers, which you are competing
for on a Friday, it is a pretty short paper so there is less space
for news. So I am afraid there is not a simple answer to that
from the point of view of media coverage.
Chairman: I would like to move on.
Q57 Mr Pike: I have just been radical
with the Procedure Committee and talked of a five year parliament
instead of five, one year parliaments, so if I am radical here
and talk of this Thursday, that we do not want it to be an ineffective
day. One of the problems for the Government is that it cannot
put on a second reading of a major Bill on a Thursday because
there is an hour short in the day because of the six o'clock finish
and there is also, of course, the Leader of the House, whose business
is tabled at the start, which erodes time. What would the media
think if we were to bring it forward another hour on a Thursday
morning and start earlier so that we could upgrade the business?
I regard Thursday as a full sitting day and if we had the same
time for debate by starting an hour earlier, how would the media
view that, if we took questions an hour earlier?
Mr White: Am I right in thinking
that very few votes of a three line character take place on a
Thursday and therefore the sense of the building being deserted
from Thursday lunchtime is very strong? I always feel uneasy—
Mr Pike: The Government—and the
same would apply when the roles are reversed—cannot put
a major Bill on for debate and say you have got that much shorter
a debate. That is one of the problems that the Leader of the House
has to deal with and everyone will say, "We want a full day's
debate on it," and the Opposition will. So if you were to
counter that and start, instead of at 11.30, at 10.30—
Mr Tyler: There is a Standing Committee
problem.
Mr Pike: Yes, I know, but there is a
problem whatever you do.
Q58 Chairman: I think we will call it
a day on this particular issue. I know you have all got deadlines
to meet—not to report this Committee or your own starring
roles in it but on other stories! I just want to end off, if I
may, with a broad brush question. Many people say to me, and I
have said something about this myself, that the way politics is
now acted out and reported (that is to say we as politicians,
the Government and Opposition and you as reporters of what we
do) is in a little Westminster bubble completely divorced from
how most people want issues discussed in a way in which they can
make an intelligent assessment of the pros and cons of arguments
or policies. What do you think about that proposition and what
do you think your own role in that might be? Elinor?
Ms Goodman: I am not actually
quite clear what you are getting at. You are saying that the format
of the debate is very artificial as within Westminster?
Q59 Chairman: I am saying that every
issue is a split or a gaff, or a personality clash, or an angle,
or a bit of spin rather than, "This is the policy. Those
are the implications. You make your minds up as viewers or readers."
Ms Goodman: I think it is a problem
which, as you say, both sides of this semi-circle have got to
confront. I think we are grappling, and I think you are, after
the soundbite. We have almost destroyed ourselves mutually by
reducing every argument to a 15 second soundbite. You as politicians
are looking for ways of doing it, especially when it comes to
the Election, and certainly speaking for myself I find myself
increasingly reluctant to use the 15 second soundbite because
you are ashamed of yourself (a) for using it and (b) for having
induced someone to give it to you. I think we are all trying to
find a more intelligent way. I think the era of splits began under
the Tories and we got into the habit of starting every story,
"Another sign of Tory splits last night," and we have
yet really to get beyond that. That is why we find it much easier
to cover the recent developments within the Labour Party than
any other story. I think it is a slightly halcyon world where
we would be covering issues in the way you would like partly,
going back to a point I think Michael made, because there are
now specialist correspondents and sometimes rather to our frustration
(or certainly my frustration as a political editor) I find myself
always having to do the personality politics of the split and
when it actually comes to a serious issue on are foundation hospitals
a good thing, or how will universities survive if they do not
have top-up fees, that then goes off to a specialist correspondent.
Mr Pascoe-Watson: The trouble
is that policy is very often, if not always, in my experience
decided by the strength of personality and by the humans behind
the policy. That is a fact of life and we only have to look at
this Government's seven years founded on the relationship between
the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. Therefore it becomes an
absolute fact of every story that we do in politics. Politics
is underpinned by human relationships by definition and that is
what excites the reader and informs him but it also, unfortunately,
is what turns him off about politicians and that is very much
the nub of the problem you are trying to address. I do not pretend
to know any answers to the problem but that is the problem and
we can never take human relationships out of politics. We just
cannot do it because there is the absolutely fundamental point
about how you get to policy.
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