UK Media News
At least there’s some glimmers of pleasure amongst the darkness, though it probably only matters to me and all the other middle-aged Radio 4 addicts:
It’s been a long haul but Radio 4 has finally found a successor to John Peel to run the cosy Saturday morning get-together with the listening nation, Home Truths. The choice is Fi Glover, who made her name on Radio Five Live but has won her spurs in other fields. Taking an interest in public service work, she was frustrated by the quango system and ended up giving evidence to an MPs’ inquiry into ways of opening it up. Tony Wright, chair of the public administration select committee, was impressed by her evidence. The programme restarts when Glover gets back from maternity leave next month, albeit under a new name. Home Truths is too bound up with Peel to stay as the title, says Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer.
I disagree – I think they should keep the ‘Home Truths’ name, Glover can carry it. Sunday mornings’ Broadcasting House has not been the same without her ; she was the only presenter with the requisite snarkability and quiet wit to possibly replace Eddie Mair. The presenter BH has on now (I can’t even remember his name; shows what an impression he makes) tries, but he’s awkward, stilted, and frankly embarassing at times and his guests are dullsville, man.
The good thing about Glover ( and Meyer, who now presents PM) is that you can hear their sardonically raised eyebrows when they read the latest bit of Bush/Blair egregiousness. It’s a very English, middle-class and middlebrow form of subversion and very entertaining – not that it’ll ever upset the status quo, but then that’s not what the Beeb is for, is it?
Elsewhere, Mark Thomas is being universally praised, even by a parliamentary committee, for bringing light to Britain’s disgusting trade in torture equipment and illegal arms.
Yes, his shows are great; yes, his stunts are creative and very funny; yes, his shows publicly turn over a rock and expose the crawling horror underneath – BUT.
Thomas didn’t do all the investigative work. Those who did have been working for years without recognition, digging away through company reports, picketing the arms fairs, confronting arms dealers and generally bringing the information to the public, only to have the law used against them in the most punitive way.
I’m talking about people like countless individual UK Indymedia reporters and direct action campaigners, samizdat publishers like Schnews, websites like Urban75 , Statewatch and Squall and mainstream orgs like the Campaign Against the Arms Trade. I haven’t even begun to list the left parties, unions and even churches.
Thomas has also destructively attacked the Stop The War Coalition antiwar movement in the pages of the soft-left, reformist house organ the New Statesman, at a point in the fight against the war which caused it to seriously stumble. He got lots of publicity though; the pro-Blair, pro-war media lapped it up. This not dispose me to think Thomas is anything other than a self-interested actor and publicity hound at bottom. I bet he’s loving every minute of this current adorationfest.
[Sorry, the only available copy of the article I can find online is at the internet Archive, there are lots of links to the original from various places but they’re all broken. Oh, and full disclosure – I am ex- SWP, and though I do actually agree with a number of Thomas’ criticisms, I felt he was needlessly destructive of a movement that could’ve toppled Blair – unlike his own ‘couple of crusties, a camera and a can of paint’.]
Mark Thomas is a performer who lives for public approbation and while he certainly deserves some praise, how about a cheer for those other unsung heroes?
This is the problem with celebrities – even minor ones, like Thomas – involving themselves in political movements. While it’s a useful boost to public profile, eventually it becomes about them rather than the issue.
