Why Is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me?: Searching for the Truth on Political TV

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Tobitt, Charlotte (19 March 2021). "Some 550 BBC jobs closed or moved as news shifts away from London". Press Gazette . Retrieved 19 March 2021. a b c Walker, James (28 January 2019). "BBC Politics Live boss Rob Burley says balancing every show across political parties would be 'really boring' ". Press Gazette . Retrieved 7 December 2019. Why is this lying bastard lying to me? That’s the question Jeremy Paxman famously asked when trying to pin down slippery politicians, and it’s the title of Rob Burley’s new book, published on 11 May. With 25 years of experience working with the great political interviewers of our age – from Andrew Neil to Emily Maitlis, and Andrew Marr to Beth Rigby – he joins Rachel Cunliffe to dissect what makes a great TV political interview, and why scrutiny of our leaders is more important now than ever. If Marr was pretending to be cross, the BBC board member Robbie Gibb wasn’t faking it. On launch day the Times wanted his take on a story from my book. This was what the kids call awks. Robbie had been my boss at the BBC. The story, that on the day after the Brexit vote he had told me to forget about the Leave campaign’s dodgy claims, including that pledge on the bus, and move on, was not a good look. So when Robbie arrived at Hatchards he was peeved but, after a pointed aside about how he’d helped get me into the BBC (“No good deed goes unpunished”) was soon over it. He spent the rest of the evening having fun with his friend in political comms, the equally Marmite Seumas Milne from Team Corbyn. Unlikely comrades. It was nice to see them both.

At the same time, many of those politicians who are crying about the loss of local radio journalists are the same people who pushed for the original BBC funding cuts in parliament.” The Online Safety Bill, now going through the Lords, will make all this far worse by threatening huge fines for Silicon Valley firms that publish anything deemed to be “harmful” and visible to children. What does this mean? It’s unclear: so the censorship bots will work overdrive just to be safe. Sir Keir Starmer may tighten things further as prime minister, forcing newspapers to accept state regulation. Those who refuse would be forced to pay the fee of anyone who sues, win or lose. In 2021, HarperCollins secured Burley's book, Why is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me?, due to be published in February 2023. In it, he humorously describes his experiences with British politicians and focuses on 12 political interviews over a 25-year period. [10]HarperCollins has scooped Why is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me?,an insider account and debut by former BBC political programming editor Rob Burley. Why Is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me?: 25 Years of Searching for the Truth on Political TV ( HarperCollins, 2023) ISBN 978-0008542481 I’ve spent more than 25 years behind the camera, so it felt weird to find myself sitting on Good Morning Britain’s big glossy set with Susanna Reid and Adil Ray. I was there to promote Why Is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me?, my slightly sweary part-history, part-memoir chronicling the televised 60-year tussle between broadcasters and politicians.

Clearly things have been very badly handled,” said Burley. “They’ve lost a lot of good political presenters. I don’t know if there is much BBC expertise along those lines left in the building. The funding cuts are real and hard decisions have to be made, but Tim Davie doesn’t really understand journalism, in my view, and so has waved through lots of these cuts. Dolan – by virtue of being a young, female, Irish author – is often compared to Sally Rooney. Both novelists write about the personal relationships of twenty-somethings in contemporary Dublin, but Dolan’s writing feels less pored over, which makes for a zippier read, although one where the characters feel almost too zeitgeisty to be real. Archie is in many ways a formulaic corporate lawyer, taking drugs on weekdays and playing tennis against his firm’s partners at weekends – that he is queer and open-hearted saves him from becoming a caricature. Dolan is known for her humour and light touch, but here it is the more introspective moments – such as when Celine’s sister Phoebe suggests that her habit of playing the piano in her head is a means of dissociation – that stand out.Burley’s candid new book Why is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me? revealed last week that BBC board member Robbie Gibb had told him to step away from investigating the promises made to the electorate by Brexiters. Burley grew up in the 1970s and 1980s and was interested in politics from a young age. He obtained a degree in American studies from the University of Nottingham. [2] He began his career as a researcher for the Labour Party member of Parliament Paul Flynn. He joined ITV in 1996 and rose to become editor of its political shows The Sunday Edition and Jonathan Dimbleby. He also worked on Tonight, hosted by Trevor McDonald. [2] He joined the BBC in 2008 [4] and became executive editor of Question Time, deputy editor of Newsnight and assistant editor of BBC Breakfast. In 2018, he became the BBC's editor of live political programmes, [5] succeeding Robbie Gibb. The role was based in Westminster and led Burley to take responsibility for the programmes Daily Politics, Sunday Politics, This Week, The Westminster Hour and Newswatch. [6] When Daily Politics ended in 2018, Burley became editor of Politics Live, and later editor of The Andrew Neil Show and executive producer of the podcast Brexitcast on television. In this unique book Rob Burley sets out to explore the state of democracy and accountability in an era when voters have come to expect untruthfulness from their leaders. Taking us inside the negotiations, intense preparations and tense encounters between heavyweight interviewers and politicians, Burley reveals why those who lead us are so reluctant to speak the truth and how they try to – and often succeed in – getting away with it.