Nothing learnt from Newsnight "grilling"

Stuart Weir (London, Democratic Audit): We hear a great deal about the BBC's agonising over its liberal bias, or its championing of causes such as climate change or world poverty, or its loss of trust, but I for one would appreciate it if the navel-gazing was directed also at the quality of the journalism. I watched the special Newsnight programme in which four BBC journalists - Gavin Essler, Michael Crick, Stephanie Flanders and Mark Urban - supposedly grilled the Conservative leader, David Cameron, on his political beliefs and policies. I learnt nothing. It struck me that the affair illustrated two major flaws in BBC journalism. First, the main objective seemed to be, as it often is on both Newsnight and Today, to gain coverage in the press and other media, by seeking out weaknesses or even inspiring "gaffes" across a pre-determined media agenda rather than to question Cameron on the substance and coherence of his party's policies. The questions were child's play to Cameron. Worse still was the complacent and narrowing middle-class bias of the "grilling" which had the inconsequential hop, skip and jump manner of a cosy dinner party in north or west London. There seemed to be no wider social grounding or understanding against which to test Cameron's ideas for creating social cohesion. Stephanie Flanders exemplified this with her questions on giving tax breaks to married couples. She is unmarried with a small child. Would the Conservatives like her to be married? Fair enough. But then she said that £20 a week was nothing to her. But who cares, Stephanie? £20 a week means a great deal to most parents, married or not, and the question was and remains, how should benefits and tax breaks be distributed across our fractured society, not whether £20 makes any difference to a highly-paid BBC journalist. It goes without saying that on the shapeshifting agenda of democracy, constitutional reform, national conversations, human rights now set at the centre of our politics by the Prime Minister, and being pursued from the marches by Alex Salmond in Scotland, nothing of any interest whatsoever was asked.