Don’t let the bleary eyes, the stubble or the unbuttoned short fool you. Eric Joyce is actually a Labour Member of Parliament.
In the hours before the broadcast, one can imagine someone from the BBC’s Newsnight programme giving Mr Joyce’s office a phone, asking him for an interview and one can also imagine a brief outline of likely questions being handed over. Even if this wasn’t the case, some of those questions, it would be safe to assume, would be around those pesky expenses that have been getting so much airtime recently.
So why Mr Joyce thinks that an acceptable answer to the question, “How come you think it’s okay to charge the public purse for the artwork in your office?” is “Because they look nice,” or that, “Did you pay Capital Gains Tax on either property?” is deserving of the response, “What are you saying about my wife?” is anyone’s guess. But it does make for some entertaining, if uncomfortable, viewing to anyone not residing in Falkirk East.
UPDATE — Credit where it’s due, though, Mr Joyce responded to my Tweet on the above subject when it would be far easier to ignore. I’m very easy to ignore.
June 26, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Most of the time I’m a bit smug and look down my nose at ’swear-bloggers’, like to kid myself I’m better than them and stuff and take people on on policy etc. – you know me Gav.
Then I saw this and wanted to post nothing other than the video itself with the title “smug c*nt loses job live on air”. I didn’t of course and just abused your comments section instead but I know which Scottish constituency I’ll be paying particular attention to next year. I’m willing to offer anyone you know in Falkirk East considerable sums of money for their vote….
June 26, 2009 at 6:38 pm
And if you follow his Twitter timeline, you’ll see that he doesn’t think there was anything wrong with the performance, that the public prefers its politicians to not churn out rehearsed answers that barely match the question. He’s got a point about the latter, but there’s a happy medium.
He’s my mum’s MP. She’s voted Labour all her life. On the basis of his expenses alone and without seeing the video, she said she wasn’t going to vote for him again. When I asked who she was going to vote for instead, she said she didn’t know and thought she might not vote at all.