ABSTRACT
Breaking Out The Panorama programme on poverty, directed by John Gau, was excellent. But it was also, in my experience, very unlike Panorama. Often, after the loud music and the fixed stare, I switch off. But the Establishment, it seems, is on vacation, and one of the advantages of this is that a quite different conception of politics can occasionally emerge. Instead of a studio full of the usual figureheads, or the regular reporter making his rounds, we were given the chance of seeing men like Peter Townsend and Ken Coates"" talking and presenting evidence from the centre of their working lives. And poverty, as it happens, is a case where the need to get away from orthodox political argument is especially urgent. In more ordinary times we could
have expected the usual battle of percentages between Labour and Tory spokesmen: "In the first three months of our administration we spent 8 per cent more-8 per cent." Or, again in duet, "we are the compassionate party and but for the economic crisis for which your party is responsible we would have done even more, and when we have got things right will do even more, though of course it would be premature to give details now."
