Rod Liddle says the furore surrounding Andrew Marr’s questions to Gordon Brown is academic. These rumours are rife in the blogosphere
Is our Prime Minister perpetually out of his brainbox on powerful psychotropic substances, as everybody now seems to believe? Dilaudid, crystal meth, that sort of thing? Does he stagger out of bed and say: ‘Aw, Sarah, I’ve got a meeting with Harman in half an hour. Light up the crack pipe, will you?’
Looking at the man, you would not think so. That strange, strangulated smile, the ever encroaching brow — this is not the demeanour of a man who, for example, mainlines camel tranquillisers every morning. If he is scoring regularly, then I suggest he changes his dealer, because he’s being ripped off. Mandelson, meanwhile — well, there’s another issue.
The BBC’s Andrew Marr is in a spot of bother because he asked Gordon Brown straight out if he was a druggy, having already asked him if he were about to go blind. I quite like the idea that the country is being led by a severely visually impaired Dennis Hopper; it has a certain rapturous end-time beauty about it. But Labour MPs are now in revolt and may boycott Marr’s fine Sunday morning chat show as a consequence of this impertinence; they have been jabbering about it endlessly in the bars at Brighton. Well, boys, you have about seven months for that threat to contain even a modicum of force, so enjoy it while you can.
Most people seem to be agreed — including one or two BBC political interviewers I spoke to — that Marr was on good ground talking about Brown’s eye problems, but on decidedly dodgy ground when he brought up the drugs.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in