PRIME Minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are “cowards” who refuse to hold themselves up to proper scrutiny on television, Channel 4 News chief Dorothy Byrne told an audience in Edinburgh last night.
The journalist, who is among
the longest-serving heads of
news and current affairs in British TV, used the Edinburgh TV Festival’s prestigious MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival to hit out at politicians
who will not take questions
from journalists.
Byrne said: “I would never have thought I would say these words
– I believe that Mrs Thatcher would agree with me. Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn are cowards.
She had a word for men like them – ‘frit’.
“If they really believe in the policies they promote, they should come on to television to explain them, to allow them to be scrutinised and to justify them.
“And just this weekend we read that these cowardy-cats in the Tory Party may stop junior ministers from going on to the Today programme. I have previously described listening to Today as like accidentally walking into a knitting shop in Bournemouth.
“But even I accept that millions listen to it and they have a right
to hear from their political leaders on it.”
Byrne said the decrease in politicians holding themselves up to scrutiny on TV has become “critical for our democracy”. She added: “We have a new Prime Minister who hasn’t held one major press conference or given one major television interview since he came to power.
“That cannot be right. And we have a leader of the opposition who similarly fails to give significant interviews on terrestrial TV. We may be heading for an election very soon.
“What are they going to do then? I genuinely fear that in the next election campaign there will be too little proper democratic debate and scrutiny to enable voters to make informed decisions.”
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