Good grief! It's coming beyond a joke. Whenever The World This Weekend focuses on Brexit Mark Mardell's framing introduction almost always goes something like this:
Welcome to The World This Weekend. This is Mark Mardell. Push is about to come to shove as the Cabinet finally plans to talk about what they hope to get out of Brexit.David Davis: Canada, plus, plus, plus.But one Canadian negotiator tells us it won't be easy.Jason Langrish: This is a very unconventional negotiation. You're going backwards, not forwards. You're not integrating, you're de-intergrating.
Why is this programme so relentlessly negative about Brexit so often?
It then followed its usual template. We got three experts - Dr Lorand Bartels of Cambridge University, Canadian trade negotiator Jason Langrish and Allie Renison of the Institute of Directors - who all offered shades of much the same opinion on Mr Davis's Canada+++ model: They all poured various amounts of cold water over it. There wasn't a fan of Brexit in sight or sound, and very few rays of sunshine came from Mark himself, who framed and amplified their 'remoaning'.
Then came an interview with Ken Clarke, who said much what you'd expect him to say and kept up the programme's relentless 'remoaning'.
Finally, as usual, came the 'balancing' interview with a Brexit fan - this time Lord Lamont.
This is where Mark usually begins interrupting and challenging - and he didn't disappoint this time either. The contrast between this interview and all that went before was striking.
This is where Mark usually begins interrupting and challenging - and he didn't disappoint this time either. The contrast between this interview and all that went before was striking.
This must be a very easy programme to edit. Just do the same thing week in, week out! (That also makes it easy for me to blog about it too!)
P.S. In the closing headlines, guess who Mark quoted, Ken Clarke or Lord Lamont? You won't be surprised to hear that Ken was given 'the last word'. Poor Lord Lamont!
Still, the closing interview with marine biologist Steve Simpson, who worked as a sound recordist on Blue Planet II, was very good. We heard the sound of coral reefs, damsel fish, clown fish and humpback whales, plus the love song of the British cod (which Mark thought sounded like "a mechanical foghorn"). Professor Simpson explained that males have about ten seconds to sing a song to a female while they swim towards the surface from the seabed at night.
P.S. In the closing headlines, guess who Mark quoted, Ken Clarke or Lord Lamont? You won't be surprised to hear that Ken was given 'the last word'. Poor Lord Lamont!
Still, the closing interview with marine biologist Steve Simpson, who worked as a sound recordist on Blue Planet II, was very good. We heard the sound of coral reefs, damsel fish, clown fish and humpback whales, plus the love song of the British cod (which Mark thought sounded like "a mechanical foghorn"). Professor Simpson explained that males have about ten seconds to sing a song to a female while they swim towards the surface from the seabed at night.
