Zac Goldsmith needs to handle the media better than this

The blogs and Twitter were ablaze last night with talk of Zac Goldsmith's interview with Jon Snow on Channel 4 News last night.

He had been invited on to discuss allegations about his election expenses in Richmond Park. However the encounter turned into a bit of a car crash for Goldsmith when he spent the first six and a half minutes of the interview repeatedly accusing Channel 4 of having lied about arrangements for previous interviews.

Here is the encounter:

I am not an expert on electoral law but having read a number of posts about this it looks like Goldsmith might have some questions to answer about expenditure on jackets, posters and use of vehicles.

But of course that is not what was so bad about the interview. It was the way he tried to focus it on the apparent behaviour of Channel 4.

I am sure that Goldsmith felt wronged by the channel. They deny his allegations but he clearly wanted to try and put his side of the story about when he was and wasn't available for interview. The mistake he made was in repeatedly pursuing this for several minutes. The viewer is not really interested in that, they want to know about the allegations regarding his election expenses. If he had spent 30 seconds or a minute on his gripe I expect most people would have thought it was fair enough. Instead he ended up spending well over half the interview on it and it is clear that Snow had to extend the time allotted to accommodate this as well.

The problem is that the performance makes Goldsmith look arrogant in my eyes and of many others who watched it. In the end I was cringing, willing him to move on to the substance and stop arguing about the minutiae of how an interview was or was not agreed previously. It allows his opponents to claim he was trying to obfuscate about the substantive allegations against him. It also looks like he is more concerned about a personal slight regarding the timing of an interview than his election expenses.

I know from personal experience that Zac Goldsmith can be very charming and a good communicator. It is a shame that on this occasion he misjudged the situation and has left himself open to these charges. Far from clearing things up it has made them even worse for him.

I suspect he will be mortified about this and will have to rethink how he handles the media in future.

Why Iain Dale is wrong about Zac Goldsmith

Numerous bloggers (including plenty of Lib Dems) have commented on the story in the Sunday Times today that Tory Richmond Park PPC Zac Goldsmith is a non-dom and currently avoids UK income tax.

Iain Dale has had a crack at a defence of Mr Goldsmith. In a blogpost entitled "Tofftastic" he says:

There was lots of sanctimonious guff on Twitter from assorted lefties last night about the Sunday Times story that Zak Goldsmith is a 'non dom'. They even tried to suggest that he should resign as a candidate or David Cameron should sack him. Er, on what grounds exactly? What law has he broken? Yup, that's right, none. His tax status is a matter between him and the tax authorities. If they are satisfied with it, it's rather difficult to see why Kerry McCarthy (for it is she) shouldn't be. In any case, Goldsmith has decided to withdraw from 'non dom' status before the election so that's rather spiked the guns of those who seek to do him down.

I'm afraid that that is just not good enough. Whilst Mr Goldsmith has indeed not broken any laws, what Iain is ignoring is how important it is that politicians are affected by the same rules that govern ordinary people. This was one of the big issues that the expenses scandal threw up that MPs were not subject to the same sort of scrutiny regarding expenses as the rest of us and Iain knows very well just how well the defence of "it was within the rules" went down there. If Mr Goldsmith has not been subject to the same tax laws as the vast majority of UK citizens then surely he has put himself in a similar category at least in the eyes of the average taxpayer.

Iain's claim that Zac's decision to withdraw from non-dom status before the election has "spiked the guns" of those who are questioning this cuts no ice with me. Reverting to domestic status at the last minute just before an election where to do otherwise would be politically suicidal does not spike anyone's guns.

I met Zac at an event we were both speaking at a couple of months ago which I blogged about here. He is a very charismatic and charming man and he has some very good, strongly held views about the environment. I liked him on a personal level and I could not really find much that he said politically that I disagreed with either. Indeed I think the Parliamentary Conservative Party would be a much better place if they had lots more MPs like him. However this revelation is immensely damaging to his campaign. It has nothing to do with the "Toff" tag as Iain is trying to imply with the title of his post and everything to do with a sense of fair play.

As Paul Walter mentioned in his blogpost on this, Mr Goldsmith's own website points out that "Zac grew up in Richmond and went to school in Richmond. He has lived in Richmond most of his life." I think many in Richmond will struggle to reconcile that statement with his tax status. You can't credibly play the local card if you don't pay tax in this country.

I think Susan Kramer's chances of retaining her seats for the Lib Dems in Richmond Park just got a lot better.

Thought for the day breakfast event

A short video version of the "Thought for the day" breakfast event hosted by Editorial Intelligence that I spoke at last week is now up. The event lasted about an hour and the edited version is around 7 minutes but it does give you a flavour of how it all went. I think they may also have done an audio podcast of the whole thing which I will link to as/when it becomes available.

I spoke about the future of newspapers (a topic close to my heart). The other speaker turned was Zac Goldsmith, Conservative PPC for Richmond and committed environmental activist. He was there ostensibly to talk about his latest book "The Constant Economy: How to Build a Stable Society" but he actually talked about environmental issues more broadly and outlined some of his policy positions.

Youtube clip is embedded below:

Agreeing with Zac Goldsmith

I was honoured to be one of the speakers at a breakfast event hosted by Editorial Intelligence yesterday morning. They call the events "Thought for the day" and they invite two people to speak for 5 or so minutes each on topics of their choice. Then the other invitees (there were about 30 of them drawn from various sectors of the media and business) get to respond and make points or ask questions.

I had decided to speak about the future of newspapers (a topic

close to my heart). The other speaker turned out to be Zac Goldsmith, Conservative PPC for Richmond and committed environmental activist. He was there ostensibly to talk about his latest book "The Constant Economy: How to Build a Stable Society" but he actually talked about environmental issues more broadly and outlined some of his policy positions.

I was already slightly charmed as talking beforehand Zac explained that he had read some posts on my blog and mentioned my piece on the future of newspapers as one that he had enjoyed. When I said I was talking about that at the event he was pleased and said he would make sure that he linked the two together when he spoke, which he did. His view is that one of the big barriers to conquering environmental problems is the media and in a more democratised media, like the one I predict there would be less vested interests getting in the way of serious coverage and debate on the issue.

As I usually find with these sort of events it was very enjoyable and there was a vigorous discussion afterwards where both mine and Zac's positions on the subjects we discussed were tested and picked apart by some excellent contributions. I think I held my own OK and I did learn something new (about how hyperlinks are being used with some paid content - I may come back to this in a future blogpost). Unsurprisingly, Zac was very strong defending his position and carried it off with the sort of graceful charm that I will likely never achieve (although to be fair he has been born and bred for it!).

The thing that struck me most during the event though was that I really could not find anything that Zac said that I disagreed with. I spent much of the time when he was speaking nodding. I had to stop myself eventually for fear of looking like a nodding dog on the back shelf of a car! I myself am passionate about the environment and it was heartening to hear a Conservative candidate with such strong views on this subject.

One thing I did ask him during the debate was whether he agreed with many of the policy positions of Susan Kramer (Richmond Lib Dem MP and his opponent in the upcoming election) to which he responded yes. Susan has strong environment credentials and has made opposition to the expansion of Heathrow one of the defining issues of her time as an MP so far. It is a shame that two passionate campaigners on the environment are fighting for the same seat and only one of them can win. Of course I hope it is Susan.

Despite this, I expect Mr Goldsmith will one day make an excellent MP. In fact if more Tory MPs were like him I would be a lot less concerned about the likelihood of a Conservative government after the next election.

PS: There will be some filmed footage of the event as well as a podcast which I will link to when they are available.