In Defence of Eddie Mair

All of those who think that Eddie Mair M was grandstanding on theon Sunday have never heard the man and his work over a decade daily on BBC Radio 4. If you actually do listen to him, you'll already know that his questioning of Boris Johnson was vintage Mair and the way that this fine journalist/broadcaster treats EVERYBODY.

First of all, let me set something straight for those few who seem to have had an irony-bypass regarding my first blog on the subject of Boris Johnson 'Just Plain Boris'.

I wrote that London is: "That major business and market hub with a medium sized island-nation attached."

This is meant ironically.

In other words, it's a joke - a re-statement of the point of view of some in the City of London and indeed, the international money markets , who see and treat the rest of the UK as less than nothing. In other words, we exist when we have to bail the banks out. Non-existent the rest of the time.

I hope that's clear now.

On to Eddie Mair.

All of those who think that EM was grandstanding on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday have never heard the man and his work over a decade daily on BBC Radio 4. If you actually do listen to him, you'll already know that his questioning of Boris Johnson was vintage Mair and the way that this fine journalist/broadcaster treats EVERYBODY.

As media-savvy as Boris is, he should have known this. This was a bad performance as he and his people must now realize.

Those who say that Mair is some kind of Lefty laying in wait for Boris is not only insulting Mair and indeed Boris, but their own intelligence too. I'd like to suggest that those of that ilk go and watch the interview again. This time without forming a point of view first.

Boris is now in the worst possible place. It's clear that the guy believes the hype.

Whether you're left, right, centre, or nothing, I hope that you agree with me that one of the most important things that we can do in a democracy is hold our elected officials to account.

ALL of them are let off the hook way too often. The press are telling us now that they're the ones who speak truth to power , that's the reason they don't need more regulation. Yeah, many of them do stand up for us. But not enough. Nor their owners or their uber-editors. Because if they did, we wouldn't be where we are today.

And where are we?

We're ruled by way too many identikit politicians, professionals with little to no real life experience, what used to be called 'hinterland'. Many have never held a real job, have gone to the same schools, had the same career trajectory: PPE Oxbridge; brief job in the City, or in the press; SPAD to a government minister; election to a safe seat; promotion to PPS, then to minister; then to the Cabinet...

And some of them who appear to be opponents, are actually friends behind the scenes. You should see some of them in the green room after programmes like Question Time. They tear each other apart on screen but yuk it up over drinks afterwards. Or is that just being a good sport? I don't know, you got me.

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