With Trump-like disdain, Boris Johnson treats journalists much as he might, for argument’s sake, an outraged husband in hot pursuit. Off he scuttles with his shirt untucked, unwilling even to utter an ahem.
Soft-pat questions from children for a TV stunt, that’s fine. Gentle under-arms tossed by a minion for Facebook, that’ll be lovely.
Annoying questions from Laura Kuenssberg of the BBC? No, thank you. Here instead is a six-year-old to ask what shampoo Johnson uses (Wash and Go for Broke, as it happens).
Ducking and diving, and hiding from reporters in a large fridge, was Johnson’s way during the election campaign. And it worked, although always being on the run from questions is poor form in a prime minister.
Especially one famed for his ‘eloquence’ – although mostly this alleged ability translates into barking and blathering sentences as ornate as they are meaningless.
On Monday, political journalists walked out of a lobby briefing after one of Boris Johnson’s aides banned certain reporters from attending. Lee Cain, a senior communications adviser, wanted to exclude reporters from the Mirror, the i, HuffPost, PoliticsHome, the Independent and others, while favouring others.
This was a pleasing display of unity from journalists, who too often tongue-lash each other in public, depending on the whims of their paymasters. Rupert Murdoch hates the BBC, so his editors and columnists tend to as well (there’s a coincidence); the Daily Telegraph disparages the BBC, so its editors and columnists tend to as well (these coincidences are catching).
Journalists should stick together more often, especially when the government is being so high-handed towards the media, refusing to talk to the BBC Today programme, wanting to provide its own footage for broadcasters – a sort of political vanity publishing.
Noises off today about abolishing the TV licence fee fall into that category, too. The knuckledusters are out, partly because the Tories nearly always dislike the BBC for ideological reasons; and partly because the BBC has an annoying habit of wanting to ask questions, and Johnson isn’t good with answers.
Above the Daily Mail leader column, of all the unlikely places, you will find the headline: “Show you believe in the free Press, Boris.” With a flourish of optimism, the Mail writes, “As a career journalist himself, Boris Johnson knows the essential value of an independent media to our democracy.”
Well, the mistake made there by my long-distant ex-colleague Geordie Greig, editor of the Mail, is to call Johnson a “career journalist”. Nope, he’s a career Boris Johnson; a task to which he has devoted every trick in the book, and a few that weren’t in any book.
Yes, there has been journalism, including making up scare stories about the EU for the Telegraph 30 years ago; and the editorship of The Spectator.
Yet mostly he has been a celebrity columnist, which is easier than being a real journalist engaged in research and checking all those bothersome facts. Nice work if you can get it; and much of Johnson’s journalism was breezy top-of-the-head stuff (as is this blog in a minor league way).
Incidentally, and I do like a good incidental, Boris Johnson stood at the despatch box in the Commons earlier today and shouted: “I am a journalist.” Perhaps he’d forgotten about his new job, or maybe he was looking for an excuse for an early drink, not that journalists have time for that anymore.
There are complicated arguments to be had about the future of the BBC, and about whether not paying the licence fee should be a criminal offence. But they shouldn’t be made by a government wanting to slip the dagger in for self-serving reasons in under cover of what will hopefully be a short honeymoon.