How to ruin the Conference atmosphere

I can guarantee that the question I will be asked most this week at the conference on the broadcast media is "Who are you? What are you doing here? Are you an MP? Do you have a radio show? You do? Well why don't you piss off and present it then?"

Other people will ask me "What do you think the atmosphere is like?" It's a question which invites the response: "It stinks. Here we are swanning around, pleased as punch that we are finally in (shared) power, and we have to listen to doom and gloom and pretend we care about cuts when all we want to do is paaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrty. By the way, do you want to come to my bash on Tuesday with a German comedian?"

In other words it's a facile question and any journalist or pundit or blogger asking it should spend a day in the Lazy School of Journalism, where they will see my picture on the wall as most decorated head boy.


If journalists and pundits and bloggers really want to gauge anything accurately, let me make a simple suggestion. Instead of spending all your time talking to other journalists and pundits and bloggers, do some proper fucking research. Check some facts. Don't just rehash the work of others or quote their nonsense or link to their posts.