You have to laugh
Matt Chorley brings his light touch reporting on politics to the BBC
© Michael Clement / News Licensing
- Bill Borrows
Matt Chorley's weekday show on 5 Live begins on Monday. Add it your collection.
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Politics is a funny old business, so who better to host 5 Live’s new afternoon politics show than a comedian? Matt Chorley, columnist, author, Have I Got News for You regular and, for four years, a presenter on Times Radio, is the man in question. Three sold-out political comedy tours in recent years confirm the 42-year-old’s stand-up credentials. “There is a sort of precedent,” he notes. “John Sergeant [former BBC chief political correspondent] was in a sketch show on TV with Alan Bennett before journalism and had a very similar path to me, though slightly more successful on the comedy side.”
A similar-ish path. Sergeant went from private school to Oxford, whereas Chorley, by his own account, “Grew up on the Somerset Levels, went to a state comp, did A-levels in the bright lights of Taunton, and was all set to go to university when I got paid work experience on the local paper over the summer. I thought, ‘If
I go to university, in three years’ time, I’ll be right back here wanting exactly this’, so I didn’t go. And that’s quite unusual in the world of national journalism.”
After the Taunton Times he moved to London in 2004 and a year later got a job in the House of Commons press gallery with the national news agency PA. He has been in or around Westminster ever since, working for media organisations including the Independent on Sunday and The Times. “I’ve had something of a portfolio career. But at my core I’m still a journalist. I want to tell stories and I want people to learn about a world that is really interesting – one way of doing that is using humour.
I don’t reveal my politics – largely because I don’t really have any
“Watching Rishi Sunak calling an election standing in the rain without pointing out that he might have been happier with an umbrella would be just odd. Being able to laugh at the absurdity of the world along with listeners, rather than people thinking that politics is boring and distant, is a way of hooking people into thinking, ‘That show’s fun. And if I’m learning about stuff along the way, that’s a bonus.’ ”
Ironically, one person watching Sunak getting drenched outside Downing Street but unable to raise a smile was Chorley himself. A press release trumpeting his move from Times Radio to 5 Live with the implicit sell of a forthcoming general election had been issued the day before. “I had a very irritated afternoon,” he admits. “But it’s fine now. I’m in this for the long haul. There will be other elections, and for now we’ve got a new Labour government, a Tory leadership contest and the US election, which is massively unpredictable.”
He can’t wait to get started. “Joining the BBC, the most famous broadcasting organisation in the world, is an enormous privilege and a big deal personally. It’s not exactly, ‘I didn’t think little old me from Somerset would ever get to the BBC,’ but there is an element of that. And it’s not just being at the corporation, but being given a chance to launch a big, meaty political show, which hasn’t been done for a while.”
Unlike his stint at Times Radio, he will now be the subject of intense scrutiny with regards to any perceived political bias. He has no concerns. “I’ve done the impartiality training, and it turns out I’ve been doing it all my working life because I just didn’t think my job was to tell people what to think. Nobody could come and see my stand-up show and think they know what my politics are – largely because I don’t really have any.”
Who is your political hero, I ask abruptly. It’s an unkind question of the sort he will be expected to ask politicians. He equivocates before offering, “He’s not quite a political hero, but someone who I knew very little about [before writing his latest book, Planes, Trains and Toilet Doors: 50 Places That Changed British Politics] and think is quite extraordinary is Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour prime minister. He came from a poor part of Scotland, was brought up by his mother on her own, and ended up becoming prime minister for a party that had never been in government before.”
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A clever answer with both a plug and a caveat that avoids nailing his colours to any contemporary political mast. Almost a politician’s answer, in fact. Funny that.
Authors
Bill Borrows
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