Feeding frenzy
There was a feeding frenzy in the Westminster newsroom yesterday. As word came through of - I think - the fourth letter of the day to Downing Street telling Blair he had to go/stay/speak out/stay quiet (delete as appropriate), Jon Devitt found a mouse in his drawers.
Jon's distinguished career has taken him to Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo and all sorts of other hotspots. For many years now he's been based in the relative calm of Millbank, where he’s deftly explained politics to World TV and World Service audiences around the globe. But he's never experienced anything quite like this.
At approximately half past four, he just couldn’t resist any longer that bar of duty-free chocolate he'd been saving from his holiday in Spain. So he reached down to the back of his drawer, only to discover that - horror of horrors – his prized bar had been nibbled almost to nothing. Feeding frenzy or what….Little Milly had even chewed his earpiece!
Uproar ensued. His producer wanted him on air decoding the work of the Downing Street postman. But Jon wasn't having any of that; he wanted immediate action from Millbank's Chief Mouse-catcher (me).
This was perhaps the wackiest moment of a wacky day. At times I felt like an extra in the Monty Python film, The Life of Brian. ("That latest letter - is that from the Popular Front of Judea, or the Judean Popular Front?")
Disentangling the Blairites-for-Brown from the 2001 Intake from the Usual Suspects is a tough business, particularly when most of them aren’t prepared to pick up the phone.
Just 24 hours earlier I’d sat in a meeting with Nick Robinson, his producers, and the senior newsdesk editors at Westminster. We’d all been scratching our heads about how to take on the Blair story. Some fantastic ideas were bandied about, but we were worried about finding a “peg” for them to justify us doing the story on an important TV bulletin.
Yesterday was the antidote to all those worries. It became clear for all to see that really serious stuff is going on, mostly behind closed doors, but occasionally bursting out like a lanced boil. And it’s not just about the exact date when Tony Blair will pack his bags, it’s about the future direction of the government on issues that matter to everyone like crime, health, and energy.
So memo to self: don’t be shy of finding interesting and engaging ways to cover this running story, even when we fear there’s a danger of boring people.
But back to the important business of the day - Milly the mouse escaped. Jon Devitt and his colleagues up the end of the newsroom want a date NOW for his departure from Millbank. The mouse is silently defiant: reliable sources say he wants to go on and on, at least through to next summer. Who will win in this titanic struggle?
Comments
It sounds to me like you need a cat. How about calling it 'Gordon'?
What's Ali Campbell's view on all of this?
Surely he'd give Tony good advice whether he can ride out the storm.
Ask him if he wants to bat for the PM.
If Ali doesn't come out fighting for Tony then Tony must be days from resignation.
What makes it worse is that it was high-quality chocolate (nothing but the best for Jon). At least 80% cocoa solids, I think.
Milly should be called "Tony" ("Tonie")for her ability to get her chocolate, laugh at the 4th estate and get away, yet again. I'm pulling for her like Harrison Ford in "The Fugitive". Go Milly!
("Ladies and gentlemen, your fugitive's name is DOC-TOR Milly T. Mouse....search every farmhous, henhouse and outhouse...")
Blair is dead in the water whatever he thinks. New Labour are ruined as a force because Blair ran a presidential style government so his successor (whoever he or she is) does not have the experience to slot in easily. Blair has caused Labour to lose the next election by his actions.
It looks like you're trying to find excuses to continue covering a story which is of interest only to politicians and journalists.
There are far more important, interesting and entertaining stories than whether Blair leaves at 2pm on the 25th of March or 3:32pm on the 14th of May. The news organisations are merely serving themselves and not the public.
Sad for Brits when Blair departs. Will you enshrine some weak chinned, wobbly knee replacment. Perhaps, a bit of brush up on Arabic may be in order. Better study the culture-history can repeat itself. In certain communities there is no respect for infidels-lying to them and signing anything-for the cause is OK-and you never have to adhere to it. Bit of a challenge old chaps, I say! Do study up on history-like from the beginning. But we love you Brits anyway..and Blair.
I thought Gordon was a gopher.
I feel sorry for the bloke I met last week whose name is Blair Brown.
...it’s about the future direction of the government on issues that matter to everyone like crime, health, and energy
If it is really about any of those then you have failed to indicate the fact, or why and how it is about them, on air. What is more, the issues that really matter - more than those, about which no politician seems to have any idea how to really make a difference - because they are going to hell in a handbasket right now and our government is not actually doing anything really helpful about them, indeed is often doing very much the opposite, is the killing of the planet (did anyone notice Simon Jenkins on a ±«Óătv politics programme predict there were just 50 years before the lights go off? What point is there to any human endeavour if that is to happen?); world poverty, and the growing gap between rich and poor, everywhere, which leads to mass immigration and crime; the reduction of all our privacy and human rights in knee-jerk reactions to the mistaken concept of "world terror"; the killing of innocent civilians in the Middle-East, the destruction of their countries, and the denial of justice against their oppressors, which breeds hatred amongst intelligent and highly motivated people; and American threats against and attempts to destabilise more countries, including nuclear ones. All but the first of those are dangerous distractions from the first.
What difference will Blair-v-Brown make to any of those? It looks like none, or is that just because Brown is bound by cabinet government rules to promote the same policies as the PM, but actually would implement others if Blair departs?
Those are both men with young children who are likely to suffer if the lights go off on our civilisation in 50 years. What plans are they making for those children's lives? Huge wealth, powerful friends and fortified estates? If you cannot tell us then you haven't got the story.