An interesting posting yesterday evening from Katie Snape on the Boulton & Co blog:
It’s 7pm on Saturday, I’m late for a friend’s wedding and I’m still waiting to find out whether I can send a satellite truck to Wiltshire for an interview with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander. How hard can it be? His special adviser says he wants to do it but apparently I’m waiting for clearance from Downing Street. I’ve left a message for No 10’s Head of Broadcast, he texted back and two hours later, I’m still waiting.
I started the week bidding for Nick Clegg. That was declined. Then Vince Cable. He was a Sky News’ regular (he lives nearby) but not anymore. I’ve bid for him virtually every week since the election but the request is always turned down. Then I tried Simon Hughes. That was a no. Ditto Chris Huhne. I tried several leading Conservative names too. All no. Bidding etiquette used to be that you only had one request in for a Secretary of State to avoid any diplomatic incidents if two said yes.
I know I’m not alone. Colleagues working for other broadcasters have found it hard going too. The coalition want to present a united face and the side-effect of that is that the guest chair on Sunday Live stays empty.
Whatever the reason for the no-show, it seems a shame for Lib Dem MPs to be passing up the opportunity to put the party’s case to viewers.
Update: I’m informed Danny Alexander did make it on air in the end. Still, it doesn’t sound like a smooth media management process.
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9 Comments
Very worrying. We can’t complain we don’t get enough coverage of Lib Dems on TV if we don’t take every opportunity to talk about the successes of the Coalition and the Lib Dem influence on it.
SmCg – we need to have some successes to actually talk about though.
Don’t worry guys, Danny said any cuts to welfare will be “fair”. So we can all rest assured.
Thought Danny was looked very uncomfortable this morning and it was a far from impressive performance. He looked like a man who knew he had been stitched up.
Editorial note: A quick reminder about our moderation policy, including the point about off-topic comments: https://www.libdemvoice.org/the-liberal-democrat-voice-team
@Mark Pack
So discussing what Danny Alexander said in the interview, which is the topic of the post, is considered as off topic?
@Ian pupil premium, Id cards, child asylum seekers……
Jayu: no, that’s on topic (as long, of course, as the comment doesn’t stray into the other moderation areas listed in our policy). I see, by the way, on checking that one of your comments got wrongly caught up, so I’ve now rescued that.
@smcg Surely ID cards would’ve happened even if it were just the Tories? Pupil premium, but how much will be withdrawn from education overall? Child asylum seekers, fair enough, but I very much doubt this government will liberalise asylum laws. You’re getting an absolutely awful deal.