Newsnight are trying to say that the Crick-copter is there to track down exciting “under the radar” local stories, why then was Thursday’s visit to Sedgefield filled with the same cliches as every other report from the constituency in the past ten years:
1. Reporter on the church green, check
2. Reporter in the Dun Cow, check
3. Reporter in the Trimdon Labour club, check
4. Reporter talking to John Burton (Tony’s agent and my old PE teacher), check
it was only surprising that Burton didn’t whip his banjo out…
Sedgefield is a funny old place, as usual it was described as “rural” at the start of the piece, despite the pock-marked, industrially-scarred, ex-mining villages that make up the majority of the constituency being as far from rolling farmlands as any inner-city. This is the sort of report i understood being made at the start of Tony’s career, no one knew where Sedgefield was, or what kind of place it was, but it’s rather disappointing to see the place i grew up not being allowed to step out of this straight-jacket, even when the good journos (i like Crick most of the time) get there…