Wednesday, November 17, 2004

The freedom not to ask questions

The day starts with the news on Radio 4 Today. For non-Brits, that is a serious political talk show renowned for giving politicians the Rottweiler treatment; but despite the barking, it usually fails to bite. The killer questions are not put. Questions like -

"Are we winning the war on terror, and if so, what would losing be like?"
"If we are so keen on imposing democracy out of the barrel of a gun, ought we not to make sure that the systems we have in place are impeccably democratic?"
"Since the Government claims to have been freezing the assets of terrorists, how come they only froze al-Zaqarwi's assets after he shot to prominence by taking Ken Bigley hostage? Did they not know about him, or could they not be bothered?"
"Is Tony Blair naive or cynical?"

That's enough unasked questions for the moment - just a few off the top of the head.
Oh no - one more: "Why the media silence on the Bush election fraud suspicions?"

Writing this, I realise that I am effectively closing the door on my chances of doing radio broadcasts again, since the media can put up with just about anything except criticism.
Better the freedom of daily expression in BlogWorld than the constrained and edited forms of expression that pass for a free democratic press in the UK.

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