91Èȱ¬

David Davis won't lose his deposit, despite being the clown who caused this stupid by-election.

The trick is to guess who will come second. I bet on the Greens.

You've striven manfully Michael if you don't mind me saying so, to give this farce some significance, despite it having none, other than to finally show what one suspected when he failed so miserably in the leadership contest ie. that DD is an irredeemable twit.
It's summed the man up, IMO, that every time one's seen him in this 'Campaign', he's been thrilled to bits with himself and giggling his face off-'Golly, I'm on camera again; this is fun.' For me, he's trivialised the very issue, that he claims to care so deeply about.
Very odd, and a real shame. British politics needed the man, one thought he was 5 years ago.

Last night's report on the David Davis bye-election was a bit like a new 91Èȱ¬ comedy on television:- you knew what was going to be shown before you saw it, you knew it wouldn't be either amusing or informative and, worst of all, you knew that, having seen it, you would wonder why you bothered to watch it in the first place.

The scene at the David Davis election meeting summed it up. There appeared to be a room filled with local electors listening to contributions in support of Davis, from a Labour MP and Ms Shakrabati of Liberty. But we were not allowed to listen to any of the contributions, by the speakers or by way of questions from the body of the meeting.

The only sounds we heard were from three individuals outside the room:- complaining that they were not allowed to speak at the same meeting. Who were they ? Why, if Crick thought that they were worthy challengers to Davis, did he not seek to arrange a debate between them and Davis ? And the same question is raised, also, with respect to the young woman who had been subjected to an horrific rape ordeal and who believes Davis is wrong on the DNA list issue and the Green Party candidate who appeared to have some interesting points to make.

The only conclusion one can come to, I think, is that the failure to allow a televised exchange of views at the by-election simply reflects that, for Michael Crick and the 91Èȱ¬, this by-election was not a serious political event and could not, therefore, be treated as such. Pity. It might have allowed people in the country at large to listen to something more than sound-bite arguments in favour or against recent trends towards the further diminution of civil liberty.

I actually attended that meeting, so I can tell you a bit about what happened to the filming there. Firstly Mr. Crick only had one cameraman, and they did seem more keen on the things that went on before, after and outwith of the meeting, rather than what was said inside.

In addition to Bob Marshall-Andrews (the Labour MP) and Ms. Chakrabati, there was also Rachel North present, she was a victim of the 7/7 attack. They all gave good speeches, in their different ways, and there were some pointed questions from the audience, including from those who - for one reason or another - disagreed with David Davis. However with only one cameraman, who was in any case not focusing on the meeting, only a brief and uninteresting chunk was shown. I guess the cameraman was present for 10 minutes out of 90 (and I think I am being generous). Mr. Crick did attend much of the meeting though.

I don't think it's a deliberate process by the 91Èȱ¬ as such. But what clearly happened was that an over-arching strategy was decided before filming as to the sort of output they wanted, and then the filming was arranged to suit that strategy. The strategy was to have a zany / interesting / sideways look at a very English political eccentricity - by-elections.

The downside is that information, education, decent political debate (etc) were all sacrificed in the name of good TV. They even missed out on the Labour MP's very amusing speech plus a minor political scoop he unveiled there in respect of the former Chief Whip - the cameraman was outside filming 5 people have a row about access to the event, something to which the 100 people inside were oblivious.

Can you have both amusement and education? Yes. Two cameraman and Mr. Paxman closing the piece by saying "if you want the watch that meeting in full, get yourself off to that Iplayer thingymyjob".

Michael,

David Davis will not lose his deposit because he wanted to leave office and caused the Prime Minister [and his officials] to hold a special election in his riding for his seat in Parliament!

Well let's see -

A 1960s pop singer, a champion of a 1950s pop singer, a mad cow, 2 religious fundamentalists, an ex-TV presenter who is presumably ferrying messages between the said fundamentalists and the big boss upstairs, an abacus salesman, a pet pcychologist, a couple of teachers, several independents whose only policy appears to be living nowhere near the consituency, a beauty queen, 2 turtle doves, 3 french hens, old Uncle Tom Cobbly and a cuddly toy - is it too late to get Brucie in as Returning Officer? "Didn't he do well?"

There are going to be enough lost deposits in this one to pay off the National Debt. Hopefully, Davis' will not be one of them.

3. At 09:25am on 10 Jul 2008, Undermouse

4. At 11:51am on 10 Jul 2008, farmer-chrys

Didn't catch the slot, but thank you both for what I believe to be better reporting of a news event than I can now ever expect from the national broadcaster.

'But what clearly happened was that an over-arching strategy was decided before filming as to the sort of output they wanted, and then the filming was arranged to suit that strategy.'

If true, an interesting way for objective information to be shared with the public, though not really how I like my reporting and editorial served up.

Maybe a topic for future coverage. With apostrophes all correctly placed, of course.

Must maintain standards.