Last night I had a fairly unique experience. I had my tie done up for me by Stephen Fry. We were both involved in hosting the launch of Votematch, a new piece of software designed to help people decide who to vote for in the Euro elections, created by Unlock Democracy. You have to answer 30 questions, then it tells you how closely you are aligned with each party. After Stephen had spoken a left wing blogger called Annie Mole and I were tasked with taking the test, but together. For answers we disagreed on we put them to an audience vote. I predicted we would end up with a rather ugly LibDem hybrid, which turned out not to be too far from the truth.
Before festivities started at the Apple Store in Regent Street, Stephen and I were in the green room with Simon Hoggart. He asked if my tie was a Duchamp (which it was, naturally) and then said it was outrageous to wear such a lovely tie and not be able to tie it properly. I thought he was going to rip it from my neck, but instead he just rearranged it and sighed! Made my evening.
You can take the Vote Match test at http://votematch.co.uk
47 comments:
Stephen appearing on Newsnight also unique and the same function attendeed by a silent DD :)
You lucky fellow.
Would this be the same Stephen Fry who was interviewed on Newsnight last night and said all the fuss about expenses was "bourgeois" and just the media having a hypocritical fit of morality ?
Well I treid it but there seem to be a few technical glitcches. I guess too many people are trying it at once. Meanwhile if anyone's interested I have the CH4 News MPs expenses debate from lat night on YouTube. Only three MPs would appear (they volounteered) everyone else refused. Oh dear. Only Three Honest MPs?
I bet Stephen ties a mean tie too.
I am irrationally envious of your rather unique experience Iain. Well done.
On newsnight last night Mr Fry looked into the camera and suggested that all those watching fiddle their expenses, as indeed did he. Next time you see him you might tell him that I and many thousands of other people have never fiddled expenses. Firstly as he seems too out of touch to even realise - most people have no expenses to fiddle. Secondly ordinary people, subject to the laws of this country, are for the most part too scared to fiddle their expenses because they lose their job, their reputation and potentially their freedom.
I accept his starting position that there are more important issues to deal with but people have to have confidence that those issues will be dealt with and dealt with thoroughly. If, as is being suggested, the backbenchers are being silenced by gravy from the publics purse then democracy cannot work. I would suggest this may well be why we have had a war and slid silently into the financial meltdown that leaves us ordinary mortals out of work, out of cash and out of patience, and if he can't understand that that is his problem.
Very poor poll. Some of the questions are double edged. In view of recent events you may think it odd that I still think it is good that we have a parliament where issues can be debated and not left to PR type polls, the views of bloggers and the comments that are deposited on such sites.Notwithstanding this, I enjoy reading your blog.
Well Ian, he may have made a good job of your tie, but I'm afraid he was less than impressive when interviewed outside by a new reporter.
He decalred that basically all this business about fiddling expenses was nonsense. He even admitted to fiddling his own expenses.
For all his supposed intelligence he thinks we all fiddle expenses. We don't, and in judging us by his own lamentable standards he has made himself look very foolish.
Wow. I tried that Votematch and came out Green. Didn't see that coming at all.
what are your thoughts on hogg Arbuthnot spicer davies ancram ?
the list could go on
I hope your recent daily tirade on expenses hasn't stopped just as the tories are being fingered.
Wow. I tried that vote match and came out Green. Didn't see that coming at all.
I am a great fan of Stephen Fry. Many car journeys with young children have been made highly pleasurable as a result of his entertaining recordings of the Harry Potter stories. In Jeeves and Wooster he was masterful. And he is always witty and knowledgable.
But on this issue he is wrong. Yes there are more important issues - wars, the economy and so on. But if the people we charge to make decisions on these issues are of questionable integrity then how can we trust them to make the right decisions for the right reasons?
Just to endorse anonymous at 08.48. Please advise Mr Fry to stick to comedy and otherwise speak only for himself. Even among the small proportion of people able to claim expenses or allowances, abuse of the system is not universal. Mr Fry, by his own account, was once jailed for credit card fraud. Perhaps he thinks we all do that too.
Iain have you heard any whispers over what DC will be doing in light of the shocking stories in the Telegraph today?!
And now the Class warrior John Mann is jumping on the band wagon.
I`m disillusioned totally and completely.
I wonder how much money Mr Fry has fiddled off the licence payer....
You little tinker!
My wife's family originated from India and she bought me a copy of an Asian man's fashion magazine because it had an article on how to tie a half-Windsor knot.
