John Maier

Enjoyably bad-tempered: The Lock In with Jeremy Paxman reviewed

Plus: listen to Joe Biden talk lucidly about the pleasures of Plato and Somerset Maugham

Jeremy Paxman's new podcast is an attempt at a more convivial register – luckily he's still a hopeless grouch. Photo: Jeff Overs / BBC News / Getty Images

‘I used to be Mr Nasty! That was good! Mr Nasty was easy!’ Jeremy Paxman bellows at Michael Palin on his new podcast. Now Paxman wants to know: ‘Have you got any recommendations as to how you become the nicest man in Britain?’ ‘I’m a very angry, cross person half the time!’ Michael Palin protests, pleasantly. The Lock In with Jeremy Paxman is Paxman’s attempt at a more convivial register — ‘just interesting people, over a pint, with me’ — in contrast to the tone he deployed famously on Newsnight for 25 years: that of the professional curmudgeon.

Luckily Paxman is still a hopeless grouch and cannot easily sustain common standards of politeness even over the course of a half-hour interview. He is therefore on enjoyably bad-tempered form in most of the episodes, and continues to draw on large reserves of combative energy — on Lee Child’s novels (‘Why can’t you do anything better?’); on Richard Dawkins’s scientistic preaching (‘Don’t your friends say to you: “Oh, lighten up, Richard!”?’); and on poor, nice Michael Palin’s travel documentaries (‘You’re not going to be traipsing around when you’re 90, are you? That would be really embarrassing.’).

This is Paxman’s attempt at a more convivial register: ‘just interesting people, over a pint, with me’

The highlight of the series is Paxman’s interview with Katharine Birbalsingh (‘a gloriously sensible woman’), the so-called ‘strictest headmistress in Britain’ and founding-principal of the inner-city Michaela Community School, which delivers some of the best GCSE results in the country. Birbalsingh operates a style of authoritarian regime that involves singing the National Anthem, defending the canon of ‘dead white men’, and what she several times refers to as the ominous-sounding practice of ‘holding children to account’. Jeremy, uncharacteristically silent, is, I assume, appropriately terrified and impressed. ‘I am determined,’ says Birbalsingh, ‘that when I am 95 and I look back… I’m going to say I made a difference to the world,’ and one senses this will be true whether the world likes it or not.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in