Matthew has Libby under his skin

Journalism isn't all malice and mischief-making. It has its life-enhancing, even romantic, side too. Such as the heartwarming display of animal magnetism between Matthew Norman and Libby Purves.

"You are entitled to hate Midweek's tone, but you're not entitled to sneer at every poor bastard who comes on, nor the decent professionals who book them. So don't be so fucking pathetic, Matthew..."

Glimpse these two battling with the sexual chemistry that neither has power to resist. Norman's Indy media diary.

Les

Journos who should know better

They can be an arrogant lot, journalists. And blissfully unaware of it.

Here's an account by Andrew Brown, a BBC and broadsheet freelance, about being randomly stopped and searched under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

He pretends to think it is jolly amusing and wisecracks unpleasantly about balancing stop and search statistics. It is clear from his tone that he really thinks he is above being stopped at random. The officers, wisely as it turns out, don't ask him where he has come from. This irks him:

"I would have liked to have watched their faces when I said that I had come from the BBC studios in Millbank, where I was making a radio programme on the Government’s plans to deal with Islamic extremism, and that the next person I will interview is Assistant Chief Constable Robert Beckley, a member of the ACPO Terrorism and Allied Matters team. But perhaps they will stop me again on Thursday, when I go in to see him."

This "don't these plods know who I am?" manner is nasty & elitist enough. While Brown makes a half-hearted show at accepting the search, he is clearly riled by it. Something an officer does, "proves he shouldn’t have been searching me in the first place", says the pompous ass.

Brown's chums - such as this clown Charles Arthur from the Guardian - duly laugh on cue at the preposterousness of putting one of their own sort through the kind of search that is a daily routine for millions of people around the world.

But as they scoff at the police, they only expose their massive ignorance. Random stop and search can make an effective contribution to an overall security response. It is not about expecting to find someone in the process of an act of terror. If Brown and Arthur stopped thinking about themselves for a minute and tried to recall what does happen when a suicide bomber is stopped by security, they'd realise that.

A little more humility is called for. And a little more support and appreciation for the police service in doing their job of keeping Londoners safe wouldn’t go amiss either.

Les

Shocked and offended

Ken the elected mayor of London has four weeks in the sin bin. That leaves a bemused, and mildly outraged, electorate, a judicial review...and more fun in prospect.

Spare a thought for Oliver Finegold, the Evening Standard reporter on the receiving end of Ken's charmless & alcohol-assisted banter. How might he be feeling about becoming a household name as the shocked and offended cry-baby who caused a minor constitutional crisis? It may not be what he had in mind when he went into journalism. Bless.

Les