chloe smith on newsnight last night

Conscript said:
Unfortunately, as mentioned, they are all more concerned about staying in power than actually serving the best interests of the country.
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Well if you're not in power you can't implement the things that you believe are for the best interests of the country.

It's a circular problem and one of the drawbacks of a parliamentary democracy.

It'll be interesting to see Barrack Obama's second term (should he win), as then he won't have to worry about re-election and so should be able to implement the policies he couldn't so far.
 
a1ex2001 said:
He was rude and he did bully her over pointless questions which were not relevant to the debate, the only thing that differentiates him from the slimy politicians is he has no accountability to the tax payers who pay his wages.
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Asking the same question over and over until you get an actual answer isn't bullying. I have to do it sometimes to my daughter when she knows she's been naughty.

And his questions were completely relevant to the debate as it was about what caused the U-turn and when, and where the money for delaying this increase is going to come from. 3 questions, of which she answered none.
 
Politicians make decisions that affect peoples lives on a daily basis be it health, finance or whatever and they should be held to account. If that means that they are shown up to be clueless or uninformed then so be it. I suspect that Ms Smith was shoehorned in and was not armed with all of the fact but she was up against a formidable interviewer the Paxman although I would much rather it had been Osborne that he chewed up and spat out.

I like to see politicians squirm and get taken apart by Paxman. Here's hoping that Ms May is on his list.
 
Paxman is such a tool, I loved it when he got totally owned by that Plaid MP he was interviewing the other year :P

Seriously though this was a total setup, he knew she wasn't allowed to answer the question he did the whole thing deliberately to make her look bad. Imo a veteran interviewer bullying a politician that's new to interviews in this manner is pathetic, it serves no purpose but to entertain the Jeremy Kyle type viewer.
 
Duff-Man said:
If you add up the "right" (as Tory, BNP and UKIP) vs. the "left" (Labour, Lib-Dem, Green) you see:

Right: 48.85%
Left: 30.28%.

That is massively skewed towards the right, in comparison to national stats, which were (in terms of popular vote and using the same groupings):

Right: 36.1%
Left: 52.0%

(plus small amounts of support for minor parties).


In terms of proportion (i.e. scaling to ignore the OcUK "not going to vote" results), the right has 61.7% of the vote on OcUK, yet only 36.1% nationally. So yes - the OcUK results ARE heavily skewed to the right.
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Since when were the Lib Dems left? They are a central party... Although ot depends which part of the lib Dems you think about which is why conservatives usually think they are more right and labour supporters think they are more left...
 
Cr0fty said:
So much respect for keeping his cool. I would have ended the interview long before he did. :cool:
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actually, how about just ending the interview if they don't answer properly? Politicians go on the to defend their points and to advertise. If they don't answer the actual questions then the interviewer should just stop and go on to the next article...

I assume politicians would get the hint pretty quickly.

a1ex2001 said:
The opening five minutes that he wastes asking her over and over again when she was told of the policy u-turn which is totally irelevant to the actual point and misses the real issue of the increased cost of energy and in particular petrol completely.

Paxman is only interested in scoring points in interviews and has no interest in the real debate his approach of repeatedly asking the same question over and over is dull as dishwater she clearly wasn't going to answer it move the debate on to the real situation that effects the voters.
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How about the answer giving a better understanding on the inner workings of the party, if they are backstepping in a rational manner with considered discussion beforehand or rash decisions made in 5 minutes without consulting the party or keeping them in the loop. The fact she didn't answer after multiple questions is an answer in itself.
 
scorza said:
There are media facing training courses you can go on, footballers and senior managers at companies regularly get sent on them. I reckon most MPs will have been on one too (and claim cost on expenses natch).
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Why the apparent bitterness? Should they pay for something they need for their job? Do you think managers and footballers don't expense these things? :P
 
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