From porn to Portillo | Mark Lawson
Many ex-ministers fall for the temptations of on-air fame, but it's salutary to recall Harold Wilson's fate
In travelling from a job in broadcasting (spin doctor at the late Carlton TV) to a high office of state, David Cameron is fairly unusual. The reverse journey, though, is a crowded train: Jacqui Smith, a former home secretary now announced as host of a BBC radio documentary on pornography, continues a long tradition of discontinued politicians trying to make the move from interviewee to interviewer. David Miliband is also reported to have discussed possible air-time assignments.
The role model in this connection is Michael Portillo, who responded to both big political rejections of his career (first from the voters of Enfield Southgate, and then Tory colleagues voting for a party leader) by establishing an impressive broadcasting portfolio. Indeed, Ms Smith is also among those Labour rejects and retirees auditioning to share the two-small sofa with Portillo on BBC1's This Week, after it was vacated by Diane Abbott when, in a generally counter-historical move, she was willing to give up TV for frontbench politics.
Portillo, in turn, had probably also been influenced by Matthew Parris, who quit parliament to take over LWT's Weekend World from Brian Walden. But Parris achieved a celebrity as broadcaster and journalist that had eluded him in politics, and Smith and Portillo belong to a different set of big or biggish Westminster beasts who have tried to invest one experience of public recognition to buy another.
The formula is well-established, with the ex-legislator turning int! o digita l tape and money some subject on which they have established either public or private expertise. Hence viewers and listeners have been offered Douglas Hurd on diplomacy, John Prescott anatomising class, Michael Heseltine guiding us round his arboretum and, early in his career, Michael Portillo on Wagner.
These match-ups happen because it is common for BBC producers to keep Sellotaped notebooks, and now digital files, that cross-index subjects with possible contributors. So Julian Barnes can expect a summons to any project involving Flaubert or parrots, and, if Radio 4 commissions a series on sado-masochism, Max Mosley's phone will throb.
Jacqui Smith's misfortune is that her subject matter tag involves not female achievement or counter-terrorism policy but the fact that her husband put his late-night hardcore on the state tab. So, to stand the chance of doing a Portillo, Ms Smith has to cash in that chip.
The judgment for the media-hungry politician is whether notoriety is a reasonable down-payment on more fame. Ann Widdecombe and Lembit Opik have complicated this equation by opening up the reality and talent genres to those who served. Few former prisons ministers have ended up presenting a prize at the National Television Awards, as Widdecombe did last week, but there might be moments in the night when she worries about which bit the obituaries will mention.
The employability of former politicians partly results from a general trend in broadcasting to put on air people already familiar to the audience from a previous career: so, for example, almost all sports broadcasters appointed these days are ex-pros. This recruitment policy creates an immediate recognition factor in a competitive media in which a presenter or programme needs to make an impact fast. There may also, especially at th! e BBC, b e a calculation that old party hands may provide a useful link with their governing successors.
All legislators-turned-presenters, however, should remember the example of Harold Wilson who, three years after resigning as prime minister, hosted a BBC chatshow called Friday Night, Saturday Morning, and performed so calamitously that the editions feature in polls of TV's worst moments.
Recent ex-premiers are unlikely to follow Wilson into the studios because of two modern factors that would seem logically contradictory: that most leaders are now violently despised when they leave office although Portillo overcame fears that his negative public image from politics might alienate audiences and that they can make so much money from speeches, foundations and appointments.
Enlighteningly, the reports that the former Labour home secretary is heading into the red-light district with a BBC mike coincided with the revelation in the House of Commons register of members' interests that the PM she served has earned 250,000 in three months. So there seems little need for Gordon Brown to make that documentary on Raith Rovers or anger management yet. Only minor politicians need broadcasting but, luckily, broadcasting seems to feel in great need of them.
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