NEVER COMPLAIN?

by MONITOR
IT must be an open question whether or not Michael Howard was wise to complain formally to the BBC about a Newsnight report on his visit to Cornwall last week. Transcripts of some of the passages in the report do suggest that it was brusque and perhaps disrespectful. But the reporter was Jeremy Paxman and, as is well know, he and Mr Howard have “form”; seven years ago when Howard was Home Secretary, Paxman asked him fourteen times, without getting an answer, whether he had threatened to over-rule the prisons chief Derek Lewis. Remarkably, last Monday evening Paxman returned to the subject and the following exchange took place. Paxman: Can you clear up whether or not you did threaten to over-rule Derek Lewis when you were Home Secretary? Howard: Ho! Come on Jeremy! Are you really going to go back over that again? Paxman:You have had seven years to think about it! Howard: As it happens I didn't. Are you satisfied now? Paxman: Thank you. Why didn't you say so at the time? Mr Howard has condemned the broadcast as “unbalanced, partisan and biased” and has also accused Paxman of making “cheap jibes” throughout it. He has asked for a full apology and said that if it is not forthcoming he will consider taking the matter to the BBC Governors. In response the editor of Newsnight, Peter Barron, has defended the report, saying that was a “fair and accurate reflection” of the time that Mr Howard spent in Cornwall. He did not add, as he might have done, that the Conservative leader must have known that Jeremy Paxman is no respecter of political persons and that other senior politicans, including the Prime Minister, have received the rough edge of his tongue without complaint.