Radio
Corrupt practice
Michael Vestey
Every so often your hear someone on the radio referring to how sleaze brought down the Tory government as if it's now an accepted fact. It is, of course, to those on the Left and no doubt it will enter national mythology, like so much else that is false. But a programme this week — Lifestory [sic], T. Dan Smith — The Organiser reminded us that sleaze in public life is not confined to Conservatives.
The Labour party's T. Dan Smith, a true megalomaniac, ran Newcastle city council with great ruthlessness as he set about smashing parts of the city to pieces and organising its rebuilding, Along the way, he received bribes through the thoroughly wicked and corrupt architect John Poulson for awarding contracts to certain people. After getting away with it at four trials he realised the game was up, pleaded guilty at the fifth and was jailed for four years. He took others with him and the Conservative home secretary, Reginald Maudling, was also brought down after it was discovered he'd accepted money from Poulson.
It was an interesting programme but marred by the poor script and the delivery of its presenter Dick Hobbs. No doubt Hobbs is an extremely intelligent and liter- ate man but why did he have to sound like a candidate for Gordon Brown's welfare to work scheme? He's a master of the glottal stop which might be fashionable on `yoof television, but is wrong and particularly incongruous on what is supposed to be the greatest speech network in the world. I've got nothing against London accents (I like Fred Housego's, for example, about whom more later) or those from the regions, except when they sound sloppy, as with the northerner on Today last week who told us there was a need for more psychopaths. As I wrestled with this it occurred to me that he'd said 'cycle paths' but it made me miss the next few sentences.
`Jackie! Don't catch his eye!' Hobbs said that Smith was the son of a miner but `.. . his mum taught Dan proper manners and to aim higher'. Did Hobbs know Smith? He kept referring to him as Dan. Did he know his parents? They're described as 'mum' and 'dad'. All too baby- ish and tabloid-like for Radio Four, I'm afraid, and I fear we're in for more of this kind of presentation.
Still, the programme made us realise what can happen when regions are con- trolled by one party without any prospect of a change of power. I remember T. Dan Smith's Newcastle in the Seventies. Visiting the BBC studios, I found it marooned in a vast building site. When I asked a colleague what was being built, he said no one knew; it might be a motorway, offices or flats. Old Newcastle was being bulldozed to become `the Venice of the north' or 'the new Brasilia', as Smith liked to imagine. He asked a friend, 'Have you been to Venice, John? It's got this inner ring of canals, hasn't it? Well, that's my inner motorway east.' The friend laughed but realised Smith meant it. Some of the heart of New- castle is preserved but only, the friend told the programme, because Smith was caught in time and the property boom collapsed.
His acceptance of bribes was unearthed when Poulson went bankrupt and Muir Hunter QC conducted the investigation. Going through 39 tons of documents, Hunter and his team discovered payments made to 'prominent people with recognis- able names, MPs, civil servants, hospital officers . . .' Smith was amongst them. Poor old Smith, his capacity for self-delusion remained undimmed. He told an interview- er, 'I would say I was corrupt by virtue of what I found myself involved in. I didn't go in to be corrupt and I don't believe in the literal sense of the term that I was corrupt.'
Round Britain Quiz, dropped last year, has been resurrected by the Radio Four controller, James Boyle, and returns on 4 August. It will be chaired by the World at One presenter Nick Clarke. Boyle says he's responding to requests from listeners to bring it back and that he is also a fan, though I suspect it might help him deflect any future complaints over some of the changes he intends to make to the network. Clarke, a skilful presenter, is a wise choice to succeed the late Gordon Clough as chairman.
It won't sound the same, but one grudg- ingly expects that. Previous stalwarts of the team have been dropped, though Irene Thomas is advising the producers, and the format is changing with more emphasis on needless point-scoring. I notice that Fred Housego, a former winner of television's Mastermind, is in the South of England team. He has the right kind of acquisitive mind for this brain-teasing programme and I've long thought he was an attractive broadcaster who was rather wasted when he worked for the old LBC. Housego is also a perfect example of someone with a London accent who speaks intelligently.
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