Thursday, September 04, 2008

Quote of the day

This coming 12 months will be the most difficult 12 months the Labour party has had in a generation, quite frankly. Both the general economic situation, and in terms of the politics. In the space of 10 months we’ve gone from a position where people generally felt we were doing OK to where we’re certainly not doing OK. We’ve got to rediscover that zeal which won three elections, and that is a huge problem for us at the moment. People are pissed off with us.

Chancellor Alistair Darling endears himself to Gordon Brown by offering Guardian readers a refreshingly honest assessment of his party’s predicament.I’m not a great politician”, he confesses elsewhere – and certainly the absence of obfuscating rhetoric and glib platitudes suggests he’s right.

One question: what exactly prompted the paper to publish an exclusive tete-a-tete with the person currently the second most newsworthy in the country and yet still decide the cover feature should be a Kiera Knightley interview which essentially consists of Sam Wollaston sniggering schoolboyishly at her carefully calculated use of rude words?

3 comments:

mike said...

Hmm, but Darling was being more than a tad disingenuous about his political past, making himself out as a non-ideological pragmatist when the opposite was true. This is all most effectively debunked in the current Private Eye (lead article, top of Page 5).

swisslet said...

I actually warmed to Darling after reading that interview. I like the idea of a politician who doesn't really do politics. Given how long he's survived in Westminster, that simply can't be true.... but I like the idea of it in a world of spin... The Knightley interview I didn't bother with. I've been so turned off by the Princess Diana referencing advertising for he new film, that I just couldn't face it.

ST

Ben said...

A double bluff, then - appearing to be frank when actually it's all just a facade. I must confess I know nothing about his political background except what was in the article, so thanks for that Mike. You have to wonder why Aitkenhead didn't pick him up on it, rather than swallowing it hook, line and sinker (as I appear to have done).