POLITICS WITH ANDREW MARR

PREJUDICE PREJUDICE PREJUDICE

This morning on BBC TV I thought that Andrew Marr lost it! I always try and watch his Sunday morning political show and I admire the way he deals with his interviewees. Even the bloody-minded ones who will never say yes or no, but let party rhetoric fall from their mouths like vomit.

That was my view until this morning and I watched him let the smooth talking Baroness Chakrabarti get away with saying about ‘that is too early to discuss what happened on London Bridge’. Okay she showed respect and regret. And he let her carry on with this calm and “wordless-meaning” approach to a too early discussion. She was correct in many ways and I listened intently to what it takes to supervise and maintain surveillance. It is costly, financially and with human time, to do the job well, but it will never be perfect.

Now the Prime Minister. The chat started smoothly enough. The guts of the conversation was about the release of the killer after only eight years in prison. The public will always have mixed views on sentencing and why prisoners are released before their full term. It is always political and party politics seems to blur or even conceal the factual extent of what legislation can allow or not.
Apparently the legislation under which are killer was sentenced was in the period of a Labour Goverment. That was convenient for our wild haired prime minister. You can either love him or hate his image or everything about him. He is the ‘marmite man’ to many.

According to Marr the Conservative governments have had ten years to change the law regarding release for convicted terrorists. There was more ‘toing and froing’ than usual with both talking at the same time. That's probably very easy to do when Boris Johnston is in full flow. At least eight times Marr asked the same question and there was hostility written across his face.

The first fact we should know is whether the killer could have been kept in prison or not. We did not know from this programme and I hold Marr accountable for this. Facts should be there for us. Maybe we will see.

I have been a fan of Marr for years, but today, I saw him let himself down. He may not like our current Prime Minister, but that was not his job on this Sunday morning. I even walked away from the screen. Why give one interviewee an easy ride and then become, even belligerent, to another one. I know that there is a huge political divide and on this Sunday morning is he showing his own politics? Maybe he is trying to influence the polls!

Come on Andrew Marr - you can be more even handed because you have done better than this.