Newsnight presenter Maitlis has often taken anti-Labour stance but has scale of crisis forced a re-think?
BBC presenter Emily Maitlis has often been accused of a dismissive, ‘eye-rolling’ response to left-wing policies and viewpoints. But a short segment on last night’s Newsnight programme has people wondering whether she has had a ‘road to Damascus’ moment.
Maitlis flagged what was to come by deriding the Tories’ language of ‘fortitude and strength of character’ as a factor in surviving COVID-19 – has she lost someone to the virus?
She then went on to attack the idea that the pandemic affects rich and poor alike, listing low-paid front-line workers and the far greater risk they face – and pointed out that ‘lock-down’ is far harder for poor people.
And she even went as far as to call inequality ‘stark’ and to raise the need for a new ‘social settlement’ to prevent it becoming even worse:
If Emily Maitlis is calling for change in such terms, then the situation must be dire indeed.
And if her awakening – if that’s what it is – spreads around the BBC, the Tories might just be held to account for their abysmal handling of the crisis and their weakening of our society’s structures that has made us so vulnerable.
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