Classic John Humphrys

Despite my earlier remarks about certain frustrating aspects of the political process in the UK, I do remain impressed with other aspects. One of them is the fact that the politicians are expected to take part in extremely penetrating live interviews, where they have no (detailed) advance warning of the subject or the questions. The other thing I like is that fact that the morning radio - in particular the Today Programme on the BBC's Radio 4 - is the primary medium for this sort of serious political discussion, and as a member of the government, politicians in high office have to rise to the challenge of being interviewed in this format on a regular basis. And oh yes, it can be a bit of a blood sport sometimes listening to a politician's arguments being dissected live on prime time morning radio. One of the most skilled - probably the most skilled - surgeons in this realm of journalism is John Humphrys. (Pictured above right in a photo I cheekily lifted from the BBC site, but only to point back to it.) Today, the 8:10am interview on Today was with John Reid, the Defence Secretary, and the interviewer was John Humphrys, and the subject? Iraq, the National Assembly, and the constitution. John Reid started out by talking about the "positive" things that have been going on in Iraq as a result of the invasion and Humphrys (sometimes a bit hasty to draw blood, but in classic form) sets out at a running pace - questioning and probing relentlessly. John Reid rallies well in places, too, and so it is not all one sided. It becomes one of the most heated and passionate interviews on the subject I've heard for a long time, (informed with recent concerns like the London bombings, the ongoing insurgency attacks and civilian casualties, and broadened out to discuss connecting issues; and with mention and discussion of some of the statements of the late Robin Cook), since journalists seem to have forgotten how to ask hard questions about these matters over here in the USA. Come to think of it, they seldom ask the politicians anything remotely like a hard question over here (which includes putting it again and again until they get an answer). This is just great stuff. Important stuff. Please listen, if only to remind yourself what it really should be like: That we should have people asking hard questions about what's going on in our name. Do listen, if only to pretend that you're asking some of those questions. It's as close as most of us will ever get to putting these questions directly. This is the audio stream, and this is a direct download of an mp3, and here's the podcast link to get the regular daily (Mon-Sat) 8:10am interview. If these links eventually die, find links to some archives, and also to the 8:10 interview link, on this page for the Today Programme. Finally, please download or podcast it soon because the dear old BBC still are deciding to just what extent allow you access to much in the way of archives, and so I'm not sure how easy it will be to find the program after 24 hours. But do try to find it in the Today Programme's archives if you see this late. I hope that you find it interesting. -cvj