How Jeremy Paxman tamed the spin doctors

John Humphrys in the Telegraph

Poor old Paxo. They got to him in the end. All those politicians with their lying ways. Their glib, shallow, facile, sanctimonious, self-serving failure to answer perfectly straightforward questions. Their ignorance and incompetence and wilful refusal to agree that they are always wrong and we, the interviewers, are always right. Their pathetic self-pity when they are finally exposed.

Jeremy just couldn’t take it any more. I knew the end was near when I arrived at Broadcasting House to present Today one morning, and found him in a dark corner whimpering quietly to himself: “Just answer the question, minister. Please answer the question!” 

Yeah, right. It’s far more likely that he’d be begging them to stick to their old ways. Imagine the interview in which the politician never ducks or dodges a question, never misses an opportunity to attack the opposing party or praise his own leader, and always answers every question, no matter how leading or tendentious or ill-informed, and no matter how much damage an honest answer might do to him and his party. People like us would be out of a job more quickly than an MP can fill in an expenses claim.

Who needs a rottweiler when a poodle would do just as well? The more serious question is whether politicians behave the way they do because we behave the way we do. And the answer is: it depends. Contrary to the widely held belief, all politicians are not the same. Indeed I suspect the majority do their damnedest to answer the question. Where I take issue with Jeremy is his often quoted remark that when we interview a politician we should always ask ourselves: “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?” 

A few years ago The Times printed a story across two pages with the headline: “Humphrys says all Labour ministers are liars”. It wasn’t true. What I’d actually said was that there are three types of MP: those who never lie under any circumstances and tend not to get promoted because the Whips are a bit nervous of them; those who make it into the top ranks and must observe the rule of collective Cabinet responsibility (or do what Robin Cook did over Iraq and resign); and those who don’t give a damn and either don’t or even can’t distinguish between truth and falsehood.

Based on my own experience, I happen to think there are precious few in that last category. Probably no more than in any other large organisation that is made up mostly of highly intelligent, ambitious individuals.

At the risk of being drummed out of the Cynical Old Hacks Club, I’d go further. I’d suggest that most of them are there because they genuinely do want to make a difference. God knows, the life of an MP is not an easy one. There are other ways of making at least as much money for rather less effort, and not be forced to apply for your own job all over again every five years.

So why are they held, by and large, in such low esteem? You may well say that’s obvious. Greed. When this newspaper ripped open the expenses scandal it tainted every one of them – even the innocent. The other reason takes us back to where I started: how they come across when they are being interviewed.

Some say it’s never been worse. I disagree. It was worse when they mostly refused point blank to answer questions from grubby hacks at all and, when they did condescend to do so, their interviewers treated them like deities. “Have you anything else to say to a grateful nation, minister?” is a parody – but only just. All that changed when broadcasting giants such as Robin Day, Alastair Burnet and Brian Walden challenged the old order and won.

But then the spin doctors arrived. This was a new religion for a new broadcasting age, and Alastair Campbell was its prophet. The approach was simple: to control the message it was necessary to control the messenger. MPs and ministers were not only told what to say and what not to say; they were also told precisely how to say it. And if they strayed, they paid – sometimes a heavy price. It works up to a point, but listeners and viewers are not fools. Sooner or later they spot what’s going on. And Paxman helped them spot it. That’s why he will be missed.

Brain drain or not, the right to emigrate is fundamental

S A Aiyer

Socialists like health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad won't admit it, but they rather liked the Berlin Wall. They think it's morally right to keep citizens captive at home, unable to migrate for better prospects. Azad has proposed not a brick wall but a financial one: he wants all doctors going to the US for higher studies to sign a financial bond that will be forfeited if they do not return.




Sorry, but the right to emigrate is fundamental. States can curb immigration, but not emigration. The UN declaration of human rights says in Article 13, "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own." Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights incorporates this right into treaty law. It says: "Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own. The above-mentioned rights shall not be subject to any restrictions except those provided by law necessary to protect national security, public order, public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others." The public health exception relates to communicable diseases, not a shortage of doctors.



Hitler didn't give German Jews the right to migrate. Communist East Germany thought it had a right to shoot citizens attempting to escape over the Berlin Wall. The Soviet Union mostly had strict curbs on emigration, but allowed the mass exit of its Jews to Israel after the 1967 war in which Moscow backedthe Arabs. Moscow imposed a "diploma tax" on emigrants with higher education, to claw back the cost of their education. Israel often picked up the bill, leading to sneers that the Soviet Union was selling Jews. International protests obliged Moscow to abolish the tax.



Like the Soviets, Azad wants to claw back sums spent on educating doctors. Like East Germany, he seeks to erect exit barriers by denying Indian doctors a 'no objection certificate' to practice in the US. The right to emigrate does not enter his calculations: Azad does not want this azaadi!



Many Indians will back him, saying the brain drain imposes high costs on India. Well, all principles have some costs, but that's no reason to abandon them. Azad wants curbs just on doctors, but the principle applies to all Indians. Would India be better off if it had kept captive at home economists like Amartya Sen and Jagdish Bhagwati? Three Indian migrants to the US have won Nobel Prizes-Gobind Khurana (medicine) Chandra Shekhar (physics) and V Ramakrishnan (chemistry). Had they been stopped from leaving India, would they have ever risen to such heights?



Cost estimates of the brain drain are exaggerated or downright false. Remittances from overseas Indians are now around $60 billion a year. NRI bank deposits bring up to $30 billion a year. Together, they greatly exceed India's entire spending on education (around $75 billion). Even more valuable are skills brought back by returnees.



Remittances skyrocketed only after India made it easier in the 1990s for students to go abroad. One lakh per year go to the US alone. The number of US citizens of Indian origin has tripled since 1990 to three million, and the US has replaced the Gulf as the main source of remittances.



The brain drain has anyway given way to brain circulation. Youngsters going abroad actually have very limited skills. But they hugely improve their skills abroad, mainly through job experience, so returnees bring back much brainpower.



Indian returnees were relatively few during the licence-permit raj, because omnipresent controls stifled domestic opportunities. But economic liberalization has created a boom in opportunities of every sort, so more Indians are returning. Azad should note that the fast expansion of private hospitals has attracted back many doctors. Scientists, software engineers, managers and professionals of all sorts have flocked back. This carries a simple policy lesson: create opportunity, not barriers.



Millions of Indians will not come back. Yet they do not constitute a drain. They have become huge financial assets for India through remittances and investments.



They have also become a foreign policy asset. Three million Indian Americans now occupy high positions in academia, Wall Street, business and professions. They have become important political contributors, and two have entered politics and become state governors (Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley). Indian Americans have become a formidable lobby, helping shift US policy in India's favour, to Pakistan's dismay.



However, these are secondary issues. The main issue is human freedom. The UN declaration of human rights recognizes the right to migrate. This fundamental freedom has more value by far than the financial or foreign policy value of the diaspora. Never forget this in the brain drain debate.