Why tears are for pop songs, not for politics
Radio is wonderful but sometimes you just have to be there, in the concert hall, the theatre, the meeting, for the full experience. I listen to Proms on Radio 3. I also buy tickets, six this year. The first was for Sunday night’s concert by the Staatskapelle Berlin because it was the British premiere of Deep Time by Harrison Birtwistle, a composer I’ve come to know purely through radio. The second half was Elgar’s Second Symphony. The conductor was Daniel Barenboim. Both performances were magnificent. At the close, when Barenboim spoke to the audience between encores, I could barely hear what he said but caught enough to get his point, that music transcends national barriers. Listening at home, I’d have heard every word. But being there, feeling the power of every note, seeing how Germans in front of me and Americans behind were moved as I was, his point was wholly intelligible, utterly justified.
It is unlikely that Theresa May will invite me into 10 Downing Street for reflections on her first year as Prime Minister, so I am happy to delegate this responsibility to Radio 5 Live’s Emma Barnett. Barnett, the former Telegraph women’s editor, served several broadcasting apprenticeships before the right full-time radio offer came along. This was the sole occupancy, Wednesdays through Fridays, of 5 Live Daily, the 10am to 1pm slot. Encompassing Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions, it would be a show into which she could put all her considerable journalistic skills and judgment, building the network’s “ordinary people” audience, translating complex political and social issues that touch most of our lives (money, justice, governance, equality) into plain speech. In less than a year she has proved she can do all this remarkably well.
Her exclusive interview with the Prime Minister was aired last Thursday, the anniversary of Mrs May taking office. More significantly, it was the PM’S first in-depth, one-on-one interview since this year’s General Election, in which the Conservative Party was returned by more votes but with fewer MPS. Dangerously, this denies the Government an inbuilt majority when, embarking on the complex process of Brexit, it most needs it. Throughout the interview Barnett’s tone was friendly but firm, pushing the PM on her judgment, responsibilities, regrets, pledges, alliances.
However, the question that drew national attention, on radio, TV, newsprint and online, came early: whether Mrs May, on hearing the shock June election result, had cried. Or, as Barnett put it, was she “devastated enough to shed a tear?” The PM admitted to “a little tear”.
I heard this and cringed. Everyone cries. Rugby players with visibly glistening eyes line up to sing national anthems. Cricket fans hearing Test match news weep. This year’s Wimbledon brought out the hankies. Parents of teenage children certainly know what it is to bawl. But all the media love a nice tear and the one Mrs May admitted to, on hearing her husband breaking bad election news, gave them what they wanted.
As did Tim Farron, talking to Barnett on Friday about resigning as Lib Dem leader. He’d been two weeks into the election campaign, he said, before he realised all the questions about his religious beliefs were deflecting attention from the party’s platform. “I’m somebody who does shed tears easily,” he added, not for himself, but for injustice, inequality, people (like his family) who touch his heart. No one was going to listen to that, though, once he’d admitted to a frequency of dewy eyes and, once again, that’s what made the news. I don’t blame Barnett for going on a tear hunt. She got a lot more from both interviewees than Radio 4’s Today or BBC Two’s Newsnight would have. Listen to both interviews on the iplayer and see what I mean. Barnett’s good. I’m sure that, deep down, (to use another emotive expression) she knows tears are for pop songs and headlines. In proper politics they’re dodgy currency.
For sharp perspective on current affairs Radio 4’s The Briefing Room (Thursdays) can’t be beaten. Last week, David Aaronovitch and a clutch of experts analysed Labour’s historic stance on Brexit. Between the end of the Second World War and the early Eighties, we learned, Labour’s official position on membership of the European Union was almost wholly negative. This programme traced why, and what accounts for Jeremy Corbyn’s still equivocal approach. Is he just being pragmatic, opportunist, politically canny in a time of Government confusions? As was made plain, Corbyn need only ask awkward questions for two years while Brexit is negotiated or British regime changes, whichever comes first. I bet he’s not crying.