John Cole: ‘An institution cherished by the viewing public’

The BBC’s former political editor, John Cole, has died aged 85. As their political reporter during the Thatcher era, he covered many major stories concerning her, including the miners’ strike and the Brighton bombing. We have dug up from the archive a review, by John Campbell, of Cole’s memoir, ‘As it seemed to me’, from April 1995. 

John Cole’s Ulster accent was a shock to metropolitan ears when he became the BBC’s Political Editor in 1981. Scottish or Yorkshire voices were no problem, but there was unfamiliarity amounting almost to incongruity in hearing that particular accent discoursing on subjects wider than the tribal politics of Northern Ireland. Undoubtedly (‘Hondootedly’) it took him time to be accepted, and understandably as an old journalistic hand — former deputy editor of both the Guardian and the Observer — he resented the prejudice he encountered in switching from the printed to the spoken word.