Review: Amol and Nick's SmugSodCast
What is the point of the Today podcast? And just how much news banter can we take?
Previously: Rerouting to Cable Street
The right-wing papers are delighted at Suella Braverman's speech and the uptick in fascist rhetoric; it's time to say, "They shall not pass" again.
I tried. In the spirit of George Michael, I pressed play on the first episode of the Today Podcast with the intention of listening without prejudice. It was a struggle, especially when the show opened with Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson lifting the tedious introduction style favoured by their former BBC colleagues at The News Agents (“It’s Nick…” “It’s Amol…”). You can expect to find the same dinner party smug, chummy tone too as the Today presenters promise to bring you behind the curtain.
The first episode focused on Robinson’s interview with Rishi Sunak from that morning’s edition of the Today programme; it was like a DVD commentary track for the world’s most boring featurette as extracts from the conversation were played then reflected upon by the presenters.
In an effort to give the listener the behind-the-scenes insights the promo promised, Rajan revealed that Sunak sent him WhatsApp messages after an interview during the Tory leadership contest (“Hi Amol, Rishi here. Always admired you from afar.”) Lame recognises lame and Rajan invited Sunak to go out for a coffee. He explained:
These days, I think of myself as a bit more of an outsider journalist… I find it harder, if I’m honest, being really tough on people if I know them. And I find it easier being really hard on them — which is something the Today programme demands — if you don’t know them. I broke that rule because I thought Rishi Sunak was just going to be a backbencher…
The anecdote prompted Robinson to ‘joke’ that those poor instincts were why he’d been BBC political editor and Rajan hadn’t. In the Radio Times interview promoting the podcast, both men went overboard explaining what good pals they are and how foolish it is to think there’s any tension in the Today studio. What’s that quote about protesting too much?
And yet, when it comes to recounting anecdotes slipped to them by sources, neither Rajan nor Robinson protests remotely enough. There’s a phrase in journalism — “too good to check” — that applies to stories that sound right and fit with a hack’s idea of an issue. Robinson’s long story about Sunak, spreadsheets, and the Treasury, which he told during episode one, fits firmly into that category:
I was told a story about when he first became Chancellor that the officials in the Treasury completely spooked because as they walked into the room, a) he was already there — not arriving last as some big-name people would do, and b) he was laying out sheets on the table. And one of the officials said, “Chancellor what are you doing?” He said: “These are the spreadsheets.” And they said: “What spreadsheets? We haven’t produced any spreadsheets.” He said: “No, no, I stayed up last night. These are the spreadsheets I’ve done.”
So this guy, who worked in the city, who made millions of pounds by shifting money, by analysing what are effectively financial bets — investment bets — has the capacity to do that sort of analysis for himself. That is the guy that we have and it’s the reason why, by the way, on HS2, for all it looked this week like he couldn’t make up his mind, I’m told by a friend of his, that he made his mind up two years ago. He’s always hated this project.
He just thought he couldn’t stop it because Boris Johnson was Prime Minister. He was committed to it. He thought Boris Johnson routinely made big, grand sweeping promises without any idea of how he was going to deliver very much at all. And Sunak, over these two years, kept doing the spreadsheets on HS2, kept seeing the numbers going up and up, and thought, “Right…”
Who told Robinson these tales? Sources close to Sunak. And the same credulousness was there in Rajan’s perky interjection: “The key to understanding [Sunak] is that he is an investor.” He followed that line by burbling that the problem with most journalists is that they don’t understand business; the implication, of course, is that Rajan — for all his performative modesty — is an exception.
It’s also clear — not just from Robinson’s BBC Political Editor dig — that Rajan’s smug tone is undercut by a raging strain of insecurity. He mentions his previous life as editor of The Independent multiple times in the 39-minute episode and also manages to bring up his time “working at the Foreign Office” (it was a year in a very junior role before he went to university, which he often reframes as “being a diplomat”). Rajan also did his usual act of downloading a lot of information about people he’s heard of and books he’s read; it is knowledge wielded heavily and awkwardly.
The points at which the podcast lifted itself from the bottom of the banter barrel were when it opened up and guests injected oxygen into the stuffy atmosphere of chummy backslapping smuggery. Jane Green, Professor of Political Science and British Politics at Oxford, was insightful on the (lack of) history of governments coming back from dire poll ratings, and listeners were promised she’ll be a regular fixture.
The other guest was somewhat more predictable but Armando Iannucci managed to sum up what the Today Podcast is designed to do far better than its hosts:
Now that there is this 24-hour, minute-by-minute analysis, your job, I suppose, is to stand back and ask the bigger questions.
Robinson was delighted:
You’ve just given the explanation for why we now have the Today Podcast. That’s what we’re trying to do.
The emphasis should rest on the word ‘trying’ right now. The analysis of Sunak was as inflected by BBC News’ bias toward the establishment and status quo as Today itself and the desire to seem delightfully informal meant lots of stuff about Robinson’s plans to pop to the Lake District and that it was his birthday.
Straight-jacked by the false premise of BBC impartiality, the presenters’ opinions will leak through the gaps in their analysis, just as they do in the day job. Compared to the cartoonish editorialising of The News Agents, the pseudo-kayfabe breaking Political Currency with Osborne & Balls — which sounds like a very tedious musical hall act — and the even more professional wrestling-style false fights of The Rest Is Politics with Campbell & Stewart (a hipster brand of expensive but disappointing whisky), the Today podcast runs the risk of being little more than a boring window into the interactions of BBC News’ most desperately banterous.
Episode one, which might plausibly have been subtitled ‘Seduced by Spreadsheets’, has been gently received by most reviewers (when it has been reviewed at all) and promoted with gusto by other BBC stars. I suspect. It will now struggle to maintain momentum in a market oversaturated with pairs of blokes ‘bantering’ about the headlines even with the force multipliers of the BBC platform and Today’s access.
Did I pass the George Michael test here? Not even remotely. It’s the curse of having a long and fully working memory.
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I stopped listening to Today a number of years ago for the benefit of my mental health and my finances (there are only so many radios I could throw out the window) so felt particularly relieved when Amol “Spike” Rajan joined as a reward for services to the Tory Party.
"Now that there is this 24-hour, minute-by-minute analysis, your job, I suppose, is to stand back and ask the bigger questions." Without listening to it (which I am not going to do) it's hard to judge whether Iannucci is being sarcastic or its a chummy we're all in the same business. On past form, my guess is the latter, bleuch.