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From James Naughtie
Sometimes I wonder if we all live on the same planet. Reading the papers on the subject of our listeners' law I might have pictured a different office from the one I work in. "Red faces", "egg all over their faces", "embarrassed producers" and so on, as if the vote for the bill proposing new protection for homeowners was a spectacular own goal. Well, I suppose if you work on newspapers where nothing is ever left to chance, and the political line is decided beforehand, it must seem odd that there isn't a "line". There are places in Fleet Street which we could all name where you understand, and have to accept, precisely what is "the view". If you don't know what it is, you won't last long. There are certain sorts of stories the editor and the newsdesk will be interested in, and others which will not only die a sudden death if they're suggested by a reporter, but which will mark out that journalist as somewhat unsound, and in need of a course of remedial treatment.
The truth is that if the programme had wanted to fix the result of the listeners' law competition, the panel of "wise people", on which sat the all-seeing, all-powerful and headmasterly Kevin, would simply have chosen a shortlist to fit any prejudices that we might have had and looked forward to the "right" result. It's not how we do things. The "Tony Martin bill" got a huge amount of support when the idea was floated, and why should we stop it? The idea that producers are running around with their heads in their hands is ludicrous. What sort of people do they think we are? Actually they know - they just don't like to admit that we are all (more or less) normal. It spoils the caricature, which is necessary to pursue the various campaigns against the 成人快手 which are a staple diet in some quarters when the news is thin.
What they mean, of course, is not that we are embarrassed but that it is an odd idea for a bill. Why should a homeowner be able to wield a shotgun against a burglar, but not someone who's renting a property? Or a wife be prosecuted for murder for doing what her husband could have done with impunity, just because the house wasn't in their joint names? Or if the principle is protection, why shouldn't your Auntie visiting from Glasgow for Christmas be able to blast an intruder, given that she's under the same personal threat as the householder? And I suspect that many of those who want the bill would also support capital punishment - so Auntie would hang for the same "crime" as the person whose name is on the title deeds could perform with no worry at all? A rum business.
It's interesting that our critics want to hang these contradictions on us, as if it is Today "policy", yet remarkably few of the critics are anxious to take on the cause themselves. Hmmm.
But never mind. We could just do with less pomposity from our critics. The idea that Stephen Pound MP was "furious with Radio 4 listeners" when he used that old American political joke - "the people have spoken - the bastards" - is ludicrous. It was a joke! He was amused. He's quite happy to use the bill to demonstrate how difficult it sometimes is to put into legislative language, as a practical matter of legislation, a feeling that "something must be done". And there seems a fair chance that the runner-up, an organ transplant bill, might flourish.
There was one unexpected bonus from the whole thing, a kind word from Peter Mackay of the Daily Mail, who thought we were quite right to have our competition. This is a cause for celebration, or at least for a newsletter footnote. As Ephraim Hardcastle, his usual guise, he's more often to be found sailing into us for some imagined horror, or poking fun at some presenter stumble. On this occasion, as one Banffshire man to another (despite being called "oleaginous" by him only last week) it's Happy New Year Mackay!
As it is to our guest editors. They were a feisty bunch. As I said to Norman Tebbit, I had never expected to be working for him. Long overdue, he said. He noticed as he sat behind the glass to watch his programme going out that on one piece of script it read across the top "Recycling - Jim". It produced the instant, inevitable response: "Should have happened years ago!" Like all the others he entered into the spirit of the programme with great gusto, and bombarded us with ideas. All of them - Monica Ali, Lord Tebbit, Gillian Reynolds, Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Prof Stephen Hawking found it illustrative to realise how the Rubik's cube of a three-hour daily programme seems always to conspire against plans that are too well-laid, and involves a clutch of compromises and difficult decisions every morning which are the inevitable consequence of trying to bring news, comment, analysis, a bit of fun and even the odd profound thought together. We liked having them, and it seems we'll do it again.
Don't all rush at once. Anyone fancy editing the programme the morning after the Hutton report? There you go - it's not so easy, after all.
Happy New Year to you all.
Jim
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