Tag Archives: andrew marr

LDVideo: Nick Clegg on the benefits cap – “Work should always pay”

By Stephen Tall | Published 22nd January 2012 - 12:45 pm

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg appeared on BBC1′s Andrew Marr show this morning, and stuck up for the Coalition policy that there should be a £500 a week benefit cap:

“It surely can’t be fair, can’t be right, that you can be earning more on benefits than someone going out and earning £35,000, which is the equivalent if you were to go out and work.”

You can watch an excerpt below:

Posted in YouTube | Also tagged benefits, nick clegg, welfare reform | 24 Comments

Andrew Marr bids for record-breaking number of different topics in one interview

By Mark Pack | Published 22nd January 2012 - 11:15 am

I wonder if somewhere deep in the BBC there is a target for how many different topics must be asked about in political interviews each month and someone woke up this morning to realise that January’s quota is about to be missed. Or perhaps there was a typo in Andrew Marr’s contract and his BBC salary is based on number of topics covered rather than number of minutes of screentime filled.

Whatever the reason, this morning’s interview with Nick Clegg saw a helter skelter tour around a huge number of topics, making for a comprehensive tour of current political issues but …

Posted in News | Also tagged david laws, economy, nick clegg | 4 Comments

Nick Clegg on the Andrew Marr Show tomorrow

By Helen Duffett | Published 21st January 2012 - 7:37 pm

Nick Clegg will be the main guest on tomorrow’s Andrew Marr Show, in the third of Marr’s major party leader New Year’s interviews.

You can watch the show 9am tomorrow on BBC1 or live online at the BBC website. Or catch it afterwards on BBC iPlayer.

Posted in Lib Dem TV | Also tagged nick clegg | 4 Comments

Opinion: The liberal case for super-injunctions, and protecting the human right of privacy

By Jack Holroyde | Published 26th April 2011 - 6:25 pm

Today, a certain Mr Andrew Marr has confirmed the oldest rumour in the book – that he obtained a super injunction several years ago, to protect his family against allegations that he had an affair.

Personally, I couldn’t care less what he does in the bedroom, providing that it doesn’t impact on his professional life and his ability to be politically neutral (ho, ho, ho!).

I’m going to come out with it straight: I’m a Liberal, and I fully support both the superinjunction, and Andrew Marr’s application for one in 2008.

I feel that the press has gone too far, on many …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged chris huhne | 26 Comments

Andrew Marr’s hypocrisy (not a trace of schadenfreude here, honest)

By Stephen Tall | Published 26th April 2011 - 10:33 am

It’s been one of the worst-kept secrets in the media, and today Andrew Marr finally admitted he was one of the 30 people who’ve taken out a super-injunction to prevent reports of their private life being made public.

The BBC interviewer’s legal action dates back to 2008, and has been credited with popularising the use of super-injunctions, which not only prevent reporting of allegations, but also prevent the injunction being reported. Today’s Guardian reports:

Marr said he felt “uneasy” and “embarrassed” about the use of the high court injunction, which he won in 2008 to suppress reports of an extramarital affair.

…

Posted in News | Also tagged featured, media, superinjunctions | 17 Comments

Andrew Marr: a little bit of a hypocrite

By Stephen Tall | Published 11th October 2010 - 6:52 pm

I’m intrigued by Andrew Marr’s recent attack on blogging. For those who’ve missed his comments, here’s what he told an audience at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, as reported in the Telegraph:

“Most citizen journalism strikes me as nothing to do with journalism at all. A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting. They are very angry people. … Most of the blogging is too angry and too abusive. It is vituperative. Terrible things are said on line because they are anonymous. People say things

…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged blogging, gordon brown, media | 18 Comments

Lib Dem HQ: read what Nick said, not what the press reported!

By Stephen Tall | Published 23rd November 2009 - 10:25 am

An email pings into LDV’s email inbox from the Lib Dems’ director of election communications, Jonny Oates, stating categorically that Nick Clegg did not express a preference for dealing with the Tories over Labour.

Now it has been known, just occasionally, for Nick to speak a little faster than he thinks. But, as I posted here, yesterday Nick really was crystal clear about how he would approach the vexed question of a ‘hung Parliament’ – and still the media managed to distort his remarks! In rebutting today’s inaccurate press reports, all Jonny had had to do is reproduce the …

Posted in News | Also tagged hung parliament, jonny oates, nick clegg | 69 Comments

Clegg asserts Lib Dems’ ‘hung parliament’ equidistance. (The headline you won’t read in today’s papers).

