Brian Cathcart, from his excellent column in the New Statesman, describing the theory by which commentators draw great learning from the things a politician doesn't say in an interview - for instance, David Miliband not mentioning Gordon Brown in his Guardian article a few weeks ago:
"The theory is that, because political correspondents know what politicians should say in any given circumstance, they are instantly alert when one fails to do so. And having identified a point of deviance, these correspondents are able to construe, from unnamed sources or circumstantial evidence, the true intention behind it - a signal or manoeuvre the ordinary reader would otherwise miss...
"[David Miliband's] intentions were all the more transparent, we are told, because he also knows the codes. Since he knew that reporters would construe what he didn't say in the way they did, it follows that he must have not said it deliberately because he wanted it construed that way. QED."
How politics works, indeed. Or (as the column goes on to discuss) possibly not.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Hello. Thanks for popping in.
