That's not my opinion, that's a fact. There you go, that's how the Jeremy Vine phone-in Radio 2 lets its callers talk about everybody. No need for any expertise, just the ability to sound off on live (or nearly live) radio. Today they're discussing the relationship between Chris Huhne and his son, as 'revealed' in the texts published for some reason by the court yesterday when Huhne went on trial. You'll notice the son was not in trial. Jeremy and the rest of his goon squad know nothing about their relationship but are happy to interpret the Huhne family crisis according to their own narrow experience.
There's a serious point here: how does a set of texts sent between an obviously hurt and angry 17 year old boy and his father who dumped his mother for another woman - how does that come to be the topic of a BBC radio phone-in? I find the whole business pretty tacky, worthy of another Jeremy off the telly.
Meanwhile, over on BBC2's Politics Today programme at the same time, there's a real journalist at work: Polly Toynbee (is she still with the Guardian?) is discussing the by-election that will have to be held in Chris Huhne's constituency. She speaks crisply and loses no opportunity to put the politicians of both Tory and LibDem shades in their place, countering allegation with pure, clean fact - and she's able to quote where she got her facts too.
It's a sad reflection on the BBC that we hear more and more of the Vine type of show and very little of Politics Today.
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