AMBUSHING THE TORIES

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There was a rare Conservative politician on this morning's Broadcasting House.
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The subject was yah-boo behaviour at Prime Minister's Question Time, and Andrew Robathan MP was invited on to talk to Paddy O'Connell because he had loudly heckled Vince Cable on Wednesday.
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Vince was sounding forth to Harriet Harman on the subject of a certain wicked Conservative lord and donor, and Andrew was all the while shouting 'What about Michael Brown?' (and variants) over and over again. Mr Robathan is not ashamed of having done so. I heard him doing so at the time (via Wednesday's Daily Politics) and thought 'What an idiot!', but as the BBC guy who talks over PMQs explained who Michael Brown is to the watching public (by way of explaining why Dr Cable was being heckled so loudly), Mr Robathan's shouting was shown to have worked - not such an idiot after all.
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Still, Broadcasting House played the clip to Mr Robathan twice ("I wonder if you know how it came over on the radio") in a blatant attempt to embarrass him. Of course, out of context it still sounds terrible and many listeners to BH will have come away thinking 'What an idiot!' as a result (which was surely what the programme was aiming at achieving), despite the MP's pragmatic justifications and his adeptness at dropping in just who Michael Brown is and why he is embarrassing for the Lib Dems.
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It also, of course, forced into the unsuspecting BH listener's ear not only Mr R's heckling but also Dr Cable's savaging of Lord Ashcroft. How cunning of BH!
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Conservatives behave badly at PMQs. So do Labour.
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One trap, into which Mr Robathan fell by agreeing to take part in this stunt, was followed by another as Paddy prepared us for another clip, saying to Mr R "Let's just agree that this is childish. This is another attempt to get a question out and once the Speaker's asked for silence it's greeted with a round of shushing. Let's listen and see if we both agree we can call this childish." The clip was played - but not enough of it for the unsuspecting listen to hear what that question was. I remember what it was. It was a planted question from a Labour MP, an attack on the Tories of such incredible stupidity that its repetition, as requested by Harriet Harman (who hadn't heard it, she said), would have been a crime against the public's intelligence. Take that fact out of the equation and the shushing from those wicked, childish Tories must have sounded...well...childish. Clip played, Paddy said "Do you find that sort of a bit childish?"
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A classic BBC Tory ambush.
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Broadcasting House also invited another Tory onto its paper review. That Tory was Christine Hamilton. With my cynical hat on again, I can't help thinking that they thought of inviting her on to remind listeners of 'Tory sleaze'. They could have invited her on because they think she's great entertainment (which she is), but with a few weeks to go before a general election and a programme that's shown itself not to be averse in recent months (on even earlier in the same edition) to spinning things against the Conservatives, I wouldn't be surprised it they had other reasons to invite her on. Who's next? Jonathan Aitken? Jeffrey Archer?
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UPDATE 16.45 pm
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The BH website itself confirms my suspicions about this edition of the programme. Note the rhetorical question, and the use of the word 'defend':

Was this Wednesday's Prime Minister Questions a particularly bad example of
Commons' heckling? One of those who took part in the barracking, Conservative MP
Andrew Robothan, joins us to defend himself.