---

---

The commentators                    25-02-15

---

...on the Greens

Green party leader Natalie Bennett's mistake was to answer the question as Nick Ferrari posed it, rather than describing the vision that she knows back to front. We are all sick of hearing politicians simply address the question they arrived to answer. We claim to want to hear people listening, like human beings. But she needs to be able to frame the conversation around her own assumptions – that this housing would represent a radical, even beautiful new future – rather than his: that it would be a shanty town thrown up with plywood.
- Zoe Williams, The Guardian

The Greens add to our democracy by advocating radical policies that bigger parties will not touch – but only if they acknowledge the expense and potential social upheaval that their programme entails, and offer some account of how they would pay for it and execute it. If they just wish away the difficulties, as ultra-left sects often do, they forfeit their right to be taken seriously.
- The Independent

Bennett has been exposed as a poor media performer who is lamentably weak on policy detail – although in truth, some of her party’s core demands are pretty difficult to defend. A Labour ex-minister who has shared a podium with her says: ‘She’s just not up to the job – you have to have a grasp of detail to survive an election campaign.'
- Ian Birrell, Daily Mail

---

Natalie Bennett’s stuttering, cough-strewn and shambolic interview will redouble the condescension of those Westminster sorts who fancy themselves as “the grownups”. The grownups are, however, deluding themselves if they imagine that green haze around detailed policy costings is going to do them much good – or Ms Bennett much harm – with her target electorate.
For the Green surge in the polls is not really about particular proposals and whether they stack up, but much more about a yearning for different values and a new, less venal, style of politics.
- The Guardian

---

Up until five or ten years ago, it would not be unusual for editorial to throw out or move an ad if it sat uncomfortably with the news on a given page. That tended to be in everybody's interests: BA no more wants its ad on a page devoted to an air crash than the journalist placing the story. This may still be the case, although I suspect that these days pressure would be on editorial to reposition the story rather than the other way about.
If so, that is an example of fissures starting to appear in that dividing wall. If a story, however insignificant, has to move from its optimum position in the paper because of advertising considerations, a line has been crossed.
A layman's guide to the relationship between editorial and advertising

---

---

---

Please sign up for SubScribe updates  
(no spam, no more than one every week or two)

---

---

Comment digest courtesy of
Editorial Intelligence

February 24
Rifkind and Straw
February 23
World affairs

---

February 20
UK politics
February 19
Chelsea and racism
February 18  
UK politics
February 17
UK politics
February 16
Copenhagen shootings

---

February 13
UK politics
February 12
UK politics
February 11
UK politics
February 10
UK politics
February 9
Politics

---

February 6
UK politics
February 5
Isis atrocity
February 4
UK politics
February 3
UK politics
February 2
UK politics

---

January 30
Rape law
January 29
UK politics
January 28
UK politics
January 27
Greece
January 26
UK politics

---

January 23
UK politics
January 22
Chilcot inquiry
January 21
Page Three
January 20
Anti-semitism and Islam
January 19
Religion and freedom

---

January 16
World politics
January 15
Election debates
January 14
Charlie Hebdo
January 13
Charlie Hebdo
January 12
Charlie Hebdo

---

January 9
Charlie Hebdo
January 8
Charlie Hebdo
January 7
UK politics
January 6
UK politics
January 5 
UK politics

---

---

For EI daily digests from June to December 2014 please click here

---

Follow @gameoldgirl

---

---