Douglas Murray challenges Richard Gott on Sky News.
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You can you tell when a medium is in trouble: it becomes incapable of communicating seriously. Literary forms die off when their apparatus is no longer capable of carrying the necessary truths of the age. And so it is with other forms of media – including television.
Last week, I pointed out the pitfalls amid the putative Conservative leaders’ debate on the BBC. But it was probably unfair of me to single out one programme for criticism. Because an inability to deal with serious questions and an unwillingness to allow for serious answers has in many ways become the hallmark of the age of TV political discussion.
I see examples of what is wrong, and of what might have been, all the time. But let me cite a recent example. Earlier this month, on Politics Live, the BBC’s main daily political discussion show, there was a discussion about socialism and communism. The conversation skimmed across a couple of surfaces, with two of the guests talking in a positive light about the alleged virtues of the same. And then the Conservative columnist Toby Young riposted with the rather good line: “Socialism always begins with a universal vision for the brotherhood of man and ends with people having to eat their own pets.” I raise it not to discuss the line – clever, true and pithy though it is – but the reaction to it.
The presenter was Jo Coburn, one of the best political journalists and interviewers in action. It is precisely because of this that her reaction was so striking. There are a number of things you might say in reaction to Young’s statement. You might ask him to extrapolate it, or otherwise further explain it. You might ask why that was always the case with socialism, and what lessons might as a result be learned from it. You might contest it, and argue that not every single person who lived under socialism always ended up always having to eat their pets. Or you might look at the human catastrophe of what an unfathomable number of 100 million deaths actually means.
But none of this happened. Coburn immediately moved things on with an “Oh, charming”, as though Young had said something vaguely rude or otherwise malodorous. All done in the most jocular and easy fashion, of course: seamless and professional.
There are two reasons for this neat segue. One is technical. It is one of the oddities of political discussion on television that host and guests are (even when they are mildly at odds) always in a state of collusion. It is in the interests of all of those involved that the thing should run smoothly.
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SubscribeAs always, Douglas is damn brilliant. And what a treat to read his own commentary while watching said interview. Thank you.