By Stephen Tall | Published 23rd November 2009 - 10:10 am

It’s a long time since LDV has carried a ‘Media Moron Watch’ feature … but if we were still running it, the spoils today would be shared by pretty much every newspaper. Here are the headlines from the so-called quality press today:

Clegg rules out election deal with Labour (FT)
Liberal Democrats offer Cameron hung parliament deal (Telegraph)
Nick Clegg dents Labour hopes of Lib-Lab alliance (Guardian)
Clegg reveals Lib Dems are prepared to back Cameron (Indy)

From which headlines a disinterested reader would conclude the following: Nick Clegg has categorically ruled out doing a deal …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged hung parliament, nick clegg | 30 Comments

Cameron tested by the choppy waters of welfare, Lisbon and Marr

By Stephen Tall | Published 4th October 2009 - 3:45 pm

At the start of his party’s conference in Manchester, Tory leader David Cameron has announced plans “to get Britain working again” – but his comments have drawn a sharp response from the Lib Dems’ shadow work and pensions secretary Steve Webb:

This is yet more Tory posturing. Much of what David Cameron is proposing – such as reviewing people on incapacity benefit – is happening already.

“But the central assumption – that unemployment is simply about the workshy not applying for jobs – is ridiculous in the middle of a global recession. There are parts of the country now where there are already 100 people applying for every vacancy. So forcing more single parents and people with health problems to apply for the same jobs is far more about posturing than about tackling unemployment.”

Mr Cameron is having a tough 24 hours. First, he is having to defend his party’s precarious position on Europe, refusing to say what the party’s policy will be when the Lisbon treaty is ratified (other than he “will not let matters rest”, whatever that means).

Posted in Europe / International, News | Also tagged david cameron, lisbon treaty, steve webb | 4 Comments

73% say Marr wrong to ask PM about prescription pills

By Stephen Tall | Published 1st October 2009 - 12:15 pm

An interesting little stat from YouGov’s latest tracker poll (with a hat-tip to Anthony Wells’ UK Polling Report blog). The internet polling company asked the question: Gordon Brown was asked on TV to respond to media rumours that he had been prescribed pills to help him cope with the stress of his job. Do you think it was right or wrong to ask him about this?

And here’s how those polled replied:

>> 22% – Right: the public have a right to know full medical details
>> 73% – Wrong: everyone, including the Prime Minister, has a right to privacy on medical matters that do not materially affect their work
>> 5% – Don’t know

Posted in Polls | Also tagged anthony wells, gordon brown, yougov | 2 Comments

To be fair …

By Stephen Tall | Published 29th September 2009 - 9:40 am

I made clear my view on Sunday that the BBC’s Andrew Marr was bang out-of-order to ask Gordon Brown whether he uses prescription drugs seemingly on the basis of nothing more than Internet rumour:

… in making it an issue on the basis of no evidence, Andrew Marr and the BBC have done a real disservice to serious political reporting.

I stand by my assessment. However, I also pointed out that, at the time of writing, no-one from the right-wing blogosphere had taken Mr Marr to task. It’s only fair, therefore, to note that Tory MP Nadine Dorries yesterday broke ranks with the fellow members of her tribe to post a stinging denunciation:

Posted in News | Also tagged gordon brown, iain dale, nadine dorries, nick assinder, tim montgomerie | 6 Comments

That Andrew Marr question: wrong, wrong, wrong

By Stephen Tall | Published 27th September 2009 - 5:15 pm

It’s a few weeks since I was emailed an article by John Ward (also sent to a number of other blog-sites), subsequently published at notbornyesterday.org, alleging the Prime Minister suffers from depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, and that these conditions are being treated with prescription pills.

I decided not to publish, or refer at all to the allegations on Lib Dem Voice. As I explained to John in an email at the time, “without named sources for the story it’s not something we could publish on LDV. I appreciate, given the nature of the story, that having sources on the record is difficult, but still.”

The BBC’s Andrew Marr today felt no such compunction, asking Gordon Brown bluntly: “A lot of people in this country use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through. Are you one of them?” To which the Prime Minister would have been quite entitled to reply – though of course he couldn’t, as Mr Marr would have known – “None of your damned business.”

There are two issues here. First, was the BBC right to pose the question (and I’m sure the line of questioning was cleared at a high level within the Corporation)? And, secondly, should it matter to us what the Prime Minister’s reply was?

Was the BBC right? Absolutely not.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bbc, blogging, featured, gordon brown, john ward, NHS | 37 Comments

Lib Dem MPs on Twitter

By Alex Foster | Published 12th January 2009 - 3:40 pm

I spent at least some time this weekend mentally upbraiding Iain Dale for his paranoia in thinking that technical faults that got in the way of a David Cameron interview with Andrew Marr stemmed from Labour supporting techies pulling the plug. Cameron had apparently insisted on being interviewed from home because the week before, Gordon Brown had been interviewed from 10 Downing Street. Iain tells us further the Beeb were none to happy with the arrangement but Cameron insisted.

So clearly, the only rational explanation was that peeved techies forced to do OB work on a Sunday combined with Aunty’s …

Posted in News | Also tagged david cameron, gordon brown, iain dale, jo swinson, lynne featherstone, rant, technology, tweetminster, twitter | 3 Comments

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