Quite rightly, he has held his ground, and soon the whole frenzy will subside. The latest polls suggest he has suffered a big drop in his personal ratings. This is hardly surprising, given the absurd amount of publicity relating to this non-story. His ratings will recover when everyone has calmed down.Indeed there are lessons for New Labour in the way Mr Livingstone deals with the media, in spite of his fleetingly low ratings in the polls at the moment He does not panic in the middle of a media storm. The relationship between politicians and journalists is complicated and sensitive, but this took it to new extremes.The Major government imploded because it was divided and exhausted, but the media did more than report the crisis.
Most of the time politics is an arduously long drawn-out business, complex and multi-layered. Yet metaphorically at least we are still in doorstepping mode. We added to the sense of drama.To some extent the frenzied reporting of the genuinely dramatic Major years has become addictive. One moment, as political correspondents, we would be having a convivial lunch with a cabinet minister, a glass or two of wine, a bit of gossip, a few jokes over the coffee. The next moment we would be doorstepping the same minister screaming “Are you having an affair?” or some such question. Something along the lines of: “Are you going mad, Prime Minister?”Mr Major, who was neurotically obsessed by the media without understanding how it worked, once reflected that he felt like a mass murderer every time he appeared in public as a result of these doorsteps.The relationship between doorstepper and politician was very odd.
When I was at the BBC in the 1990s, one of the main roles for its army of political correspondents was to stand in Downing Street and wait for the Prime Minister, John Major, to arrive or depart. The moment he emerged from a car or the front door, our job was to shout: “Are you a liar, Mr Major?” If we were feeling more benevolent, the main question shrieked at the bewildered Prime Minister would be, “Mr Major, are you going to resign?” Normally Mr Major would smile sheepishly, say nothing, and disappear into the relative comfort of Downing Street or his car.The sequence would then open a report on a TV news bulletin. For some reason he usually ended up on some rain- drenched sports field blown about by violent gusts of wind Those were the most dramatic doorsteps of the lot Already he looked like King Lear in the storm The question did the trick. Even if Mr Major had succumbed to the pressure of the doorstep and responded to the question about his resignation by stating, “No, of course I am not going to resign,” the story would still be written in an atmosphere of crisis: “John Major has denied that he is planning to resign.”On Fridays Mr Major tended to leave Westminster to visit other constituencies. Sometimes I dared to ask my boss: “What are we saying he lied about?” But that was not the point There was a crisis and we needed to convey this. The script would be along these lines: “The crisis deepened tonight with John Major refusing to deny that he would resign (cue doorstep): ‘Mr Major, are you going to resign?’ His silence spoke volumes …”Quite probably the only reason there was speculation about his resignation was because the doorstepper had raised the prospect. If they respond aggressively, as Mr Livingstone did, they are in even more trouble The heroic reporter is insulted He has a tape of the exchange.
For some reason he becomes the victim rather than the public figure that was harangued in the first place.I still have nightmares about my doorstepping experiences, and I was never the victim My task was to scream the question. Yesterday the BBC’s Today programme reported its own courageous attempts to doorstep the editor of the Evening Standard Predictably their attempts failed The editor was having none of it. She was not being doorstepped over the doorstepping techniques of her own newspaper. The BBC reporter was ejected from the building.For those of you who lucky enough to be unfamiliar with this form of journalism, here is a brief explanation. Sometimes a journalist waits for hours in the pouring rain for a senior politician to appear, at which point he or she starts to scream questions The relevant politician is trapped. If they do not respond to the unexpected interrogation, they appear evasive. The political “doorstep” is back as a source of raging controversy.
I had assumed there was less of it about these days, that the media had decided political leaders were ubiquitous enough already without being doorstepped late at night, early in the morning or as they moved between studios from one interview to the next. Ken Livingstone fumes that a reporter from the Evening Standard “doorstepped” him at the end of a party in London. It won’t produce the result that Washington wants, but the US is absolutely justified in calling for it.a.hamilton independent.co.uk
More from Adrian Hamilton. Up until last week, he was insisting he could read books upside down, so the odd foray into post-structuralism is the least of my concerns.At least Clara’s dyslexia is relatively straightforward. Spelling is a torment to her, but thanks to special coaching and a heartbreaking natural diligence, she is, at nine, a fluent and voracious reader. Hearing my daughter read her first lesson in assembly, willing the words to her like Uri Geller at his most demented, was probably the proudest moment of my life.Con, I had long suspected, is not dyslexic, but has inherited his mother’s tendency to idleness.
