Continuing with the Andrew Marr theme for a little longer...
In fairness to the Corbynistas, I think Len McCluskey was given quite a tough grilling by Andrew Marr this morning and that, in contrast, Lord Kinnock, repeating his plea for Jeremy Corbyn to go, was given an extremely easy ride.
And (forgetting about the Corbynistas now) the Andrea Leadsom's interview was tough too.
It began with a bang by quoting something she said three years saying that Brexit would be economically disastrous - clearly following the lead of the pro-Remain, pro-Theresa May Mail on Sunday whose absurdly OTT headline 'Hypocrite!' was an explicit attack on Mrs. Leadsom. Mrs. Leadsom's reply was that, having lead a major piece of research into the EU, the evidence of the EU's failings and unreformability had changed her mind.
Now if Andrew Marr is to avoid accusations of being an 'Establishment tool', his next interview with Theresa May had better be a very tough one.
Her own "low-key" behaviour during the referendum debate is open to a similar line of questioning to that which Andrew Marr gave Michael Gove. Was she playing a Machiavellian game?
Plus there are all those question raised by that devastating critique of Mrs. May's record by Jonathan Foreman - the piece pulled by the Telegraph allegedly after pressure from supporters of the Home Secretary.
If Andrew Marr goes soft on her and doesn't hammer away at these kind of concerns then charges of being an 'Establishment tool' might start to stick (even more).
Plus there are all those question raised by that devastating critique of Mrs. May's record by Jonathan Foreman - the piece pulled by the Telegraph allegedly after pressure from supporters of the Home Secretary.
If Andrew Marr goes soft on her and doesn't hammer away at these kind of concerns then charges of being an 'Establishment tool' might start to stick (even more).
Two vocal and aggressive Corbynistas vs the mildly combative Iain Dale? I guess that will 'balance' out Marr's challenges to other Corbynistas later on. Rachel Shabi is a loony. If you don't agree with her on everything, you've missed it, you don't understand, you're not making sense.
ReplyDeleteThe Remainiac (and coincidentally anti-Tory) narrative now is that the leadership contest is terrible for the country, worst possible thing right now. "Business Hates Uncertainty," shouted Marr in his intro.
The only challenge to Kinnock was about what happens to all the new party members who support Corbyn. Don't their voices count? Kinnock basically insulted them all. He wasn't wrong, let's be honest, but they will take it as an insult. Marr let it slide, and moved on. We've seen so many examples of Marr's lack of fairness when playing the devil's advocate against anti-Corbyn guests.
Good for Andrea Leadsom for calling out Marr on taking her quote out of context. "We have listened to the whole speech," was his defense. Even after she explained that she went on to say reform was necessary for Britain to stay in the EU, he still did a Davis Twist on her.
"Almost all" of her support is from UKIP people? Aaron Banks and....Marr had yet another unsubstantiated point. Leadsom stood up to his nonsense very well.
Why doesn't everybody just stand aside and undemocratically hand the reins over to Theresa May? Only a bubble-dweller would think that's a reasonable question to ask. May is going to finagle Remaining in the EU, and everyone knows it. If Boris was going to do it, then of course she will.
Hey, McCluskey is right (except the part about Corbyn being a decent man). Marr believes Corbyn is unelectable (yeah, he said it was Kinnock's point, but we all know), and McCluskey had a ready answer, so Marr danced away quickly to try a different angle of attack: inside the PLP it's total chaos, things can't go on like this. Again, McCluskey wasn't having it, and Marr didn't like it one little bit. It's the backstabbing MPs who are responsible for the chaos, not Corbyn's poor leadership, says McCluskey. Marr can't challenge that (strange that he had nothing prepared for this obvious point), and basically gave up.
Cameron betrayed the country, Boris was apparently going to betray the voters, but Gove is the backstabber? If Boris is so great, why would Gove running against him destroy his career? I don't recall equally scathing attacks by the BBC on Ed Miliband when he stood against his brother, at least not until Ed won. It's still not clear to me what actually happened. Maybe Boris just bottled it, or maybe it's that he's good at being impulsive, but not capable of acting quickly and decisively about important things. Or maybe Mrs. Gove was right that Boris was going to sell out the country, and Mr. Gove can't say it out loud. Boris withdrawing is telling. He drops out just because Gove isn't going to support him?
Gove "brought down David Cameron"? But according to the Beeboids and all the great and good, Cameron was right to demote "toxic" Gove, who was very loyal at the time and played the good soldier. That was fine, and now Gove doing the right thing makes him some sort of monster?
Gove was right about the NI peace agreement, and Marr says he was horribly wrong. The BBC position on that is well known. Marr tried to cut him off when he said he objected to terrorists being in government, because that's the whole point, and Marr didn't want to allow it to get through.
So the number of dead is the metric for whether or not a war was successful? We lost them all, I guess. With the ISIS non sequitur tossed in for effect. These questions are all so extreme, so hyperbolic. Can't wait 'til a Labour challenge starts for real, and we can compare how Marr treats them.
I have other things to do before I can turn to Andrew Neil for a corrective.
RE: Corbyn, Andrew Neil dropped a little suggestion at the end of his show that the Chilcott report just might re-invigorate Corbyn. What he meant was that, if it comes out saying Blair Lied And People Died, etc., Corbyn could take back control of the party for good by standing up in Parliament and declaring Tony Blair a war criminal. By extension, all his Blairite enemies would be discredited in one fell swoop, and he and his extremist wing would have total control of the party for years to come. He's hanging on just waiting for that moment.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds very plausible.