{"id":5,"date":"2006-10-23T13:29:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-23T19:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=5"},"modified":"2006-10-23T13:29:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-23T19:29:00","slug":"today-in-basra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2006\/10\/today-in-basra\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in Basra"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/radioassets\/photos\/2006\/10\/23\/4906_2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 140px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/radioassets\/photos\/2006\/10\/23\/4906_2.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>The <a href='http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/radio4\/today\/'>Today<\/a> programme is broadcasting from Basra for the first time. <b>Tony Blair<\/b> visited Basra on the 29th May 2003. It&#8217;s a day that <b>John Humphrys<\/b> probably remembers &#8211; the day <b>Andrew Gilligan<\/b> had decided to offer up the report that brought BBC journalism into direct conflict with the Government.<\/p>\n<p>Humphrys displayed his best and his worst that day. His worst? The eager flamming up of Gilligan&#8217;s report, which needed unpicking. His best? His brilliant dismemberment of <b>Adam Ingram<\/b>, then Armed Forces minister, over cluster-bombing. Here&#8217;s the transcript &#8211; it&#8217;s a lovely piece of interviewing.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em><br \/>JH: &#8230;You had told us we would not use cluster bombs in built-up areas , why did we do so?<br \/>AI: Well, I don&#8217;t, I don&#8217;t think if you examined what was said by Geoff Hoon, or indeed by the earlier statement by&#8230;<br \/>BOTH TOGETHER<br \/>JH: Baroness Crawley.<br \/>AI: Well, Baroness Crawley is not a defence spokesperson.<br \/>JH: Ah. <br \/><strong>AI: She was answering a question er, on behalf of the&#8230;<br \/>(interjection)<br \/>JH: (interjects ) Of the government&#8230;<br \/>AI: On behalf of the government and of the Ministry of Defence.<br \/>JH: Quite so.<br \/>AI: In the House. But she&#8217;s not a defence spokesperson.<br \/>JH: I see.<br \/>AI: She&#8217;s not a Defence Minister.<br \/>JH: She was speaking for the government but she wasn&#8217;t speaking for the Defence Ministry.<\/strong><br \/>AI: Well, no, that&#8217;s not the point I&#8217;m making John.<br \/>JH: Well I&#8217;ve lost you in that case.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/em><br \/>Good interviewer, Greg Dyke probably wishes he was as tough on reporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Today programme is broadcasting from Basra for the first time. Tony Blair visited Basra on the 29th May 2003. It&#8217;s a day that John Humphrys probably remembers &#8211; the day Andrew Gilligan had decided to offer up the report that brought BBC journalism into direct conflict with the Government. Humphrys displayed his best and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15,11],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bbc","tag-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}