I have not looked back, since!
stephen fry is a pompous ass and not as funny or clever as he likes to think
As much as I admire Mr Fry he missed the main point of this issue. If journalists do indeed fiddle their expenses as much as MP's (not in a position to comment personally) then it is between them and their employers. It is the public who employ Members of Parliament however so we have as much of a right to concern ourselves with their expenses as the accounts office of a major company does. Think the issue through a bit next time Mr Fry.
Mr Fry was correct to say "pot, kettle, black" to the journalists (venal, disgusting people I think were his exact words!). But then to extrapolate that to the rest of the general population is more a reflection of him than of us. I have never fiddled my expenses, or exaggerated an insurance claim, or taken a sicky or any of the other things that he might consider normative.
There weboste has been down most of the morning. I hope it is not people following Lord Tebbitts silly ramblings and trying to find somone else to vote for.
The results page crashed so I don't know who to vote for:P
I note that the party selection (elimination?) list does not include the BNP. While they do not feature on my list of possibles ayway, I would imagine that they will use this as yet more fuel for their martyr complex.
I tried votematch - it's rubbish. I bunch of badly worded and deliberately skewed questions followed by asking you which party you'd vote for. Huh?
As a bit of fun it doesn't work. As a concept it's dubious anyway. A piece of software designed to help you choose who to vote for? Sounds pretty Orwellian to me. The only way to work out who to vote for is to read the policies, consider their results and make your own judgement.
I used to like Stephen Fry, but he's become an incredible snob, one of those English nouveau-toffs who reserves his fiercest hatred for what he perceives as the middle class - perhaps because that's where his roots are. Now he's financing his his lofty disdain for non-aesthetes by doing voiceovers for Direct Line, I'm reminded of the late, great Bill Hicks' comment about celebrities doing adverts:
"Everything you say is suspect and every word that comes out of your mouth is now like a turd falling into my drink".
On newsnight last night Mr Fry looked into the camera and suggested that all those watching fiddle their expenses, as indeed did he...Bloody fool! Now everyone he works for will send his expenses claims for checking before they pay them out!
Or goofasa as the wv puts it...
Apparently I am to vote UKIP...
Fry said on Newsnight that he's fiddled expenses too - from the publicly-funded BBC, I wonder?
I always think its a shamne Stephen Fry is such a talentless actor .He could not even play a physically cumbersone but witty gay convincingly which takes some doing if you are Stephen Fry.
He was good in Black Adder ..
Well I have certainly never fiddled my expenses. That would be fraudulent. I think the general population are far more honest than Mr Fry gives them credit for although he is right to criticise the press for double standards. I look forward to the next Private Eye.
Cameron needs to take action against the worst excesses of some of these MP's and that would include getting them to pay the money back. I see the disgusting Margaret Moran has finally come to her senses and agreed to refund the money she claimed for dry rot repair. I wonder if Kitty Ussher will do the same with the money she was given to refurbish a house she had lived in for 4 years before becoming an MP. Presumably the Artex ceilings and the plumbing where just as bad then. One could be forgiven for thinking she bought the place, knowing she was to become an MP and we would foot the bill for the repairs. All tax exempt.
Blears is a sacrificial lamb. Many of her fellow senior members are just as bad.
Disgusting really, especially when HMRC is really tough with its rules and regulations on honest contractors.
That was interesting, thanks for sharing...
You've become a real media luvvy!
I happen to agree with Newmania's assessment of Stephen Fry in his role as Oscar Wilde. The film was a disaster. It tore the drama out of the story of Wilde and left us with a series of unconvincing tableaux and a main protagonist with no motives, no evidence of genius and no inner life. It paid no attention to the social and cultural mores of the 19th century and looked and sounded like 21st century actors in fancy dress. It was like watching anaglypta. Peter Finch and Robert Morley did the character far more of a service.
Perhaps the Daily Telegraph will next have a look at expenses fiddling at the BBC, now that the honourable Stephen has pointed the way.....
Votematch does not seem to work. You answer all the questions and then it crashes at the results screen....
Since Stephen Fry is a convicted fraudster, I am not surprised that he can't understand what all the fuss is about. In his eyes, these MPs are doing nothing worse than he did. Too true, they are fraudsters as well. Still doesn't make it right though does it?
Doesn't work on my IE 6 running in a corporate environment. Waste of five minutes.
Burning our Money points out that Fry wasn't always so blase about bourgeois morality...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWT5N0wXR0c&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fburningourmoney%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded
"I predicted we would end up with a rather ugly LibDem hybrid, which turned out not to be too far from the truth. "
This is why you should never discuss with centrist Statists. They will aim for consensus, which basically means you make concessions you value and they make concessions they do not. The result is pretty much what they wanted in the first place.
