Clegg's reply to the Tory rebels weakened by lack of rehearsal
As a former MEP who has worked for an EU commissioner, Nick Clegg is obviously better informed about Europe than most of our MPs.
Given yesterday's anti-EU vote in the House of Commons, it was therefore quite fortunate that he was booked to speak this morning at the Chatham House think-tank on international affairs - even if there wasn't much time to write much of a critique in time for today.
What a pity, then, that the Deputy Prime Minister didn't allow more time to rehearse what he wanted to say a few times before he said it. Had he done so, he wouldn't have had to spend so much time looking down at his script and might have even have managed a rather livelier and less 'wooden' delivery...
"I couldn't wash his smell away" - Jimmy Savile's great niece
This interview is not pleasant listening, but it does give a sense of what it must have been like to have been been one of Jimmy Savile's victims - and how remarkably easy it was for him to get away with such flagrant abuse.
Blacking the names of Adam Boulton, Jeremy Paxman & the American judicial system
From time to time this blog features interviews in which the conduct of the interviewer or the interviewee (or both) are of special or unusual interest.
This week, Conrad Black sparred with Adam Boulton of Sky News and Jeremy Paxman of BBC Newsnight, both on the pretext of plugging his new book.
If you missed these two gems, here they both are:
In both cases, 'sparred' was the operative word. Few of those interviewed by Boulton have to ask him what his name is and Paxman doesn't often get accused of 'bourgeois priggishness'.
American readers may be specially impressed Lord Black's views on the US judicial system, which starts about 42 seconds in and features some interesting statistics:
"...99.5 % of prosecutions in the US are convicted. The whole system's a fraudulent fascistic conveyer belt to the corrupt prison system, that's what. Let me tell you something. 5% of the population of the world are Americans, 25% of the incarcerated people are and 50% of the lawyers are... six to twelve times as many incarcerated people as Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany or Japan. How do YOU explain that?"
This week, Conrad Black sparred with Adam Boulton of Sky News and Jeremy Paxman of BBC Newsnight, both on the pretext of plugging his new book.
If you missed these two gems, here they both are:
In both cases, 'sparred' was the operative word. Few of those interviewed by Boulton have to ask him what his name is and Paxman doesn't often get accused of 'bourgeois priggishness'.
American readers may be specially impressed Lord Black's views on the US judicial system, which starts about 42 seconds in and features some interesting statistics:
"...99.5 % of prosecutions in the US are convicted. The whole system's a fraudulent fascistic conveyer belt to the corrupt prison system, that's what. Let me tell you something. 5% of the population of the world are Americans, 25% of the incarcerated people are and 50% of the lawyers are... six to twelve times as many incarcerated people as Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany or Japan. How do YOU explain that?"
10 OTHER UNUSUAL INTERVIEWS FROM MY ARCHIVES
- Politician answers a question: an exception that proves the rule
- A Labour leader with no interest in spin!
- A Tory leader's three evasive answers to the same question
- The day Mrs Thatcher apologised (twice) for what she'd said in an interview
- A prime minister who openly refused to answer Robin Day's questions
- 'Here today, gone tomorrow' politician walks out of interview with Robin Day
- The day Mandelson walked out of an interview rather than answer a question about Gordon Brown
- Mandelson gives two straight answers to tow of Paxman's questions
- Two more straight answers from Mandelson - about failed coups and the PM's rages
- Rare video clip of a politician giving 5 straight answers to 5 consecutive questions
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