Why are political
correspondents so often quirky? Is it because they have to listen to nonsense day
in day out? I ask after watching both Chris Mason and Robert Peston’s
attendance at Wednesday’s General Election announcement. They both, in their
own way, tried to cover all possible ground eking out the time as the 5pm
scheduled speech slipped by almost twenty minutes and I thought how unusual both
of them were. What they do convey though is the excitement that ebbs around
political circles at this kind of event. It has been a while. We’ve had
leadership changes but the last actual General Election was four and a half
years ago and current PM Rishi Sunak has decided now is a good time to go to
the country. For Messrs Peston and Mason plus the cohorts of other correspondents
and presenters this is, as one of them said, their `Cup Final`. As such it is
treated with similar predictions as to what the speech might say. The
difference from football is that the commentators do seem to know in advance
what it will say and in some ways are part of the choreography of the whole
thing.
