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Throughout his 40 year career in journalism – for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry political stories have always featured strongly, and now after an extraordinary week of turmoil comes more evidence that the Conservative UK Government is in DEEP trouble…
Earlier Phil described how he was helped to break into the South Wales Echo office car when he was a cub reporter, recalled his early career as a journalist, the importance of experience in the job, and making clear that the ‘calls’ to emergency services as well as court cases are central to any media operation.
He has also explored how poorly paid most journalism is when trainee reporters had to live in squalid flats, the vital role of expenses, and about one of his most important stories on the now-scrapped 53 year-old BBC Wales TV Current Affairs series, Week In Week Out (WIWO), which won an award even after it was axed, long after his career really took off.
Phil has explained too how crucial it is actually to speak to people, the virtue of speed as well as accuracy, why knowledge of history and teaching the subject is vital, how certain material was removed from TV Current Affairs programmes when secret cameras had to be used, and some of those he has interviewed.
He has disclosed as well why investigative journalism is needed now more than ever although others have different opinions, how the coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown played havoc with media schedules, and the importance of the hugely lower average age of some political leaders compared with when he started reporting.
It wasn’t meant to be like this.
Rishi Sunak should have been able to point triumphantly at the excellent school system in England (as opposed to the one in Labour-run Wales), as well as a new deal with Rwanda.
Instead we have had a slew of opinion polls (including ones over the weekend) which could show a Tory wipe-out at the next General Election (GE), and a minister (Robert Jenrick) resigning.
The Tories are engaging in an astonishing civil war, and there is even talk now of a challenge to the leadership of Mr Sunak.
The polls put the Conservatives about 20 points behind Labour, and indicate that the opposition could be on course to win DOUBLE the Tories’ vote, and almost four times the number of seats.
A group of academics with ‘UK in a Changing Europe’, published a 150-page survey of public opinion, showing the Tories lagging behind on every axis.
The polling firm JL Partners issued a report which was simply entitled ‘Implosion in Blue’.
These events are on a par with the unbelievable chaos we have seen for the Tories over the past few years.
Indeed they have had nearly as many Prime Ministers in the last 13 years as Labour has had in its ENTIRE HISTORY.
Labour’s present leader, Sir Keir Starmer, must be rubbing his hands at all of this.
However his party still has a lot to do, and his recent comments praising Margaret Thatcher went down like a cup of cold sick with activists.
One (a centrist and supporter of Sir Keir) told me: “My ironing board has more charisma than him”.
So he can’t rely on the chaos within the Conservative Party and those opinion polls to get him into Downing Street.
Even if both are UNBELIEVABLE…
Details of Phil’s extraordinary decades-long journalistic career (including some of the leading politicians he has encountered), as he was gripped by the rare and incurable neurological condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in an important book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now.
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – more political controversy, as Phil shows why the defection of a Scottish National Party (SNP) MP to the Tories, highlights how it is in complete disarray today and the lessons that must now be learnt by its fellow nationalist party in Wales, Plaid Cymru (Plaid).
