Evan Davis: a very clever man

Evan Davis nailed Jack Straw beautifully on Today on 19 June. Straw’s usual hesitation waltz of stuttering speech came to and end when he got cross: “I’m sorry. What you’ve just said is an outrageous and completely unjustified charge against me. I’ve been completely explicit . . .” The sudden clarity was delicious to hear.

Davis had made the point that the figures for financing the Probation service were cooked, since they left out debt interest and social security costs. It was a nifty bit of superior economic knowledge. The absence of funding led, inter alia, to the terrible deaths of two French students at the hands of someone who should have been in prison.

Evan Davis is a very clever man. Evan Davis is very quick. Evan Davis knows a lot about economics. Evan Davis wants to tell the Chancellor what he knows about economics (which may well be more that what the Chancellor knows).

According to Peter Hitchens, Evan Davis is a dangerous man, who espouses liberal causes on Today. And so he does, and may he continue to do so. (Though M. Apache thinks he heard Evan say one morning that there were such a thing as “feral children”, a good Daily Mail line.)

Evan Davis signed off on this occasion with “Jack Straw – always a pleasure to talk to you”. The irony, not to say incipient sarcasm, was unmistakable. There was some blog-comment on this item, and M. Apache is not alone in being pleased at Jack Straw being seen off.

But we need Evan Davis – because we have in the making a liberal interviewer with teeth, who will eventually replace the middle of the road-rightist one with teeth, John Humphrys. Nondescript North American editor Justin Webb is due to hit Today in October, and Davis needs to get established as the liberals’ attack dog.

And he mustn’t make any mistakes. He already has the annoying habit of commenting on the quality of the reply he has elicited. Soon, somebody is going to jump on him for this.
Evan Davis is very arrogant, because he knows how clever he is.

If his arrogance gets the better of him – telling Gordon Brown he was slumping in his chair was not a good idea (especially on radio) – then he will find BBC suits and legal types after him.

Come on Evan: don’t screw up. Keep us liberals happy.

Ross and Brand: Why they did it

A phone interview was planned, but “due to unforeseen circumstances” (BBC website news), Andrew Sachs couldn’t be there. So they phoned him anyway, and talked to the answerphone.

Sachs was insulted because he wasn’t there to answer the phone call. He spoiled the programme. It was his business to be there.

It was pure media arrogance.

Notice how excited Brand was about the technology. “I’m so sorry about the last message”, he says. “Put the phone down”.

He speaks to the technology: “All right, Andrew Sachs’s answerphone?” Then: “I’m ever so sorry for what I said about Andrew Sachs”.

Sachs himself has been replaced by the technology.

Ross talks about the photographs of grandchildren he imagines would be next to the phone, as Sachs supposedly listens. Because it was Sachs’s business to be there, to hear Jonathan Ross speak.

Ross speaks, you listen.

Notice how excited Ross is about Brand having sex. It’s the first thing he says. And the second: “She was bent over the couch…”. (Been watching Straw Dogs, have we?)

And then the idea of death.

Brand says to the technologised Sachs: “I’ll kill you”. And then talks about his victim hanging himself because of his revelation about Georgina Baillie.

Brand speaks, others die.