Mailwatch(ed) Forum

I watch a fair bit of this.

For no particular reason, starting with Iain Duncan Smith's election as Tory leader in 2001.



It's all a bit downbeat because it was announced on 9/11. The folk in IDS' constituency cancelled their celebration out of respect. But at 24 minutes in we do get an almost comically bullish local councillor who thinks her man is "charismatic, gentle and honest". And how he'll get rid of this "lousy" government (who just got reelected with a majority of 167). She thinks people calling out IDS' uselessness are "Labour Party Supporters". Maybe they were, but there were rather a lot of them at that time. That was sort of the issue.

One surprising thing is that Ann Widdecombe supported Ken Clarke. Bill Cash is the IDS supporter interviewed. Nick Robinson puts it to him (in politely coded terms) that the public will see Cash here and think "On christ, these clowns are in charge".

The bullish councillor, Lesley Finlayson, ended up defecting to Labour in 2011. Curious.

This is worth watching. The Labour Leader Hugh Gaitskell answering questions on the Suez crisis. This was a time when politicians actually answered questions, not parroted what HQ had told them to say regardless of what they were being asked.

It comes in several parts. There is another one of these with Gaitskell on nuclear disarmament also on Youtube.