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| Never enough David |
A Twitter exchange involving my favourite financial pundit David Buik about Thursday morning's Today programme, which featured a certain Mr. Tony Blair:
David Buik: Surely there are other people worth talking to about their antagonism towards BREXIT and what to do about it than Tony BLAIR, who has been invited back AGAIN by the BBC TODAY PROGRAMME! Doesn't the audience deserve a bit of variety?
Richard Kakaso: He hasn’t been on in months and is an extremely well informed voice on the matter.
David Buik: Think you will find he was on much more recently than that. Tony Blair is very well informed but variety is the spice of life!
That reminded me of the old Rob Burley maxim that people you disagree with will sometimes be on TV, or the radio.
But who's right here? Is David correct about Tony Blair being on a lot, or Richard that he hasn't been on in months? Well, the former PM was last on Today just over a month ago (so Richard was mistaken about in being "months" since his last appearance, and this is a list of his eight appearances on the programme last year:
14 December 2018
7 September 2018
27 June 2018
22 May 2018
10 April 2018
29 March 2018
1 March 2018
4 January 2018
Is that excessive?
I would be happy never to see Tony Blair’s face again, but that’s just me. He was on Politics Live Special only two days ago with Andrew Neil in which he more or less admitted that he had interfered with the Brexit negotiations by meeting European leaders privately. If anyone was fortunate enough to have missed it, but still wants to risk the possibility that they might throw something heavy at the television screen it is available on the Daily Politics webpage.
ReplyDeleteI saw a snippet of that and thought highlighted how disgraceful it is that a former Prime Minister was running over to people behind the scenes in the EU and not only that but here was the national broadcaster giving him an importance and a platform yet again which he doesn't legitimately occupy, and probing him for any crumbs of information about what important people in the EU have been saying and thinking in the shadows. I switched off.
DeleteHe's as smooth as a snake sliding through the undergrowth of EU politics. I don't like him or his politics but one thing you have to say: he remains a very powerful communicator.
DeleteHe's smooth, personable and charming - a people person. It's often been said about him. Even when he was PM, he visited an old friend (through my family member who lived next to where the Blairs used to live), bounding in as if he had not a care in the world and chatting happily about anything and everything, what he was doing and where he had been. He is likeable, an essential quality for a salesman and that's one of the things that makes people disposed to listen to what he has to say. But I can't stand these ex PMs, whether Blair or Major, butting in and trying to interfere.
DeleteIncidentally, I had been thinking recently that Blair and even Campbell had gone relatively quiet for a while. What did that mean, though? Probably that it was tactical, rather than withdrawal from interference, and was calculated to be more helpful to their cause at a particular point to lie low.
ReplyDeleteHere's one of Tony's Pals:
ReplyDeletehttps://order-order.com/2019/01/19/grieves-minority-coup-detat/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+guidofawkes+%28Guy+Fawkes%27+blog+of+parliamentary+plots%2C+rumours+and+conspiracy%29
Grieve proudly wearing his Legion d'Honneur for services to the French state! (A pic that will never appear on the BBC Website).