The Trenchant

Melanie Phillips is on her Today programme watch again over a really one-sided and skewed debate on Mr Blair’s notion/wheeze/policy (randomly generated options, delete to taste) on drugs testing in schools. Personally I’m relieved to find someone sceptically-minded who can listen attentively to large portions of the programme, but I suppose Melanie has what it takes. It’s as she says: a good example of the Beeb’s distorting lens, though the odd Libertarian might not be all that enthused since we all (yes, even me) find it easier to listen to voices we agree with. Evidently that was true for the Beeb presenter as well, who seemed strangely becalmed (almost sedated, in fact) while listening to the pro-drugs fellow, while being inflamed to the point of rudeness by HMG’s representative. (via Stephen Pollard. Thanks also to Rob)