Forget Paxman - which Liberal Democrat Voice editor featured at Leveson yesterday?

Everybody's talking about Jeremy Paxman's evidence at Leveson yesterday, where he described how Piers Morgan explained to him at a lunch how to hack somebody's phone and how people would be very stupid not to set a code. He wasn't telling us anything that wasn't already in the public domain, though. Piers Morgan talked about that himself in the first instalment of his own memoirs, The Insider, as far back as 2004.

The really interesting stuff from a Liberal Democrat Voice point of view happened when Andrew Marr gave his evidence. He was talking about the authority and credibility of the political blogosphere. Top left on page 83 if you don't want to read the whole thing.

"You look around and a lot of the most influential highly respected political commentators aren't newspaper journalists, actually, they are bloggers. I'm thinking of people like Tim Montgomery on Conservativehome or Mr Pack on the Liberal website."

Well, actually, Mr Marr, it's Dr Pack, but we'll let that one pass seeing as you were so nice.

It got me wondering what our Mark has said about Andrew Marr over the years.

In January this year, when Marr interviewed Nick Clegg, Mark commented t hat he must have been bidding for the highest number of topics in one interview.

Marr's comments yesterday were a big change from Autumn 2010 when he described bloggers as "inadequate, male, pimpled and single." Mark reminded him at the time that most bloggers are in fact female.  Now that Marr's  admiring the genre, he might want to diversify his reading list. He can start with Jennie. 

It appears to me that seeing as Mark has been cited as one of the most respected political commentators in the country, it wouldn't be a bad idea for him to head along to Leveson himself, especially as he has his own, liberal, perspective on how the media should be reformed post Leveson.

In the meantime, I guess it's chocolate milk shakes all round....

Brown Interview showcases a good man, not a good PM

This is basically my first, unfiltered reaction to Gordon Brown's interview with Piers Morgan. What did we learn?

That Piers and Gordon are great buddies. You can tell that - I've never seen the PM so comfortable during an interview. He was nervous, cos he really doesn't like doing that sort of thing, but he managed to laugh and giggle a bit while Piers did the sex and drugs innuendo.

That Gordon Brown is a human being who's gone through some really tough things, including the loss of a child and he's emotionally articulate enough to talk about it despite the obvious pain.

That he loves his wife, incredibly much, and their bond is very strong. Many couples split up after losing a child because they can't cope with the terrible grief. What struck me was his empathy for what Sarah had gone through. You can't learn that from a script - you get the impression he felt it with her. I expect many women particularly will have seen that and liked it.

That his children mean the absolute world to him.

Absolutely not one bit of this was a surprise to me - it's always been totally obvious. I remember when little Jennifer was born commenting to my husband how happy he looked. We were a couple of years into our parenthood at this stage and we totally got how he was totally bowled over by his wee girl.

If the objective of this interview was to get over to the public that Gordon Brown is a human being, a real person with feelings who's just like us, then it worked. Whether that sort of thing was necessary is another thing.

Piers set up a series of straw men, like Gordon's failure to kiss visiting ladies properly, the You Tube debacle and his seeming social discomfiture which he then blew aside himself with each fawning guffaw as the hagiography continued.

Of course, there was no intense probing on policy, on the disparity between Brown and Darling on future spending plans, on the fact that a Government of which he was a senior member was complicit in torture, of Iraq, which he bankrolled (obviously not personally but you know what I mean) and which, of couse, Piers Morgan was opposed to as editor of the Daily Mirror. Not a word about Brown's forthcoming appearance at the Iraq Inquiry.

There was nothing in tonight's interview that showed Gordon Brown as a man of vision, a man of who could lead, a man with people skills, a man with sound judgement. All of these things are vital in a Prime Minister but we didn't see them tonight and nor have we seen them in any sufficient quantity in his time in office. He's presided over a Government whose best hope of clinging to power is to pursue a brutal, cynical "I'm not them" campaign.

It would be remiss of me not to mention that Nick Clegg has all of these qualities in boatloads - we've seen it in the way he's set out his fairness agenda, how he's worked with people on the Gurkhas, how he seems to have tamed the passionate and ubercritical Lib Dem membership and activists as he's made changes in the party for the better.

David Cameron, of course, is just slick, opportunistic and smarmy - and people know it. A mum at my daughter's school said to me that (and this is good Scots vernacular which I trust needs no explanation) Cameron gives her "the boke".

So, we know from tonight that Gordon Brown is a good man, a genuine man. We might even like him. This does not, however, make him a good PM, or his Government anything other than the cynical, tired, overly authoritarian monolith it has become. Nothing excuses their failure to do something radical to help the poor and most vulnerable and Brown has to take the blame for that as its head.

Piers Morgan's Boris Moment

Hat tip to Stephen for pointing out this story highlighting the success of local (to us) woman, Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent. And in case you were wondering, no, she wasn't the stripper I've been complaining about.

Stephen was at my house when the show was on and I think it's fair to say that this woman is a miracle worker. Shutting one of us up is an achievement, stunning two of the biggest gobs in the Scottish Lib Dems if not the Scottish blogosphere into awed silence is probably unprecedented. She didn't look like she was going to have one of the most amazing voices ever seen on one of these shows as she sung "I dream a dream" from Les Miserables.

So from the talented, we go to the ignorant. The same story tells how Piers Morgan took exception to the footage of Susan's home town of Blackburn, describing it as a dump and apparently ordered filming to take place in Bathgate instead. The cheek of the man! West Lothian is one of the best areas to live in the UK as far as I am concerned. It's accessible for Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth and Stirling, has great facilities and lovely surrounding countryside. I think it might be a good idea for him to get his backside up here and have a look round the place for himself before he starts decrying it. It may not be a chocolate box pretty corner of the posh south eastern countryside like the village he comes from but Blackburn and the surrounding area is a good place to live.

Not only that, the area is fairly rich with hidden talent with Kerry McGregor from Pumpherston making it to the X Factor final 12 in 2005, Leon Jackson just down the road in Whitburn winning the X Factor in 2007 and now Susan, who probably tops both of them. Just as an aside, in an addition to the point Stephen made about when the X Factor filmed for Leon, during the final the crowd was gathered in Edinburgh, with Liberal Democrat Lord Provost of Edinburgh talking live to host Dermot O'Leary. Much as I love George, they should definitely have filmed that in West Lothian.

Simon Cowell should send Piers up here, the same way Boris Johnson was made to go to apologise to Liverpool, to make amends for the slur he has cast on us.

And now that my rant is over, sit back and listen to the marvels Susan has to offer have a look here. 2.1 million hits and counting.

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