A Place to Stand

Jack McConnell was on the Lesley Riddoch on Radio Scotland today. Before he came on she asked listeners what they wanted to ask him about so like a good little boy I rang & suggested she ask when exactly he expected us to start achieving the sort of growth they have in Ireland.

To my amazement (well not really) she asked him about PPPs, hospitals, schools, "confidence building" (to be fair this led to a few platitudes about encouraging enterprise) & "affordable housing" (howcome nobody ever wants unaffordable housing & what idiot builds it). You will be pleased to know that Jack is in favour of all of these & has a duck billed platitude for them all. No questions on what is basically wrong with the economy of course.

Lesley is clearly the best the BBC has. She would undoubtedly be please to be described as "feisty". I hate feisty. If you ever read a blurb for a romance book (only in the line of business officer) odds on it will describe the heroine as feisty - which means she can be noisy & girly & a pain in the arse without being in any way dangerous. Vinny Jones, George Galloway, Osama bin Laden, Golda Meir & even Margaret Thatcher were not feisty.

On the other hand I may just be pissed because they never did any of my previous suggestions except that I never expected them to. The BBC is feisty in exactly the same way - they love interviewing people in the Paxman "have you stopped beating your wife" way which gives the appearance of toughness, & bear baiting makes good TV, but will never ask the serious questions.

PS Did you see the Paxman interview where Matthew Parris outed Mandy - Paxman's reaction to being given a serious answer was a scream.