Richard Madeley on TV debates

I do love Richard Madeley, in a way. I love how Alan Partridge he can be, how he doesn't seem to mind, and how he takes himself embarrassingly seriously but nobody else does. He's the Craig David of daytime TV.

This week's Madeleywatch sees him striding about on Hampstead Heath to a Keane soundtrack, all windswept hair and 'seriousface', wibbling on about the Lib Dems and how they have a chance of power because of last week's TV debate.

Is he a Clegg fan? Is he bandwagon-jumping? Is he just firing seemingly random words out of his face? Who knows? Who cares? Madeley, that's who.

Devastatingly for Nick Clegg, Madeley claims that he reminds him of Tony Blair. He seems to be presenting this as a good thing, but then goes on to mention how devoid of meaning Blair's rhetoric was.

"It [the debate] reminded me of an interview that Judy and I did in 1996 with
Tony Blair, the year before he was elected Prime Minister. He was in
shirtsleeves, he talked a very good game, he looked confident, he looked
suntanned. And afterwards, as we examined what he'd actually said, there was
nothing much of substance there at all, but within three or four minutes of the
interview beginning, it was clear - to both of us at least - that we were
talking to the next Prime Minister."

Madeley, as we've discovered before, calls himself a lefty and is certainly a Blairite. What's he saying here? That he likes substanceless politics and that he thinks Clegg is Blair's natural successor? Oh dear. This could be more damaging to the Clegg campaign than any amount of right-wing media muck-raking. If anyone listened to Madeley, that is.

The video is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/8631904.stm

Richard Madeley on the campaign trail?

MADELEY ALERT.

Since he burst onto the political scene last week with his astonishing and poorly-filmed opinion on Iraq, Richard Madeley has been causing a furore all over my moron radar. In the style of a lazy tabloid journalist, I've been following his tweets. See if you can tell where this is going...

"A little casual abuse coming in on Daily Politics appearance;pretty childish
stuff."

"Just 4 t record,I'm totally a-political.Not partic struck on Cons this time,but
Lab exhausted.Any party wd be after 3 terms.'97 again."

"Revealing tweets to my earlier ones about coming election.Most of you utterly
disillusioned by whole process;no enthusiasm for any party."

"Being muchly asked if I wd stand as indy MP.Nope!Pointless.No influence in
HC,Speaker never calls you,no-one cares after election.Invisible."

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? His ego's a bit dented by perfectly rational people like me having a go at him for his stupid Iraq thing (CHILDISH MY ARSE), then his idiot fans suggest he'd make a good independent MP...? He might say it's "pointless", but he's clearly put some thought into it.

And when people start replying to that last tweet with "Aw but Richard you'd make a brilliant MP and you wouldn't be invisible to me LOL", who knows what might happen...


Further reading: how to become an independent MP.

Richard Madeley on Iraq

Just when you thought you'd never hear an answer to the question "how does Richard Madeley feel about the Iraq war?", Richard Madeley comes along and explains how he feels about the Iraq war. I am so thrilled at this, I literally don't know who to punch with gratitude first.

Of course, as one big question is answered, another comes along, namely Tony Blair's "2010 question": if we hadn't gone to war, where would we be now? Madeley soberly insists that none of Blair's detractors have given a satisfactory answer to this question, and he's probably right, what with it requiring the use of a time machine.