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Jeremy Paxman loses control of Peter Oborne Alfie Denne (0 comments)

Oborne is certainly not to everyone's tastes but he's a far more complex and surprising commentator than your caricature of him.

 

I caricature him! You're not serious, are you? Oborne caricatured himself spectacularly when he kept referring to a person he disagreed with as "idiot" on live television. a) Call me boring and old-fashion, but I happen to think that there certain minimumstandards by which public debate should be conducted. The European Commission man on Newsnight was not Petie's chum having a chat with him in the pub. b) Oborne's perfectly entitled to his view on the EU/euro, but he was being so hot-headed that even if one wanted to share something of his outlook on these important issues would have been immediately put off by his rant and his tokenisms over worthless books he'd brought in the studio. (Over the book I would have been bold enough to inquire, as soon as Oborne passed the book to me, whether the quality of the paper used for the book was soft enough for lavatory purposes.)  c)Usually (!) the objective of public discourse is to carry with you as many as possible of your audience -- usually! As for any possible justification for Oborne's juvenile bluster on grounds of genuinely fervent discontent with what the people of Greece are going through right now...Well, let me first quickly reach for my sick bowl over Oborne's "bona fide" sympathies for the Greeks. I suppose, Oborne feels likewise for the people of the US State of Oklahoma and the Greek-like (if not much worse) drop in the standards of living of Oklahomans. He's an Atlanticist, is he not and they natively speak English, so what more could one want?