>> Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Scott Campbell (from Blithering Bunny)
Earlier tonight there was a new Aussie sketch show on Paramount called "Skithouse". One sketch featured a man who was interested in buying a car from another man. The buyer's method was to fire questions at the seller about his life until he slipped up - without thinking, he revealed that the car was a lemon that was costing him a fortune to keep on the road.
This came back to me later on as I watched Kirsty Wark on Newsnight. She was firing questions at Hazel Blears on the fact that the government has suddenly released one of the terrorist detainees, an Egyptian man named "C". Blears played a straight bat. Wark, as arrogant as ever, just kept firing in the same question in slightly different ways, and calling it all a shambles. Blears just kept giving the same answer.
It seemed to me that Wark was simply hoping that if she asked enough questions fast enough, Blears would slip up. That's all there was to it. Sooner or later, Blears would accidentally say "and of course the whole thing is a bloody shambles, but..." and the Skithouse technique would prove triumphant.
Or else that Blears would lose her rag. This seemed entirely possible. How could anyone have refrained from saying "I've answered the question, you freakin' hag. What part of it don't you understand?" Guess that's the hardest part of being a polly. Not saying "How do you feel about the cost of the Scottish Parliament, Krusty?"
The whole Wark performance was extremely hypocritical. Wark was now taking the "How do we know this man isn't dangerous?" line, like the BBC have ever cared about that, but really, all she was concerned with was making the government look bad. Fine. Probably the whole thing is a shambles. A few such questions were fair enough, but the arrogance of Wark was breathtaking. Why don't all politicans just refuse to have anything to do with Newsnight? Freeze the bastards out, and leave them with just Galloway to talk to.
Wark was firing in so many questions in such a shambolic way that she ended up asking whether C had a right to know whether he was under surveillance or not. I don't think she had any idea how ridiculous this question was. I'm no cheerleader for the security state, but expecting MI5 to inform targets that they're under surveillance is, er, not really going to work, is it?
And now there's yet another global warming scare story on. Ho hum. Which will come first? The day global warming causes some terrible disaster, or the day the BBC actually informs us about the workings of the EU?
Read more...
