Weekend World

John Lloyd on Weekend World:

Weekend World always made it explicit that politicians, especially cabinet ministers, faced on most issues a range of difficult and constructed choices. It sought to make sense of the choices; its interviews were aimed at clarifying the view that the politician or public figure took of these choices. The presenters - [Peter] Jay, then the former MPs Brian Walden (Labour) and Matthew Parris (Conservative) - stressed that politicians had larger responsibilities than they did because politicians were elected, and had taken on a greater or lesser range of duties as part of the democratic and governing process. Power was held to account, but explicitly underpinned because it was elective power. Television was a secondary function of democracy.