Guido flashed it, so to speak. Then Quentin Letts, a graduate of TCD and therefore qualified to comment on all things Irish north and south picked it up in his sketch.
Mr Paisley rose. Tall fella. He has his father’s shoulders and skull-shape and Northern Irish accent. As I say, the larynx does not yet have the entrancing, papery creak but it is still a strong, clear voice, the Ulster uplift giving it a tone of disbelief.
He asked Mrs Miller if she was truly convinced that attitudes at the BBC had changed since Savile’s day.
‘Just a matter of weeks ago,’ he said, ‘We had one of their senior “talent” caught in photographs in the grip of a young woman with his hands down her trousers in a public place and gets away with it with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders and a silly excuse. Is the culture really changing?’
He was referring, lest you forget, to that photograph of Andrew Marr lunging at a female BBC colleague in a Soho street late at night, slipping a flattened hand down the back of her jeans to have a right old rummage. The House listened to Mr Paisley with exquisite horror
But then the subs on the Independent boobed by surmounting a picture of Daddy over Andy MacSmith’s comment. Will Lord Bannside sue? After all, he has never been guilty of publicity seeking for its own sake, has he?
Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London
Discover more from Slugger O'Toole
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
