Liberal Burblings

Baroness Buscombe. Not someone I had heard of when I woke up on 16th November. Then an interview with her on Today assailed my ears. A rude awakening. She’s chair of the Press Complaints Commission. The last Chair of that body, Sir Christopher Meyer, managed to deal quite smoothly with the role; but, then again, he was a diplomat. Just listening to this interview on Today you can tell immediately that, whatever else Baroness Buscombe is (her background is in advertising followed by a stint on the Tory shadow bench in the Lords), she is not a diplomat. 

‘Noblesse oblige’ was my first impression of Lady Buscombe’s unfortunately over-bearing manner. She was happy to blithely criticise the government and say how wonderful the House of Lords is (always a cue for my “bovine scatology detector to go on high alert). But she was stopped in her tracks by the excellent Sarah Montague.

Ms Montague read out a section of the PCC’s remit which refers to ‘no use of clandestine listening devices unless the story is in the public interest’, then mentioned The Sun’s use of a recording of Gordon Brown having a private conversation with the bereaved mother of a dead soldier. “Was that in the public interest?”  Baroness Buscombe’s quick and sharp cut-glass retort was priceless:

“No, I don’t want to get into that”.

Well nuts to you, Buscombe! You’re paid £150,000 to hold the press to account. You come on a national radio programme and pontificate about what you feel like. You should damn well be prepared to answer a question which goes to the heart of press behaviour, you absolute muppet! It’s no good saying you “don’t want to get into that”. What the hell are you doing in your role if you don’t want to “get into” crucial problems which confront you?!

Her answer went on to say that Brown hadn’t complained. Oh, that’s all right then. That old PCC fall back. The individual concerned hasn’t complained.

What a pile of steaming ordure the PCC is! The sooner it is made independent, or better still scrapped and replaced by an independent body, the better. And my feeling is that Baroness Buscombe is already proving to be an essential catalyst in making that change happen.

Related posts:

1. Iain Dale’s self-confessed "blather, filling and bluster"
2. Was "Baroness Bicycle basher" right?

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