Friday, October 02, 2009

Marr-the verdict

On question time last night,the Andrew Marr interview came up and Ben Bradshaw for the Labour party said that it demonstrated "part of the trivialisation and degradation of our political discourse".

Strong words from the culture secretary.

I have to say that I am torn between the rights of the electorate to know if their leaders are suffering medically with the intrusion of privacy for the Brown family.

One must also question Marr's motivations behind a question that had its roots in right wing blogging's rumour mill.

Marr has gone down in my estimation,I have to say.

I think that this piece from the Economist's Bagehot may sum up the issues

I THINK Andrew Marr was wrong to ask Gordon Brown about the rumours concerning his use of anti-depressants.

Yes, the prime minister's health is a matter of legitimate public concern. And Mr Marr would have been right to raise the subject had there been serious grounds to believe the rumours were true—a briefing from a Number 10 official, say, or some mysteriously cancelled prime ministerial engagements. But the basis for the question seems to have been bloggers' speculation. Now Mr Marr has asked it, it will never go away. I think it was a mistake, and maybe a worrying sign of a new kind of lowest-common-denominator journalism.

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