File under ‘You couldn’t make it up’ – the Guardian reports:
Former Cheeky Girl beau and Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik is to rejoin the Daily Sport as its political columnist this week. Opik, who alongside his regular TV appearances represents Welsh constituency Montgomeryshire, will pen a weekly Friday column for the paper.
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34 Comments
At least he is finally showing what a possible way to make political use of his tabloid side could be. He has always argued that his Hello! appearances etc. allow him to engage with people the rest of us don’t, but I’ve never really understood when exactly it was that he thought he was persuading anyone to vote Lib Dem. If he makes good use of his spot in the Daily Sport, it would at least validate some of his claims to be reaching the parts other MPs can’t.
Hmmm…. no, I’m not wholly convinced either…
The Daily Sport sells around 80,000 copies every day, less than half that of the Independent.
In what way does this conform with Lembit’s claim that his media work reaches out to the mainstream? It is an obscure cult of breast fetishists?
He has an amazing ability to do things that guarentee that he will not be taken seriously.
The alternative to this is Lembit having no column in a national ‘paper – he cannot appoint himself in the other (more widely read, and respected) ‘papers, and they seem to have little appetite for LD columnists.
So is it better that the LD parliamentary team has this voice representing it in a national ‘paper, or would it be preferable for those 80,000 readers to be exposed to more Conservative and Labour spin?
Lembit is ill-advised to do this. The proprietor of the “Daily Sport”, David Sullivan, is a convicted criminal who has served a term of imprisonment for living off immoral earnings.
Julian H said:
So is it better that the LD parliamentary team has this voice representing it in a national ‘paper, or would it be preferable for those 80,000 readers to be exposed to more Conservative and Labour spin?
Frankly I doubt the majority of Sport readers would vote anyway…
Also – is this another job he’s always wanted?
James Graham Says:
The Daily Sport sells around 80,000 copies every day, less than half that of the Independent.
Yes, but the 160,000 readers of the Indi a) vote and b) know all about Lib Dem policy
I was merely citing the Independent as an example of a niche newspaper that doesn’t sell any copies.
So is it better that the LD parliamentary team has this voice representing it in a national ‘paper, or would it be preferable for those 80,000 readers to be exposed to more Conservative and Labour spin?
Entirely false dichotomy. There are 101 other things he could be doing that would take up the same amount of time and reach out to people.
Julian is right. At least its a lib dem MP getting some coverage, even if its in an obscure barely read newspaper. Its better than nothing. Lembit should be congratulated, not scorned.
Lembit Opik found in bus on the moon!
KL – any evidence for this, or are we just apply stereotypes? I thought us LDs were supposed to be nice and free of prejudice.
Anonymous / Sesenco – following that logic, no one should have ever written for the Torygraph under Conrad Black, and no one should write for the Express nor Daily Star. Indeed, some may agree with these arguments, but if I was a politician seeking publicity for my cause / Party, my scruples wouldn’t extend that far. We need to reach voters, and national newspapers are a primary means of achieving this.
James (Graham) – I suspect writing this column (if he even does it himself) will take up a very short amount of time. I used to know a Sunday Times columnist who spent no more than one hour a week on his. And from this Lembit gets 80,000 readers. How else could he get such national coverage in so little time?
“At least its a lib dem MP getting some coverage, even if its in an obscure barely read newspaper. Its better than nothing.”
What about when the Daily Sport editorial team get to work on bringing Lembit’s text closer to their paper’s core values? And what about when the national Press gleefully reprint that text the next day?
80,000 people read the Sport. I very much doubt even a majority of them read his column.
1) Who are we to tell somebody else what to do?
2) It’s coverage for the Lib Dems
3) I’d object if it was the Sun or Daily Mail. I’ve not had experience with the Daily Sport…
Surely it is to raise the ire of any of Opik’s candid friends to suggest this is a deliberate attempt to widen our appeal by broadening our audience.
Are we to condemn all Daily Sport readers for the actions of the publications’ propietor?
“1) Who are we to tell somebody else what to do?”
That logic means we should have no whipping or expectation that “our” MPs follow party policy.
When Robin Cook wrote a column for the Racing Post it was a serious politician doing somethin that reached an unconventional audience. However he didn’t do it as a follow up to losing to Edwina Currie on Celebrity Bargain Hunt.
Lembit has a great talent – but so did/do Charlie Nicholas/Mark Ramprakash/Graham Hick/Gavin Henson (dare I say!). Anyone reckon they achieved their full potential?
Are there still such people as “feminists”? I wonder what they have to say about a Lib Dem MP writing for Sullivan’s smutrag?
I’m a feminist. I think it’s a good thing as it won’t take him long, it might reach out to some new voters, leading to us getting more seats and being better able to stand up for women’s rights. Obviously I don’t like the Sport (actually I’ve never read it, but I imagine I wouldn’t like it), but I don’t expect Lembit likes it much either. I think it’s taking principles rather too far to refuse to reach out to people because we don’t like the newspaper they read.
People look at the “Daily Sport” for the downmarket brothel and chatline ads, and for the grainy pictures of grotesquely protuberant women. It isn’t the sort of place one goes to read about current affairs.
I’m really not seeing the downside. Lembit will get some good liberal ideas out in an accessible way to an audience that we don’t generally reach. Good for him.
