Chloe Smith’s car crash Newsnight interview

June 27, 2012 11:09 am

If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s worth watching just to see how badly an interview can go…

Update: Nadine Dorries has weighed in on the interview, saying “The request for Newsnight should have been refused or given a pre recorded interview”, accusing Osborne of sacrificing Smith and describing the Chancellor as a “coward”. Ouch.

  • treborc

    I feel sorry for her, really do…. not.

  • Winston_from_the_Ministry

    Surely she can be forgiven under the same excuses as Harriet Harman’s recent inability to say how a proposal would be funded?

    No?

    To be honest, I’m not particularyl comfortable with someone so young being an MP.

  • Ian Gilbert

    Winston, unless I’m mistaken Harriet Harman is in opposition. Cloe Smith is Economic Secretary to HM Treasury. This is official government policy right now, not a suggestion from the opposition.

    Do you think it’s unreasonable to expect a better answer from a treasury minister?

    • Winston_from_the_Ministry

      No.

      But I would also expect a better answer from someone who wishes to be in the position to make policy.

    • Hugh

       I don’t recall answers from Harriet Harman being any more insightful when she was in government.

  • James

    Well, hopeless as we all know that Chloe is, at least she didn’t lie.

  • Daniel Speight

    Why couldn’t she say when she was told? Unless of course it  was taken because of the Ed Balls statement.

  • http://twitter.com/RF_McCarthy Roger McCarthy

    If she wasn’t a Tory I’d be saying ‘bless’.

    The problem is that she is too young and inexperienced for an important job – and that Cameron seems to have chosen her not for her abilities but for because he thought a young and relatively attractive woman would look better on TV than any of the much better qualified grey men in suits on the backbenches.

    Just for once Dan Hodges has got this right in the Telegraph today – Cameron is obsessed with TV and not just TV but the shortened news bulletins which are still actually watched by millions of people on BBC1 and ITV and which reduce politics down to the barest soundbites.

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100167820/print-isnt-dead-david-cameron-needs-to-wake-up-to-that/

    And there is a lesson for Ed Miliband too: it’s all well and good to quickly promote young, attractive and above all untainted MPs but in 3 years it could be them who are blinking frozen in the headlamps of the Paxman juggernaut. 

  • http://twitter.com/RF_McCarthy Roger McCarthy

    If she wasn’t a Tory I’d be saying ‘bless’.

    The problem is that she is too young and inexperienced for an important job – and that Cameron seems to have chosen her not for her abilities but for because he thought a young and relatively attractive woman would look better on TV than any of the much better qualified grey men in suits on the backbenches.

    Just for once Dan Hodges has got this right in the Telegraph today – Cameron is obsessed with TV and not just TV but the shortened news bulletins which are still actually watched by millions of people on BBC1 and ITV and which reduce politics down to the barest soundbites.

    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100167820/print-isnt-dead-david-cameron-needs-to-wake-up-to-that/

    And there is a lesson for Ed Miliband too: it’s all well and good to quickly promote young, attractive and above all untainted MPs but in 3 years it could be them who are blinking frozen in the headlamps of the Paxman juggernaut. 

    • Keith Skewes

      Same thing happened to Michael Howard when he was Home Secretary and he was neither young, attractive and or untainted. 

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/QDMFX65KM5STSAFHAC4FOLFTO4 fran

       Agree Roger about Chloe’s youth and inexperience but that may actually help her in some way in the future now that’s she’s been “blooded” by the press pack. Depends what her motivation for doing it was in the first place.

      I was reminded of once going to see my oldest daughter who had the lead in a school play and she was so bad -  like a deer caught in the headlights all the way through.  I just wanted to get on the  school stage and either shake her or take her home, Anyway in the next term school production she was demoted to a ‘seashore rock’.  Is the political equivalent a grumbly backbencher ?

      Anyway you know you’re getting old when Govt ministers albeit junior ones are called Chloe.

  • Keith Skewes

    I’ve seen sadder things. For instance Bambi’s mother was killed by a hunter.

  • leslie48

    I find Paxman a total utter bore – I learn absolutely nothing from this type of aggressive interrupting interviewing style. I would rather have an early night or read the paper unless the others are on and then I know it will be more interesting. The bully should take early retirement. He is also rude.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003663204873 Willy Edwards

       i love his style ,at least he tries to get them to tell the facts rather than let them drone on about stupid figures and percentages that mean nothing

  • Francislerouge

    To disembowl Smith was sound politics and the sort of thing for which one watches Newsnight. But was it really necessary to humiliate that women and to do so at some length?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

    I think its a problem with randomly allocating individuals to portfolios. At one time MP’s with specific interests were allocated to jobs and there is some sign that Ed is doing that, in choosing Lisa Nandy for a children and families role, for example. We have MP’s like Debbie Abrahams who is a health expert and Maria Eagle is committed to Transport. I’d like to see Kate Green replace Liam Byrne at Social Security (lets call it by its proper name, none of this ‘Work and Pensions’ nonsense)

    Poor Chloe is simply clueless 

  • Politique

    We have found here the evidence on why MP’s and Ministers are so much out of their depth. This scenario is not just typical of the Tory Party this is a particular problem within Labour ranks. Its selection procedures, processes and standards need reforming and improving as a priority. The present Shadow Cabinet is a mix with Chloe Smiths, nearly 50%.

    Ed Miliband has a real problem with this so called New Generation of MPs. All the general want is the truth. As for the Tories, do we expect anything better

  • Selena5

    She was stupid to agree to go on the programme, or perhaps she is a bit arrogant, and thought she could bluff her way through. 

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