The Westminster Show No doubt television will conic to Parliament
one day. I think much of the present alarm at the prospect is misconceived. I do not believe there is any perceptible public demand for a separate television channel devoted to trans- mitting every word spoken in the House, any more than Hansard is a runaway best-seller every day. The right answer, surely, is to accord tele- vision the same rights as the press enjoys, and leave it to the professionals to produce the best edited report they are capable of. It is. of course, the promise of a new TV camera that doesn't need additional lighting that has brought the possibility much nearer. But the difficulties in the way of live television will still be formidable. TV could show the debating highlights as a spec- tacle, but it couldn't give a coherent picture of a legislature working its way through the suc- cessive stages of Bills, of the Executive being called to account, or of private Members' work on behalf of their constituents and their hobby- horses, without providing quite a lot of explana- tion. If the House were being televised live, the commentator could only help out the viewer over some sudden perplexity after the incident had finished. Some MPs at least would resent having their voices faded down while the commentator intervened.
One television producer advises that it might need eight or ten cameras to do the job well, but these could be unmanned, almost hidden under the galleries. Ideally, he says, there would be a couple of manned cameras, too, perhaps in nacelles set into the walls of the Chamber; they would be for close-ups. Some MPs may shudder at that thought; but how, without a close-up of the Member then speaking, is the producer to hide the emptiness of the benches at dinner- time?
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