Hung parliaments - damnable.
All these people saying that they don't fiddle expenses like the MPs do, ought to remember one thing:
In a lot of cases we are not talking about a classic fiddle (ie like when a journalist claims for a steak dinner but actually spent the cash on something else like snorting cocaine). We're talking about claims that were perfectly within the rules, and even the spirit of the rules (eg repair and maintenance of house and garden, or furnishing the second home) but that the court of public opinion has now decreed were immoral to take - largely because MPs are felt to be paid enough already.
It's just it occurs to me that in private businesses it's always the people with the larger salaries who have the biggest expense accounts. It's the executives who receive the company car, not the lowly PAs for example. Wouldn't that count as a dirty fiddle under the rules being established by the court of public opinion? Aren't these execs paid enough to be able to buy their own cars?
Stephen Fry's interview was awful. he's fiddles expenses and reckons everyone else has too.
What a tosser. Why did the beeb think anyone would be interested in his opinion anyway?
It is hard to know which is more nauseating; the shallowness of your snobbery over a tie, your fawning over a non-entity celebrity, or the complete absence of any serious reflection upon the loss of faith in our political system. You read like someone aspiring to join the gravy train.
Wild. I presume your are on the left as you clearly have no sense of humour. Even you can see that this was not a post intended to be a serious political discussion. Now bugger off to another blog since you clearly don't like the way I run this one.
Like many (most?) people I enjoy reading your blog because it is a good place to read and interact with people who make interesting observations about contemporary British politics i.e. it is like an old style London coffee house.
Your contributions (the quality of your coffee if you like) are becoming both more hurried and more disengaged from any reality other than your quest for a media career.
Good luck to you! I used to watch you on 18 Doughty Street and your presentation skills were head and shoulders above the other presenters. It is an ambition however that (in my opinion) conflicts with the sort of passionate truth you find in a good blog.
Ian Dale PLC appears ever more disconnected from life outside the London/Westminster/Media bubble. I cannot help noticing that the most interesting commentators tend to migrate from blog to blog as each blog reaches the end of its life cycle.
You are right about me having no sense of humour. I suppose I hold you to such high standards because you once achieved them. I do not intend to be malicious. The comment which Fry made the other day about the current political crisis nearly made me kick the television in, and so your comment about him did indeed make me feel nauseous.
Just like to say as someone from the opposite end of the political spectrum from Mr Fry, that he was utterly brilliant on Newsnight. MP bashing is easy as taking candy from a baby at the moment. Populist lowlives sniggering to each other about how next to bash an MP and the political system. Mr Fry was utterly straight and too the point, showing up poxy journalists; who are too lazy to do some proper investigative journalism. Well done.
I cannot understand why this Fry fellow is so popular. He's a rich patronising loud-mouth who will always support the New Labour and the media people who have kept him in well-paid positions.
And as for his depression, he is just narcissistic personality syndrome person whose "depression" is just a fallow time to plot his next attention-seeking narcessistic supply, of which this video clip is an example.
I'm a normal person, and have worked with normal people, and most of them get as much as they can for expenses (within the rules). I haven't done it personally, but that's because I don't qualify for expenses. One of the commentators here said they'd never even taken a sicky! I mean, come on! There's no point pretending most people are saints (even if you are yourself, 'Rebelsaint').
That's the point Fry was making. Look at this argument the other way. How realistic is it to expect most of our politicians to be unlike the majority of the population of the country in this respect? It's not likely, unless we expect to staff our governments solely with the (exceptional) saints from our population. That's unlikely. The problem then is one of voting for normal people to occupy positions of power. But I don't see that stopping anytime soon.
But I'm all for whoever suggested we take this issue to its logical conclusion and investigate expenses in the BBC, any bank/institution that is now majorly owned by taxpayers etc.
Finally, has anyone heard anything from the people at the Fees office to say why they signed off on so much?
Good thing nobody has made the mistake of trusting you with an expenses account Peter Harris.
@wild
Are you disagreeing with the statement "most normal people get as much as they can for expenses (within the rules)"?
I guess no-one can actually say. I'd like to find some polling research on this issue. In the absence of any, I'll go with my personal experience (e.g. working with teachers who claimed a travel allowance despite not really needing it/more than they needed etc.). Perhaps I've been unlucky to work with dishonest people. Perhaps there's a vast swathe of honest brokers out there who are scrupulously honest about unecessarily saving their boss/the taxpayer money. I think that's unlikely.
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