Politics on the airwaves

This article first appeared in the Methodist Recorder 8 October, 2021

David Hallam's TV and radio review

The surest signs summer is over is the arrival of the annual conferences of our political parties on the airwaves. They take it in turns over three consecutive weekends: first the Liberal Democrats, then Labour, and finally Conservatives.??After that comes a medley of smaller conferences from the other parties. Your reviewer plays a very small party in managing what is projected on your screen from one of those conferences.

The great challenge for the parties is to get positive coverage on television and radio with eye catching policies and inspiring speeches which will fire the public’s imagination. The reality is that the media are not much interested in the showcase, the battlefield makes more exciting programming.

The real prize for the parties is that their leaders are automatically invited for one-to-one interviews on??current affairs programmes such as Sophie?Ridge on Sunday?(Sky TV),?The Andrew Marr Show?(BBC TV 1) and?Today?(BBC Radio 4). Ideally these are opportunities to speak directly to their potential supporters in the country. The nightmare is that valuable time is consumed talking about internal party problems.

From the conference platform proper comes the set piece speeches: the economy, home affairs, foreign affairs, and finally the leader’s speech to the faithful. These are carried live on the Sky and BBC news channels, clips are played on the news bulletins, and used on social media by friend and foe.??The ideal is an adoring conference audience, cheering every sentence to the rafters, but as Theresa May found a couple of years ago, they can illustrate the end of their leadership.

How does it look on television? The truth is that most of the public will only get a glimpse of what is happening. Party managers hope that the report on the?Ten O’Clock News?(BBC TV 1) and?News at Ten?(ITV) will be positive. Alas for the politicians, this year empty supermarket shelves and queues at petrol stations, will get a higher billing in the bulletins. And everyone hopes that an unguarded comment at a fringe meeting doesn’t grab the headlines.

Working at conference meant I had to be up at the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning and able to listen to?Sunday?(BBC Radio 1). Twenty years ago, the programme would have been mentioned during the coffee after the morning service, but not so these days. I can understand why. The opening stories were about what the Koran says about women’s education in the context of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and a frankly difficult to follow package about Confucianism in China.??These were followed by items about church goers and pornography, flowers in churches following the pandemic, and the future of online worship. All very well meaning, but apart from the porn story which was a bit of a surprise, not exactly riveting listening.

The King’s Choice?(BBC TV 4) told the story of the invasion of Norway by the Germans in 1940. We are all familiar with the British war story and have a passing knowledge of other theatres of war, but this portrays a dramatic week??during which a country was invaded, a puppet government installed, and a king forced to flee. Apart from being a gripping story, it showed how different people react under pressure.??King Haakon was portrayed as stoically accepting the reality of the situation and understanding the pressures his people were under. He would be prepared to speak with the Germans but not accept a government led by the Nazi sympathiser Quisling. The German ambassador intended to do the right thing, but saw his plans fall around as the military took control. One feature of the film was the depiction of the randomnessrandomness and sheer cruelty of bombing civilians from the air, something that we should remember when our governments take us to war.

Readers of the?Methodist Recorder?need hardly reminding that this year marks the 250th?anniversary of the missional journey by Francis Asbury on behalf of the British Methodist Conference to colonial America.??Nearly twenty years ago I tried to persuade BBC Radio 4 that Asbury’s story would make good listening, even submitting a script. Hearing the Rev Jill Flowers of Pill Methodist Church read Asbury’s Journal as part of?Asbury 250?(Methodist Church Podcast) reminded me how wrong they were.

MIchael Ivatt, the presenter, brings together a vivid picture of Asbury’s life and witness in interviews with Sarah Hollingdale, the British Methodist Heritage Officer and Ashley Boggan Dreff, General Secretary?of the United Methodist Church??Commission on Archives and History in the United States.?

Sarah Hollingdale described the harsh conditions, and sometimes violence, that were common for early Methodist families such as the Asburys at the time of the Wesleyan revival. She believed that these difficulties set Asbury up for the challenges he would meet in the New World. Ashley Dreff explained??that Asbury’s work ethic provided a role model for the “circuit riders”, the traveling preachers, who did much to spread the Gospel among the population of the emerging United States.

Our own Vice President, Barbara Easton, contributed by returning to the Asbury story in the Black Country of the West Midlands. Living in Wolverhampton, she remarked how famous and well-regarded Francis Asbury was in the USA, but barely known, even in the place of his birth.?