Is it more rude to ask if someone’s going whacko than blind?

3 October 2009

Rod Liddle says the furore surrounding Andrew Marr’s questions to Gordon Brown is academic. These rumours are rife in the blogosphere

A good ten years or so ago now, a right-wing maniac came into my office at the BBC and told me that Tony Blair was a kiddie-fiddler, and he had the paper evidence to prove it. He was deluded and mad and there was no truth whatsoever to the charges. But it is the sort of thing which these days would be a staple on the right-wing (and far left-wing) blogs — and quite possibly would leak, one way or another, into the mainstream press, the columnists for which scour the blogs for titbits. A sly joke here or there, from which another columnist might write a more substantive piece. All those rumours in the mid-1990s about male Tory ministers shagging one another — they’d be on the blogs, too. My guess is that 99 per cent of the stuff that swills around the blogosphere is certifiable rubbish written by paranoid idiots and that we all, in the deadwood press, have a duty to disbelieve unless we find compelling evidence to the contrary. But in the meantime we flail around, desperate to believe one or another rumour, the more unlikely and bizarre the better, because one in a hundred, and probably the least likely (John Major and Edwina Currie, anyone?) will turn out to be true. It seems hard, then, to attack Andrew Marr simply for asking the questions at a time when the blogosphere is, bizarrely, trusted as a conduit of information.

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Vulture

October 1st, 2009 11:20am Report this comment

The reason that those spoof takeoffs of The Downfall, with Bruin doubling as Hitler were so funny, is that they were all too credible. You know from his air of brooding menace, without actually witnessing them, that Bruin has fits of titanic, pencil-snapping rage. That he is a bully who regularly sends his female staff to the lavvy in tears, that no Nokia is safe in his chimpish paws, etc etc.

Similarly, it would not surprise anyone to learn that he is on strong medication to control physical and/or mental illness. His strange gestures, the Facebook gurning, the inability to smile appropriately, the regularly swooping jawline, all point to one or more severe impediments.

So perhaps another Hitler parallel holds true: the Fuehrer, especially in his last months, suffered from a range of chronic maladies, including flatulence, Parkinsons, tremors, deafness, and impaired vision. His quack doctor, Theor Morrell, proscribed a battery of pills and potions, so that if anyone had had the temerity to hold the Fuehrer upside down by his jackboots he would have rattled like a Salvation Army collecting tin.

Given all this, Big Ears was quite right to pop the pill question to Noddy. A more honest inquiry would have been: 'Prime Minister, are you as nutty as a Dundee cake?'

Hawkeye

October 1st, 2009 12:25pm Report this comment

"... what is still referred to, by some foaming maniacs, as the Blair Broadcasting Corporation"

Phew! I was worried there for a minute, but I refer to it as the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation.

That's me in the clear then...

David99

October 2nd, 2009 2:17pm Report this comment

A generation ago, David Frost used to conduct incisive interviews (e.g. Nixon).
Then he went on Sunday morning TV and went all bland.
Andrew Marr, in taking over from Frost, has carried on in the same vein, never, until last week, saying boo to anyone.
So it is long overdue!

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