The trend of the politician-cum-talk show host must end

Feeling somewhat like the violinist on the listing deck of this ship once known as Britain, can I just say that, yes, the engine room is flooding, there’s a fire in the cabaret lounge, the crew are taking all the life-rafts for themselves, and nobody has heard from the captain since he retired to his cabin for a “bit of a think”. Yet somebody has to keep playing as if the normal rules still apply.

I mean that while people scream about small boats, protocols, Chinese balloons, and the shortage of ammunition, tomatoes, and “a normal spring”, there are other matters which deserve our attention. And, who knows, perhaps by focussing on, let’s say, the ruddy big hole in the side of the ship, we might begin to get the situation under control.

We could begin, for example, by getting back to first principles and addressing the desperate and rather unhealthy intrusion of politics into our media.

And, yes, it is certainly true that the blurring between those worlds is hardly new. There has always been an uneasy tension, especially in the print media where newspapers have their political colour. Yet even within a biased press, there was always a notional separation between the media and the politicians. We might have had prime ministers writing a one-off column, usually ahead of an election or a big policy announcement, but they were considered the exception rather than the rule.

What we’re now seeing are politicians taking high-profile roles inside the media that would previously have been filled by career journalists. This is a relatively new phenomenon. Tune into LBC on a Sunday morning and you hear the current shadow foreign secretary hosting a three-hour radio show. David Lammy isn’t particularly good in his role as phone-in host (three hours of dull but earnest sanctimony is not what you’d call easy listening for the weekend) but that’s not the point. He sits in a seat usually occupied by a career journalist who would, in an ideal world, retain some degree of separation from the subject under discussion. Instead, Lammy tries to fill two roles: moderating the discussion while being an active participant in the discussion. It’s an impossible task and the results are rarely satisfactory.

The example of Lammy is raised first because this would otherwise sound like a complaint motivated by the news this week that Conservative deputy chairman, Lee Anderson, is to become the latest sitting MP to land a show on GB News. This follows the same channel announcing that Jacob Rees Mogg would be doing the same, himself following in the footsteps of Esther McVey and Philip Davies. Whether it’s on the right or the left, the intrusion of political players into media roles cannot be healthy.

First, we are allowing the traditional notion of impartiality to slip. It used to be the case that when high-profile figures did a phone-in, a journalist would sit with them to retain a degree of independence. That seems to have been abandoned in favour of the “big-name” host speaking directly to the people. Perhaps some might think it is democracy in action but it’s not. It removes the vital distinction between party and broadcaster.

Second, it cannot be simply left to the British public to scrutinise these players. While it’s certainly true that some phone-in hosts display more bias than others (one can always tell how seriously they take their roles as moderators by how quickly they cut off anybody who disagrees with them) having actual politicians in these roles should be considered a step too far. It removes scrutiny and naïvely assumes that the hosts will act out of something other than their best interests.

Thirdly, it’s self-defeating. No decision they make will ever be free from the suspicion of bias and it begins to undermine our long (if increasingly naïve) belief in the independence of our media. This is a continuation of the erosion of trust we’ve seen around the BBC for the past decade, leading to the conclusion that if one is bad, they all must be bad.

Lastly, let’s not forget that these MPs are being paid by the taxpayer to be Members of Parliament, jobs which should be full-time. This is a separate complaint, not worth repeating in full. It is true, however, that MPs continue to enjoy the benefits of their position that most people would not enjoy in similar full-time work. They cannot be both sitting MPs and media personalities and that applies to Jess Philips as much as it applies to, say, Boris Johnson.

Defenders of this new reality might say it’s hardly new. Churchill was a journalist before he became an MP. And then what about columnists and broadcasters who were MPs before returning to the media world? That includes the likes of Matthew Parris and Gyles Brandreth, Alan Johnson and Michael Portillo and… Well, the list is almost endless. Yet each example proves the point rather than disproves it. MPs are free to take up whatever work they like once they leave office. What is irresponsible is allowing active politicians a role in the media.

Nadine Dorries jumped from being the Minister for Culture to landing a Friday night talk show on TalkTV while remaining a sitting MP. We now have Matt Hancock trying to establish himself as a media personality. We’re just waiting for the appearance of the ubiquitous TikTok channel where he’ll be doing unboxing videos. Even if these last two are standing down at the next election, they are for the moment sitting MPs. Matt Hancock should have been immediately ejected from Parliament the moment he stopped representing his constituents by appearing in the jungle. Lamy should end his broadcasting career and LBC should stop using members of either party as a cheap and always available talent pool to cover for their journalists when they’re on holiday. Lastly, GB News needs to stop reducing our politics to a form of cheap entertainment where every difficult problem can be inflamed to increase viewing figures.

Perhaps it’s a matter for Sir Lindsay Hoyle, but one does not hold out much hope that the weakest Speaker in living memory takes up this challenge of ending this sad spectacle. Governments of whatever political colour need to understand that not every problem is solved with a narrative, and you cannot rule Britain by simply ruling the media.

@DavidWaywell

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