There’s a passibly good case to make that journalists are in part responsible for the decline in standards in public life. In part, because in the end it is the elected politicians who at least hold some of their fate in their own hands. It’s politicians own obsession with the press and the foresaking of a credible longer term agenda that might mean something once they get into government. Blair had Campbell; Cameron has Coulson. Both know the seek and destroy game better than most. Brown’s bright but relatively amateurish McBride was stupid enough to get caught doing the others’ stock-in-trade. What they all have in common is that they none of them looked much further than the next day’s headlines. Now, former BBC hack and former MP Martin Bell is planning to take on politics again. In his recipe for a successful ‘insurgency‘:
“…three conditions have to be in place: a well-known candidate (not necessarily a TV personality: a prominent doctor or councillor will do just as well), a good cause and a vulnerable incumbent.”
All of which sounds like just another form of press populism to me…
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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