I'm watching Tony Blair being grilled by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight on C-Span. Please tell me someone else sees this. Never in my life have I seen anyone be questioned with such ferocity. Seriously, after absolutely hammering Blair on the war Paxman quickly follows up with "do you feel responsible for the death of David Kelly?" o Talk about no holds barred. Lord do I wish someone in this country would have such journalistic balls.
But you know what though - you have to give it to Blair, he has real cahones. He never shirks a tough interview and nor should he. It's like this damn place where politicians are immune from such accountability.
I'm watching Tony Blair being grilled by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight on C-Span. Please tell me someone else sees this. Never in my life have I seen anyone be questioned with such ferocity. Seriously, after absolutely hammering Blair on the war Paxman quickly follows up with "do you feel responsible for the death of David Kelly?" :o Talk about no holds barred. Lord do I wish someone in this country would have such journalistic balls.
But you know what though - you have to give it to Blair, he has real cahones. He never shirks a tough interview and nor should he. It's like this damn place where politicians are immune from such accountability.
I saw this on Sunday night, it's sooo refreshing to see this compared to the sort of Sunday political interviews you get over here. Its not just the questioning and the ferocity - but the whole presentation is less stiff and more engaging. Blair is good at this, and I suspect Howard will be/ was even better - he learned the hard way. (although I doubt C-Span will show the other leaders).
A few years ago Cherie Blair led a team of English lawyers and judges to China to present a mock criminal trial to try and promote better juriprudence there. wonder if we can persuade the BBC/Sky/ITN to do a joint exercise here to educate the Colonial TV journalists :D
Oddly enough C-Span showed Paxman interview all 3. I only saw the last 5 minutes of the Kennedy interview so I won't comment on that. He was equally excellent in quizzing Howard, though obviously without any actual accountabilitt it didn't seem as ferocious with Blair. So in a way Blair's interview was better because he did answer everything with an answer that fully satisfied him, whilst Howard is extremely arrogant so brushed off any Paxman barbs with a grin. He talked over Paxman quite alot too. Paxman did tho make some of his economic and immigration policies look very silly as he didn't have any numbers. He backed that up by saying he had no influence or power so couldnt be expected to get those estimates. Paxman's reply was something like "I'm not sure I'd trust anyone who doesn't know what they're doing."
Vintage.
Oddly enough C-Span showed Paxman interview all 3. I only saw the last 5 minutes of the Kennedy interview so I won't comment on that. He was equally excellent in quizzing Howard, though obviously without any actual accountabilitt it didn't seem as ferocious with Blair. So in a way Blair's interview was better because he did answer everything with an answer that fully satisfied him, whilst Howard is extremely arrogant so brushed off any Paxman barbs with a grin. He talked over Paxman quite alot too. Paxman did tho make some of his economic and immigration policies look very silly as he didn't have any numbers. He backed that up by saying he had no influence or power so couldnt be expected to get those estimates. Paxman's reply was something like "I'm not sure I'd trust anyone who doesn't know what they're doing."
Vintage.
Oh well I'll have to keep watching C-SPN to see if they rebroadcast them....Mrs. S will be sooo pleased :roll:
I'm kinda missing the election, this is the first one I've not worked on in some way since '87 :(
They're all available online you know?
http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4472385.stm
Doh!
Thanks Beng, actually I did know that, I'd just forgotten. :-?