Rafael Behr talks to Rob Hutton, parliamentary sketch writer at the Critic, about the uneasy relationship between Westminster lobby journalists and MPs.
Often political journalists cultivate close relationships with politicians to find out what's really happening in the corridors of power.
But does a journalist's 'insider status' cloud their judgement when working out how to write about political stories or policy ssues, or whether to cover them at all?
Does it inevitably become a trade-off between, a steady stream of 'exclusives', and a fair and objective approach to reporting?
If so, what does this mean for democracy?
Rob Hutton is an author and freelance journalist. He spent 16 years covering the British government for Bloomberg, taking in five prime ministers, as many elections, and the odd referendum. Before that, he worked for the Mirror and the Financial Times. He now has a regular spot as sketchwriter for The Critic. His career has been a mix of seriousness and satire. While he was a reporter for Bloomberg, unquestionably The Global News Organisation Least Likely To Tell A Joke, he wrote Romps, Tots & Boffins, a satirical book about the words only journalists use. He followed that up with Would They Lie to You?, about the way politicians got around reality without actually uttering untruths (it was a more innocent age). According to Rob, his most recent book, Agent Jack, doesn’t have quite so many laughs, although he says there’s an incident with a jar of marmalade and a blueprint for a Vickers tank. 'Oh, and there’s a naked German in a wardrobe.'
Here's a link to his Podcast - A Pod Too Far
Rafael Behr's first book was released in May, 2023
**'Politics, A Survivor’s Guide,'** is all about the infuriating toxicity of politics, how it got that way and how to resist the slide into cynicism and pessimism that are so corrosive of democracy. It’s about the challenge of staying engaged without getting enraged; the need to empathise with people whose views we cannot share and how that is different to appeasement of politics we believe to be dangerous.
Available from Waterstones:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/politics-a-survivors-guide/rafael-behr/9781838955045
Or, for those who are interested in signed copies, from City Books in Hove:
https://www.city-books.co.uk
Politics on the Couch has been chosen by Feedspot as both one of the Top 25 UK Psychology Podcasts and Political Science Podcasts on the web.
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