1. Paul Waugh bids farewell to the Evening Standard.2. Benedict Brogan thinks Woolas has made it tricky for all the party leaders.
3. Cop's Wife doesn't care if people think her son is gay.
4. Max Atkinson reports that NHS Wales spent 6.5k per slide for a presentation.
5. Guy Aitchison takes a look on both sides of the AV campaign.
6. And finally, courtesy of Paul Burgin, Kennedy vs Reagan....
8 comments:
Who was that English student leftie? Was it Paul Foot? Exaggerating as the left is wont to and not allowing the Yanks to speak. Another leftie trait.
The video was obviously filmed at the BBC training college.
I'm sure the two interviewers went on to glittering careers in the BBC - they must have both scored top marks in Interrupting, Hyperbole, Militantism, and Derision; and the inability to find any fault with ultra-left dictatorships opens up the career path nicely too.
Iain what's happening about us bidding for the gay olympics? Speaking to a guy last night called Jonathan (harbourne?) who tells me there's a cross party group being set up and early day motion? He would make a good guest on your show or feature in Total Politics.
The young man is a chap called Jeff Jordan, who I have heard nothing of other than this clip.
Had no idea you'd put it on your blog when I sent it to you Iain, but thanks for the reference
I wondered whether it was not Jeff Jordan but Pat Jordan, who was Secretary and later Chairman of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. He was 38 in 1967 and the man in the clip looks younger, but he may have looked young for his age.
Scratch that last comment, I've traced him. Geoff Jordan was 22 in 1967, and a lecturer at the LSE. He later went on to be a central figure in the LSE student protests in 1968 and was one of those against whom the LSE obtained injunctions in January 1969 stopping them from entering the premises without the school's consent. Later in 1969 he was charged with damaging gates at the LSE by attempting to break them down, but was acquitted on 1 May.
He'd be about 65 if he was still around now.
The thing that strikes me about Reagan in this clip, as a bit of a lefty and not someone within his natural constituency, is how on top of the detail he is - clearly very knowledgeable about the subject and excellent at communicating his thoughts.
Can anyone imagine a George W Bush, or John McCain - or many of the other American politicians of both parties - able to hold forth like that?
Compare his mastery of nuance too, with the one-note 'Iran is a threat to the US' style rhetoric that passes for argument today. IS it the worsening of the media that has so impacted public debate?
Cheers for an interesting clip.
Yes, Reagan seems much more together as a younger man and given that he represented left-leaning California and RFK was way ahead in the polls at the time, he had to be careful. However, don't take his support for Diem's "land reforms" as evidence of leftishness - Diem and the US went through the motions of land reform in Vietnam as an effort to counter communist policies but it was only done grudgingly and was much less far-reaching than in "capitalist" South Korea and Hong Kong. Land reform was a fig leaf which the US could use to pretend it was following humane policies there, whilst killing more than one million people under a ceaseless downpour of bombs.
I thought Geoff Jordan did extremely well for such a young man - they must have been scared of him and it was amazing that he got such prominent airtime. He was put on trial for the LSE sit-in. I wonder where he is now - perhaps if he is reading this, he can let us know!
Intriguing how slippery Bobby Kennedy was on Vietnam - the young were very much following him in the US where he was seen increasingly as part of the cause - yet apart from some muttering about "mistakes" (presumably he meant going into Vietnam during his brother's presidency) - he seems to be defending US policy overall. Perhaps the campaign was taking its toll!
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