I pay attention to a lot of what goes on in the Houses of Parliament and the arguments /discussions between Tories and Labour. I'm beginning to get a bit, I'm not sure, cynical I suppose when they start spinning the news in their favour. Either party, it doesn't really matter, but each of them like to use events to support their own narrative.
Each of the parties have a go at each other and nip each others' heads, putting each other down about events. Neither party will admit that things look bad for them. I would like one of those speakers or people arguing to say to an interviewer, " I understand why you might see things that way but actually this is the reason why things look like that but they are different."
I cannot abide the fact that David Cameron's new argumentative approach is that his response is "I don't accept that". The problem is that if you don't accept something, or if you can't see why someone sees things in that way, then you cannot argue against the view. The approach which Cameron is following does not allow for constructive dialogue, if he can't appreciate that someone might see it that way, how can he then persuade you round to his view?
An example of that is at prime minister's question time a couple of weeks ago when Tim Fallon asked him to apologize for the campaign against Sadiq Khan who was voted in as Mayor of London. The suggestion is that the campaign against Khan was racist, or certainly had racist undertones. Rather than apologizing, David Cameron choose to have a go at Tim Fallon instead. This is a measure of the current level of debate. Rather than take the opportunity to apologize and have an open dialogue with his opponents, Cameron choose to attack.
And it is the same when Jeremy Corbyn asks questions to David Cameron at PMQs. Rather than engage with the question and have a constructive dialogue to try to build a common approach, Cameron chooses to score cheap points off Jeremy Corbyn, which is quite an easy thing to do. He comes across as a bit of a bully, and more often than not be doesn't answer the question, which is a shame. PMQs is a perfect opportunity for David Cameron to display his statesmanship but he chooses to descend into playground child-like point scoring and the ensuing experience is not an edifying one.
I stayed up to watch the results of the local elections a couple of weeks ago and the BBC had John McDonnell and Nicky Morgan on as their studio guests to give an immediate reaction to the results as they came in. Even though the polls had closed, Nicky couldn't stop having a go at John, accusing him of pretending to be approaching the results "more in sorrow than in anger" as a front, being all holier than thou. McDonnell had nothing to gain, except respect. The polls had closed and there were no more votes up for grabs. It was not an enjoyable experience and so I switched off.
I was quite interested to see that Robert Peston had a new series on ITV. So I downloaded it and started watching it. His first major guest was George Osborne. Unfortunately, the conversation was not a challenging one and it seemed that, even though they were covering topics which would be hard going for the Chancellor, they approached it very softly.
It does get to the point I think, sometimes, where journalists and MPs are talking a different kind of language to the rest of us who live outside of Westminster, and are not fully engaged in the events which occur in the Houses of Parliament. Again I switched off, even before he got to interview Louis Theroux, but I'd had enough by then and so moved on to Occupied.
Occupied is another Scandinavian drama, like Borgen or The Bridge or The Killing, but this one is about what might happen if Russia invaded Norway. It's a thriller written by Jo Nesbo, and it's beginning to get more intriguing. I'll probably write more here about how it unfolds, in general terms at least.
TTFN.
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