Grieving for Ukraine
When I first visited Kyiv in 2015 to conduct media training…
By Robert Taylor on the February 25th, 2025
It was Left versus Right, young versus old, Guardian versus Spectator. It was Owen Jones versus Andrew Neil on the BBC’s This Week programme last night, tearing strips off each other and coming as close to blows as it’s ever possible on live TV.
For sure it made compelling viewing, and was certainly worth staying up for. But I ask you this – by making it into a heated battle, or allowing it to become a heated battle, as Jones did, did he convince anyone with his message?
I suggest that the only people he convinced were those who already agreed with his brand of politics. The rest, while gripped, wouldn’t have budged one little bit – and that suited Neil, as the host of the programme, far more than it suited Jones.
It’s a lesson that those on the far Left and, for that matter, far Right, never seem to learn: if you want to convince your opponents to change their minds, or consider the worthiness of your case, making it into a boxing match just doesn’t work.
January 11th, 2019
When I first visited Kyiv in 2015 to conduct media training…
By Robert Taylor on the February 25th, 2025
There are reasons why people might object to a football World…
By Robert Taylor on the January 31st, 2025