Have never quite been able to pin down AS politically, tbh. I agree at times he comes across as rather LibDem-ish and Labour-sceptical - but then he throws something into the mix like his statement a few months ago that he actually quite likes Ed.TheGrimSqueaker wrote:I've mentioned the Sparrow's partiality before and been roundly condemned for it, but I stand by previous comments; although he does try to be impartial, and is certainly better than the whole Wintour/Watt cabal, he isn't a Labour man (unlike James Walsh). And while that shouldn't be important on days like today it is; if he is choosing to ignore speeches because he thinks they are too short/lack substance then he is not doing his job properly - he is there to report, not to editorialise.pk1 wrote:Yes you may well be onto something there.TheGrimSqueaker wrote: You probably noticed Pollysnemesis * trot that line out. Smithson is on to something there, it is the concentration on Miliband rather than Labour which is proving the Tories undoing. There is an analogy in the world of football (if I may digress slightly); Chelsea do better when Mourinho is their manager partly because the Press concentrate on his antics and leave the players alone to get on with their job - pretty much the same thing here.
* That name always creases me up, as I said on the blog, delusions of adequacy. I'm astonished that one, and my pop at Rusty, have been left untouched.
I'm concerned by Sparrows coverage of the conference. His latest line ishis speech was just as short as all the other shadow cabinet speeches we’ve had so are. (Most of them barely cover three pages of text.)
I'm not in front of a TV so I have no idea how they're going down but the sense he's giving off is that none of the Shadow Cabinet have anything really worth saying. I hope I'm wrong & that Ed will give the speech I'm desperately waiting to hear but my hope of seeing him in No 10 next May is starting to fade
I have long thought that a tendency at times to be sucked into Westminster lobby "groupthink" is his biggest failing.
Still one of the best journalists currently at the Graun, though