If you weren't listening to John Prescott on the Today programme this morning at 8.10. it was a vintage Two Jags performance. He just stopped himself saying "for christ's sake" at one point and spent the whole interview attacking Ed Stourton. It will be on the Today WEBSITE Listen Again facility.
Dizzy, meanwhile, has a good STORY of a Gordon Brown 'don't do as I do, do as I say', variety.
Yes, classic Prezza. I'm sending a request in to Pick of the Week - let's all do the same!
ReplyDeleteYeah, but you know he was a good laugh.
ReplyDeleteSounded like he didn't have his teeth in properly either......
ReplyDeleteI thought at one point Ed Stourton was having difficulty controlling himself - it was obvious he could hardly keep a straight face.
ReplyDeleteThe laugh's on us. Do you know what this buffoon and his pretend Department is costing us?
ReplyDeletebeachhutman - it'd only upset the beeb. They get very twitchy when the 'wrong sort' vote for the wrong things - witness the latest radio 4 poll on repealing an unpopular piece of legislation.
ReplyDeleteMind you, I reckon that the fuss they're making with accusations of organised voting by the hunting lobby is mainly to distract people from noticing that in second place - and which would otherwise have won - was repeal of the European Communities Act which took us into what became the EU - something unthinkable to the beeb mindset.
The sooner they're reduced to a subscription service, the sooner they'll start to fairly report popular opinion instead of continuously telling us what we ought to be thinking.
I am no fan of the DPM. But I'm not sure how Prezza lost it here. He's just annoyed with the smart arse "interviewing" of Stourton. No doubt in the twilight of his career he simply can't be bothered to go through the motions. With cack-handed discourteous interviewing like that - typical of al-BBC - who can blame him?
ReplyDeleteI wish I could come up with something deep and meaningful to say about the Prezza-Ed encounter. Alas, the entire thing was such a depressing commentary on "New" Labour/BBC relations, the weariness of the Blair administration and the obsession with the Blair/Brown relationship that continues to grip both the media and the two men in question that I just want to go back to bed. Goodnight.
ReplyDeleteYep - had me chocking on my crunchy nut cornflakes too .. was going to do a post on it but then started to lose the will to live thinking about why Prescott is still there and being paid by my taxes.
ReplyDeleteColin, they will use it for the odd conference/meeting and then a Conservative minister will use it when we get rid of this government.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the Stourton counter attack at the end - basically "what have you done to justify the huge costs of office we taxpayers had to bear?" Ed should of course have been better prepared with back up names, costs etc then we'd have seen Prescott really lose it.
ReplyDeleteSadly I missed it, but here is the link to the download of the Prescott interview.
ReplyDeletebut whats the alternative?
ReplyDeleteThe Prezza interview lightened my mood on the way to my first day at work since 21st December. His pre-emptive attack on the Stourton was hilarious, reminding me of something Broadcasting House did a while back when they timed interviewees on how long it took them to attack the BBC. At that point John Reid won, but even he managed to button it until the first question had been asked - Prezza was wading in during the introduction!
ReplyDeleteMind you, who the bloody hell was that loon that followed with his own version of the Ten Commandments? Staggering...
Talking of buffoons on the Today programme, I see the Right Revd Tom Butler is still doing his "Thought for the Day" slot. Why didn't Rowan Williams sack him?
ReplyDeleteWasn't Prescott the guy who was going to resign unless he got more cars off the road than when he came in?
ReplyDeleteHe is an annoying drone who hates to be interviewed but I guess he needs to do something for his money.
ReplyDeleteBy the by, isn't EDWARD Stourton the one who used to be ED Stourton?
ReplyDeleteBT, oh yes, DON'T they! There was a piece on Feedback about Dimblebore turning AQ and Any Answers into a platform for his own (IE the Beeb's own) views. They gave him free rein to dismiss the criticisms.
Quite right, if the Hunting "lobby" was to be de-barred, errr, that would leave the EU repeal vote! hehehe!
Anyone get the latest score at Hazel Blear's ID poll? When I voted it was about 76% anti, but I can't get a result now - it's hidden, I guess unless someone new votes: http://tinyurl.com/yavqxg
(Sorry Ed.s, off topic)
Let's all gang up and stop Gordon being PM...
ReplyDeleteMachiavelli today exposes a case of murder by Spreadsheet.
Just listened to the interview.
ReplyDeleteI think prezza had drunk one to many. He seems to be drunk!!
Dear oh dear, JP seemed to have a nark on from the word go, here. I fail to see why supposedly intelligent stations such as R4 continue to interview him, as he never has anything of substance to say. He just drones out a pre-prepared list of so-called Nu-Lab "achievements" since 1997, and still manages to get his tongue in a twist! We've got "the longest growth" for a century? Shouldn't we see a doctor about that?
ReplyDeleteTo be fair on him though, he was right to want to move the topic away from Saddam's execution. I don't give a hoot about what Prescott nor Labour's reaction is to the manner of SH's death - the anti-death penalty stance is clearly dictated to us from Brussels anyway, in stark opposition to the opinion of the majority of the electorate. How dare Nu-Lab criticize Iraq's legal system while we hear that dangerous criminals are being moved to open prisons?
Aren’t the lower orders hilarious, Milord Stourton?
ReplyDeleteThe influence of the BBC urgently needs to be addressed. The BBC’s over-hyping, and generally biased coverage, came within inches of creating a situation in which not only did all three Party Leaders share its prejudices, but all three went from major public schools to Oxford, two (Blair and Huhne) during exactly the same years, and two (Cameron and Huhne) to read for the same degree.
Since Sir Menzies Campbell beat Chris Huhne for the Leadership of the Liberal Democrats, he has been subjected to endless BBC sniping. Meanwhile, the BBC simply ignores any younger politician who did not go to Oxford, as if even Cambridge did not exist.
The BBC Governors should be elected by and from among the license-payers of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and each of the nine English regions (though respecting historic county boundaries).
Each license-payer would vote for one candidate (of sufficient political independence to qualify, in principle, as a member of a local authority’s Remuneration Committee), with the top two per area declared elected at the end, giving twenty-four in all.
A Chairman would be appointed by the Secretary of State, subject to the approval of the relevant Select Committee of the House of Commons. Like the other Governors, the Chairman would have a fixed four-year term of office.
This would set the pattern for the reform of many other bodies, reforms rightly involving the whole electorate rather than just those who pay the television license fee.
Trumpeter Lanfried said...
ReplyDelete"The laugh's on us. Do you know what this buffoon and his pretend Department is costing us?"
Do you mean Prescott, or Stourton?
I'm sorry, Prescott is such a parody of himself that I no longer find him funny.
ReplyDeleteIn fact it's so boring and predictable that I can never remember the content of any of these interviews. It's all a sort of continuing NuLab drone - a bit like tinnitus, really.
Beachhutman
ReplyDeleteI voted there this morning (3/1/07). It was up to 80 something, 83% I think.
I don't really think Ed Stourton stepped out of line during the interview...just Prescott putting the theatrics on. Did make me laugh!
ReplyDeleteHe's not much of an interviewee from what I've seen anyway so I don't why they called him in. Would find it amusing if they thought they could get a real discussion going with him...