
I am sorry to report that Mr Brown, a strong and stable character whose views I admire enormously, is indisposed. The Today programme has always been a great fan of Mr Brown and we intend to continue fighting in Mr Brown's corner to ensure the continuing success of the Labour Party. We plan to make clear how we intend to campaign for the downfall of the present coalition government and we know that our fellow important journalists and presenters our guidelines.
John Humphreys gave a master class this morning in how to prevent listeners hearing about government policy. Chris Huhne wanted to inform the public about the government's energy policy - how much electricity we need/use, how we can get it, should we cut down, what's the best method of delivering it, etc. John was having none of that. Whatever a presenter does he must never allow the public to be told about the government's policies by an elected Minister. Oh no. John cleverly confined the conversation to accusations about Huhne's past beliefs. "You didn't used to think that". It must be made plain to the LibDems that the Today programme does not consider them to be proper politicians and that the people who voted for them are misguided and will vote Labour the next time.
Later in the programme, John also managed to put in a good word for the necessity of PR and spin. He and I, and indeed many of our fellow important and influential presenters, supplement our meagre BBC incomes by hiring ourselves out to PR functions in return for generous fees so its always a good idea to insert PR for PR into the programme to ensure a continued income stream from that lucrative source.
Perhaps I should just mention that I am an educated man with degrees from Aberdeen and New York. Unfortunately John did not attend university and so you cannot expect from him the same well-informed and skillfully-presented reasoning as you will come to appreciate from me.