The worst thing that happens is nobody reads it, and he wastes an hour or two of his time every week. That’s no big deal.
We need people out there practising populist liberalism, and Lembit in the Sport is part of that.
Good Lords…
Is it any wonder that, during the Presidential election, the anti-Opik lobby found it so easy to point to his failings.
The man is an absolute and complete joke.
For a Member of Parliament to write for a “newspaper” whose coverage is almost wall-to-wall porn and blue pill adverts is a total and complete joke. For a man who was going to be the President of a party…!
The good folk of his constituency deserve better than this clown.
Liam, his constituents have decided on several occasions that he is what they deserve. Let’s not make judgements on their behalf, eh?
Was Jerry Hayes “broadening the appeal of the Tory party” by making weekly appearances on the James Whale TV show. Remind me how successful he was?
If this was the Independent, even with its tiny readership, people would be saying it was a success. The criticism seems to stand or fall on the “quality” and “tone” of the Daily Sport. As has been suggested it is indeed full of porn ads and blue pills.
I just slightly balk at politicans choosing their voters rather than voters chooing their Politicans.
I doubt its a large time commitment and gets printed messages into the hands of readers free of charge. Is it really any more problematic than writing for the mail or the telegraph or the sun with there rightwing agendas ?
Is this really about the dignity of office of MP’s or about distain about the kind of people who read the Daily Sport?
I’m not sure that I can get too worked up about this. There are only three questions that matter to me:
1. Does writing the column detract from his ability to be the Member of Parliament for Montgomery? Probably not.
2. Will his column risk bringing the Party into disrepute? We won’t know the answer to that until we see the column.
3. Do we risk being tarnished by association? More difficult, although some of the people most likely to be offended by the content of the Daily Sport are unlikely to vote for a liberal party anyway. The others are liberals and (probably) wouldn’t vote for another Party out of spite.
80,000 Daily Sport readers (at least, most of them) have a vote. If Lembit can persuade some of them to vote for us, it’s a result. Most of the rest of the world won’t even know that he’s doing it…
I think your right Mark – the impact on the party will be negligble.
However it’s yet another thing Lembit does which makes him look like a jokey, lightweight figure. His basic talent means he should have amounted to something far more than that (eg he was very impressive on Qt last night from the bit I saw).
I voted for him for President (in part against my better judgement) in the hope that talent would be fulfilled at the highest level (AKA the selecting Graham Hick strategy 🙂
There isn’t anything wrong per se (and can be benefits) with an MP appearing on:
Big Brother’s Little Brother
Have I got news for you
The Cheeky Girls documentary on Living TV
The Al Murray Show
Celebrity Bargain Hunt
and writing a column in the Daily Sport
However if they do ALL the above people may draw the conclusion that they want to entertain people rather than be a serious political figure.
Perhaps a different Lib Dem MP should have taken up the role? With a peg on my nose I could possibly bear a Lib Dem writing for the Star – but the fact that it’s Lembit just underscores a troubling theme ….
crewegwyn – It does highlight a theme, just don’t expect the pro-Lembit lobby to take any notice of you!
I hold to my view that Lembit is enormously talented, and has a useful role in the Party when it comes to appealling to young people and the apathetic; but I repeat the caveat that I add on every occasion that I defend Lembit: the guy has a serious issue with his discriminatory judgment.
Does Lembit know who David Sullivan is? Is he aware of this man’s history, his criminal record, his attempts to push porn into every high street, and his associations with organised crime? Has he ever looked inside the “Daily Sport”? Is he aware of the high probability that many of those ads will lead to trafficked sex slaves? What are Lib Dem voters, let alone the general public, going to make of this?
Hywel is quite right. Anyone with any sort of sense in Lembit’s position would be thinking “Ok, I’ve made a bit of an arse of myself in recent times, I’d better try and be careful and not do anything more silly, in order to save my reputation and once again get thought of as a serious politician”.
Whatever talent he may have, what has happened here suggests there is some big thing missing in his brain, the lack of which, unfortunately, means he could not be trusted with any serious position of responsibility.
Lady Mark: I think your key point is #3: if this is publicised, the electorate will know us as “the party that has the guy in who was shagging that weather girl and then a cheeky girl, and now writes a column for the Sport”
Whatever way you dress that, it doesn’t look good.
Thankfully, the publicity has been small, and if he manages to convert a few Sport readers who aren’t already liberals to our side, then all well and good.
I do worry what it says about our party’s attitude to gender parity, though, that we refuse to criticise a high-profile parliamentary member for writing for a rag full of extreme misogyny (and yes, I would be saying the same thing were he writing for the Mail). I’m not saying stop him doing it – I am, after all, a Liberal – but is there no room for criticism at all?
Jennie: There’s room for some criticism, but I think it probably depends what he uses the column inches for. That was why I wrote upthread that I wasn’t convinced, and I certainly share some people’s unease at the Sport in general.
Has he written any columns yet?
I don’t know, and at the risk of being branded a Mary Whitehouse, unless they get reposted somewhere I’m not going to look. I aren’t going to buy the paper, and I’m not going to contribute to their coffers via pageviews on the website either.
It’s the same policy that I have towards Iain Dale and the Daily Mail: if I look, it only encourages them.