It’s the bane of every jobbing politician – the easy quiz question. No one cares if you get it right but if you get Azerbaijan’s capital city wrong, woe betide you, you could be responsible for World War Three. The classic moment is, of course, Dan Quail’s attempt to “correct” a child who’d spelled potato correctly by adding an “e”. Hell, he was vice-president, he could spell it however he damn well pleased.
Earlier today Mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone was caught in a pop-quiz sting by Croyden Advertiser reporter David Churchill.
After a genuinely insightful set of questions and answers on Livingstone’s plans for Croydon, tube strikes and overseas investment Churchill sprang Labour’s Mayoral candidate with a quiz on Croydon – can you imagine anything more exciting!
After being unable to answer the first two questions Livingstone grumpily exclaimed that “if I want to do a quiz I’ll go on Radio 4. I mean seriously, this is trivial nonsense.”
He continued “I think people in Croydon want to know can I create jobs, bring transport infrastructure. I’m not going to do a crossword for you either. I’m not doing it for you or anybody else. I think it’s trivial. It’s everything that is wrong with the British media. What do you want me to do next, kiss a model?”
When the interviewer persisted (he had, after all, a quiz scorecard to complete) Livingstone walked out of the interview.
Was he right to do so?
Does the Mayor need to know the name of the main theatre in Croydon, or what the population is? Probably not.
Does the Mayor need to have a good grasp of the city he or she is running? Probably, and this sort of question that’s difficult to prepare for and is outside any political lines candidates might have prepared, so it could indicate whether they’ve give Croydon much thought in the preceding years. I can’t think why you would if you didn’t live there, but that’s besides the point.
I can’t help feeling that if Croydon’s main theater had been a regular haunt of Mr Livingstone he might not have been quite so grumpy about the whole thing and he may have waxed lyrical about the delights of the place rather than storming out. However, he does have a point.
He’s running for Mayor, not in training for Mastermind – specialist subject places of London. It’s not even as if theatre is part of the Mayor’s remit. Thank God for that, otherwise we’d be choosing between four years of impenetrable Greek classics versus reruns of George and Mildred – both of which I can take or leave.
Trivialisation of politics in the media?
Although the questions weren’t completely trivial, the fact that Livingstone couldn’t answer them is. If he has need to know any information about Croydon once Mayor he’ll have a host of staff to log on to Google to find out for him.
What’s rather more important is whether his policies, and those of his party, will help or hinder the people of Croydon. However, it is an inevitable fact of life that people do like to know something about the personal qualities of those they are voting for – and today we learned that Livingstone gives short shift to journos if he can’t answer their questions and you shouldn’t ask him to captain your pub quiz team unless you have inside knowledge that there’s a whole round on newts.
Note: The capital of Azerbaijan is Baku. Probably.
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