What is wrong with the Press in the UK?

What is wrong with the press in this country? I listened to Nick Ferrari on LBC (97.3 FM) this morning on the way into work, he was interviewing John Redwood (Former Cabinet Minister, Current MP for Wokingham) and Ferrari was desperate to get Redwood to say that the coalition was in trouble, obviously Labour had been on earlier getting their political points in and trying to claim it signalled a general election around the corner but John Redwood was very level headed and simply gave his opinion this seemed to anger Ferrari who on a few occasions talked over him to try and bully (Which if you have ever seen John Redwood being interviewed you should know is nearly impossible.) to say that he felt that the coalition were in severe trouble. Now if you were to ask why he was so aggressive with him when he came on I am sure you would get the usual Press response. “It’s our job to hold them to account!” an interesting concept as surely isn’t the job of the press to actually report the truth? And as Ferrari is now a Talk Show host and not an actual reporter surely isn’t his job to facilitate a public discussion between alternate sides of a debate? Not to try and pick up some useful sound bytes?

This is not an issue unique to talk show hosts however as it would appear that an interviewer who does not attack his interviewee has failed his interview. Now I am not stating that we should return to the times where the interviewer was in awe to the politicians or even to a position where they were not allowed to go in hard when it is necessary, what I am saying is that it should not be the norm. It’s not that politicians need to be given greater respect, but that they should be given the respect everyone of us should be able to expect when being spoken too.

The other issue which the press bring up with our elected officials which has bugged me for a while (And which I may well have ranted about on occasion as well) is the way they attack politicians for changing their minds, the papers are full of stories of U-Turns and Backtracks as if the worse thing a politician can do is change their mind, now it may just be my naivety but personally I would prefer to have an elected representative who is willing to admit that they are wrong and make amendments to their policy than one who sticks blindly to their guns regardless of if the policy turns out to be wrong. This was typified for me in the debate about an Asylum cap before the last election. Cameron was pushed by Brown to give a number for the Asylum cap and when he said that he would have to work the figure out each year he was accused of weak leadership – for not giving an arbitrary figure. This was then repeated in the press so that a policy of having the right cap at the right time and for recognising that the world does not stand still (so what is right for 2010 may not be right for 2025, in fact I would say that it is highly unlikely to be.) was seen, rather than realism and a good policy, to be a lack of policy.

Can Vince Cable Bring Down the Government?

So it would appear from the press that the coalition are in the process of collapsing, this stunning revelation comes from Vince Cable stating that being part of the coalition is like a constant war. Now there are a few questions that come up from this story.

Primarily, is Vince Cable really a nuclear weapon? Or is this just wishful thinking? Personally I am taking this as a bit of a naive boast. Cable thought that he was talking to two Lib Dem voters in his constituency and it is possible therefore that he decided to “over egg” his power in the coalition in order to justify the votes he received. Surely there is no one man that could bring down the government in one move, if Cameron decided he’d had enough and walked away from Number 10, it may trigger an election but even then I think you will find that in this time of belt tightening and financial pain the general public have little appetite for another general election.

The Second question that struck me immediately on hearing the story was, Is anyone else actually surprised? This is a Coalition government not a single party system, a fracture in a party is something you may not expect (Although personally I welcome it.) but a fracture between two parties is hardly news worthy, I do not believe that the Lib Dems and Conservatives have formed a single party but rather are two parties doing the adult thing and are looking to put their differences aside in the national interest, this can not be easy for any of them and a coalition government will by the very definition always be weaker than a single party administration.

Finally I want to ask if Vince is actually wrong in what he said, he has always been a bit of an uncertainty in the coalition and is definitely one of the less easy cabinet members so I doubt very much that it will shock the PM too much. I am sure that they will be having a word with him to try and ensure that he is more careful with regards to who he talks too but at the end of the day shouldn’t MP’s be allowed to express their own opinions? Surely we elect these people based on believing they are the best person to represent us, therefore why do we insist on trying to silence them all the time. I may not like what Mr. Cable has to say but if it is what he believes then surely he should be allowed to say it (It would then be down to the PM to see if he should be allowed to remain in the cabinet, and the people of Twickenham to decide if he should be allowed to remain in Parliament.) I don’t really see what it has to do with the rest of us, I personally fear a time when our MP’s are not allowed to have independent thoughts, as then you will find that only a few people shape the entirety of our society.