If you’re in need of a quick injection of schadenfreude, having suffered the horror of England’s abysmal performance against Germany, then I can thoroughly recommend Andrew Neil’s surgical evisceration of the Labour leadership hopeful, Diane Abbott on The Daily Politics last week (hat-tip: Douglas Murray on Telegraph Blogs).As Ms Abbott is one of the most stupid and hypocritical politicians in Britain – and that really is saying something – I can’t pretend it is anything other than massively enjoyable: it is impossible to feel a shred of sympathy for this awful woman as Neil lands a series of knock-out blows. She is so terminally dumb, she doesn’t even understand half the questions, especially the ones referring to her racist remark in praise of the wonderfulness of West Indian mothers (as compared, we presume, to inadequate white mothers).
Ms Abbott is a colleague of Neil’s on BBC2’s The Daily Politics! Imagine what he’d do to someone he doesn’t know! Well, here’s a demonstration of how he treats strangers in this equally brutal assault on John Hirst, head of the Met Office.
I worked with Neil on a late-night BBC2 political talk show on a weekly basis in the two years leading up to the 1997 election. I admired several things about him: as an interviewer, he was fearless, generally well-informed, and quick-witted.
What I didn’t like so much about him was his Scottish chippiness (especially when it came to the English ruling classes), his conviction that everyone was jealous of his unmarried, free-wheeling, jet-setting, night-clubbing life-style (my vision of a living hell), and a seeming lack of response to anything remotely cultural (just a personal impression – I simply never remember him talking about music or films or opera or poetry or novels). In addition, one received the distinct impression – again perhaps unjustly – that he’d forget all about you three seconds after you’d parted company. He didn’t strike me as a warm man – or one it would be wise to cross unnecessarily.
So, a narrow, clever man, a forceful personality, and, occasionally, good company. And frequently a decent enough TV performer – especially if he knew his guests or if he felt they were worthy of his attention.
The programme we worked on was broadcast live four nights a week half an hour after the end of Newsnight, on the same channel. Given that we ploughed the same furrow as our illustrious current affairs relative - which meant that it was often a battle not to cover the exact same topics - it was a bizarre bit of scheduling. (I didn’t question it at the time, in case the programme that was paying my mortgage got canned.)
Midnight Hour tended to feature a mixture of the next generation of politicians, journalists and spin-doctors – but Neil was more interested in the current big names being knocked off by Paxman earlier in the evening. In fact, he gave every indication of wanting to present Newsnight, and has been interviewed for it on at least one occasion. When I worked with him, I doubted he’d prove a good choice – but I’m damned sure he would now.
In the past couple of years, my admiration for this neckless man with rusting hair has grown considerably. On BBC 2’s lunchtime show, The Daily Politics, he has consistently proved himself to be the most intelligent and incisive political interviewer on television, easily surpassing Paxman, who seems to be turning into a toothless ham. If anything, age is making Andrew Neil tougher and even less forgiving of frauds, hypocrites, idiots and posturing ninnies.
If your bloodlust has not been sated, let me repeat this link to Neil’s killer attack on the appalling Vince Cable during the general election campaign.
A few more performances of this quality and we may begin to forget his performance interviewing “celebrities” on a boat during the BBC’s election night coverage!
No comments:
Post a Comment