Johnson will govern like he campaigned, by running away from the press.
He’s barely back from his post-election Carribean holiday but we it is already clear that Boris Johnson will govern as he campaigned – by hiding from the press.
After Boris Johnson chickened out of an interview with Andrew Neil during the election campaign, his ministers are now going to avoid appearing on BBC’s Newsnight.
According to the Mail, the government’s excuse for this is that Newnight has appointed a journalist called Lewis Goodall as its policy editor and he’s apparently too left-wing.
Goodall has joined Newnight from Sky News, where he worked as a political correspondent for right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch.
The government’s evidence that Goodall is anti-Tory, the Mail says, is that he is the “author of a string of aggressively anti-Tory comments on social media”.
So what did he say? “F**k Tory scum. All hail Corbyn.”? No, just the kind of reasoned criticism every political journalist makes about any party. The most anti-Tory example the government/Mail could dig out is this one:
And of course, he’s also been critical of Labour too. He called Labour’s election performance “lamentably bad” and accused Corbyn of looking “stiff” and “robotic” at Prime Ministers Questions.
The government/Mail’s other piece of evidence against Goodall is that, when he was a student, a Guardian profile described him as a “Labour activist”.
But plenty of political journalists used to be active in politics in their youth.
Today Show presenter Nick Robinson was the chair of the Young Conservatives and the BBC’s Andrew Neil used to be a Conservative Party researcher and now edits the right-wing Spectator magazine.
Yet Johnson dodged Neil’s election interview and his ministers have been told to avoid Robinson’s Today Show. So it looks like it’s not Lewis Goodall but any media scrutiny they are afraid of.
This impression is reinforced by government moves to change the location of press briefings from parliament to Downing Street – where they can control the guestlist more tightly.
At present, any media outlet with a parliamentary pass can attend government press briefings. If they’re moved to Downing Street, publications which displease the government could be disinvited.
If this is the case, let’s hope that the favoured journalists and outlets stand up for press freedom and boycott the briefings.
Joe Lo is a co-editor of Left Foot Forward
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12 Responses to “Johnson’s government continue to hide from press scrutiny by dodging Newsnight”
Michael McManus
The sample of Lewis Goodall’s thought makes you wonder if there is any door closed to what passes for the BBC mind.
Why BJ or any MP declines to be ‘interviewed’ is a mystery to me. You are faced on all occasions with petulance, bias, ignorance and the toff-lefty cramped view of the world not with what the people who create the wealth and society want or think – so disparaged views of the ‘working class’.
Don’t MPs know what to do when a two-year old throws itself down on the pavement and screams like Marr did?
Alan Bond
Like fools, enough people voted for bojo the bozo to carry on wrecking this country (or, more precisely, making life worse for those who are the most disadvantaged). This refusal to subject themselves to scrutiny is redolent of NAZISM as it was in about 1936. Be afraid, very afraid. The right wing press won the election for these FASCISTS using LIES, LIES and more LIES and the whole establishment needs to be held to account. When it all goes belly up after we leave the EU (and it will) people will wonder what has hit them when they are stuck with a government of right wing extremists who will take away your rights without a moment’s concern. The government IS accountable to the BBC as the BBC is a PUBLIC SERVICE. Bojo the bozo and his bunch of cowardly crooks WILL be held to account but at what cost to the people who will suffer in the meantime, as they have done for the last ten years. Kicking people when they are down is the stock in trade of the tory party !
Julia Gibb
Alan Bond determined to crowd out the competition and be crowned bellend poster of the year within the first week…
Dave Roberts
Well said Julia.
Patrick Newman
People have commented on this site I have not heard of before so some coordination or campaign is being orchestrated. These people will not be happy until Murdoch owns and runs the BBC. Are they really unaware that for all its faults the BBC is a welcome antidote to the corrupt and Right-wing gutter press? The BBC is not institutionalised in political bias but that does not mean there is no bias such as found in Newsnight and The Today programme – both providing evidence of chronic bias against Labour confirmed by recent academic studies (see Justin Schlosberg and Tom Mills). There is no evidence of systemic bias against the Tories but they seem hell-bent on destroying the independence by stealth of a British institution much admired and respected throughout the world. Nothing illustrates this better than the attempt to turn the corporation into a branch of the DWP and force it to spend £750m to provide free TV licences for the 75’s and older.