Tag Archives: jim naughtie

Well, that’s one way to wake up in the morning: “Can you come on the Today Programme in 5 minutes”

This morning I was in bed at that stage when you start to get that vague inclination that there is a world beyond the cosy warmth and snuggliness of the duvet but can still pretend it isn’t really happening.

When my phone started ringing, I had to come to rather faster than I’d planned. It was a producer from the Today Programme on Radio 4 asking if I’d talk to Jim Naughtie about the election results and Nick Clegg’s leadership pretty much there and then. Now, when I’ve done these things before, I’ve always got up early, mugged up on what’s …

Posted in News | Also tagged and | 19 Comments

An evening with Alistair Darling and Jim Naughtie

st Andrews flag saltire scotland Some rights reserved by Fulla TIt was with very little enthusiasm that, full of the Liberal Democrat Conference cold, I headed to Glasgow to spend 90 minutes watching Jim Naughtie in conversation with Alistair Darling as part of a series of lectures ahead of the Scottish Independence Referendum organised by the Herald in partnership with the International Network of Street Papers. 

What motivated me off my sofa was the chance to see Darling in a proper chat. I think we get the best of him that way.

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Bluff, bluster and bullying, says Salmond. Pot, kettle and black come to mind

That the SNP would dismiss yesterday’s announcement on currency by George Osborne should not come as a surprise to any of us.

Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have taken to the airwaves to complain of “bluff, bluster and bullying” by those nasty big boys from Westminster. It’s actually quite brazen to sit there and say, having been told a very firm “no” that the answer was really yes. But their aim was to whip up fury amongst their own supporters, to incite an emotional reaction in those who don’t like English Tories telling things like they are.

That was always going to …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 30 Comments

Why suddenly telling the truth is damaging politics

It’s better that Labour figures are starting to tell the truth in public about the Brown-Blair infighting years than if they were continuing to claim they’d always got along fine, government had never been hindered and Blair loved the idea of Brown becoming Prime Minister.

However, telling the truth is, I fear, coming at a considerable cost to the reputation of politics. Because we’ve now got a succession of people saying, in effect, ‘Don’t bother with what I told the public at the time. Of course that was nonsense. The truth actually was the opposite’. That fits right with the very …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 18 Comments
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