Adam Boulton blows up at Alistair Campbell
My first reaction to the sight of Adam Boulton losing his cool with Alistair Campbell on live TV (hat tip to Iain Dale here,) was astonishment.
My second reaction was that it is surprising fewer people lose their temper with certain New Labour spokesmen. Mr Campbell provoked Adam Boulton with a particularly irritating trick which New Labour spokesmen use more often than anyone else, namely telling someone else what they believe.
For every person who, like Adam Boulton, has told a New Labour representative
"I'm fed up with you telling me what I think! I don't think that! Don't tell me what I think!"
I bet there have been ten who felt the same way.
My second reaction was that it is surprising fewer people lose their temper with certain New Labour spokesmen. Mr Campbell provoked Adam Boulton with a particularly irritating trick which New Labour spokesmen use more often than anyone else, namely telling someone else what they believe.
For every person who, like Adam Boulton, has told a New Labour representative
"I'm fed up with you telling me what I think! I don't think that! Don't tell me what I think!"
I bet there have been ten who felt the same way.
Comments
Perhaps Boulton took the bait, but Campbell has been provoking him for several days. I do not in anyway condone violence, but I am surprised that no one yet has punched Campbell.
The sheer arrogance of Campbell and Mandelson running around, manipulating behind the scenes, to keep Labour in power. Meanwhile Gordon Brown metaphorically plays the harp whilst Rome burns. These spin-doctors have no mandate to rule and have never faced the electorate. Their only concerns are power for the sake of power and forget about the good of the country or the will of the people.
If Boulton lost his rag, he perhaps expresses the frustration of the British electorate who do not want any more of this defunct, dysfunctional Labour Government spinning on out of control.
Those of us who are older and whose memories are still sharp will remember Adam Boulton and Anne Diamond engaging in a discraceful attack on Edna Healey during an election campaign in the '80s - what goes around comes around.
Adam Boulton is trying to have it both ways. He accepts the Murdoch shilling, something that morally I could never do. The Sky line on politics seems to just stay on the side of impartial where the large parties are concerned, not surprising when you consider that they disagree on so little, but when it comes to something less mainstream it's the usual combination of denounciation and censorship by admission.
Adam Boulton gets his job on Sky because he's going to tow the Murdoch line, he's allowed Campbell to wind him up because Cambell does know what he thinks and is telling us so.
There is a false assumption in this country that democracy is all about the electoral sleight of hand that we have every four years or so in this country, when it is so much more. The unfettered, untramelled, unhindered flow of thoughts and ideas is central to the cause, a cause that Murdoch through his lackies like Adam Boulton seems so eager to wreck.
Boulton, like most journalists, has been known to give people of all parties a hard time: I can certainly remember more than a few occasions when fellow Conservatives who had just watched him were very cross - and no, that's not a criticism, I'm just making the point that he doesn't always agree with us.
I doubt very much that Campbell has the least idea what Boulton thinks