BORIS has gone to ground. And good for him, say I. Yesterday morning, I awoke to hear the Prime Minister of England and the Other Bits being heavily criticised on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme for avoiding interviews, particularly with Radio 4’s Today programme.

To be politically even-handed on this, Labour leader Gerald – is it Gerald? – Corbyn does the same. But the censure of Comrade Johnson chimed in with a leading article in the right-wing liberal Spectator magazine which accused him of “ducking interviews” and urged him to thrust himself on the public “with courage and verve”.

A couple of guests on Today put the boot in with more gusto, saying that, as a journalist, he should know better. Exactly. He does. He knows what a charade these shows they are. It’s an appalling experience having to listen to them, never mind take part. It’s corrosive to the morning morale. Everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Who’d willingly start the morning listening to this ill-natured hostility, this suspicion, arrogance and cant?

You say: “Well, you did, big nose.” That is a good point, well made. But, in my defence, it was an aberration. I usually wake up to Classic FM or Radio 3 but, with recent exciting developments, thought I’d better tune in to the latest intelligence. Believe me, I’ll be tuning out again.

It’s the same with Good Morning, Scotland on BBC Radio Shortbread. Stopped listening to it many years ago, mainly due to a stroppy virago with a permanently offended sounding tone driving me to despair. From her first clipped and accusatory “Good morning”, she’d proceed to snap at everyone like a dyspeptic terrier that had just had its bone pinched. It was unbearable to listen to, particularly when they had polite Americans on, who thought it would be nice to be on Scottish radio. I used to listen through my fingers as the poor boobies were eviscerated.

And it wasn’t just leading politicians. Everyone was hounded, as is the case with Today, where only cricketers and actresses escape the aural lash. They’ve also got a Scottish rottweiler on the show now, with that same malevolent dwarf-on-helium voice that so many Caledonian media females have. Why can’t Scottish people ever speak right on the media? Jemima Swanson, if that is the name, there’s another one. Leader of the Liberal Democrats. What planet is that accent from?

But I digress. If I was Prime Minister of Scotland and the Other Bits, I’d hardly leave the hoose and would only issue the occasional Olympian announcement then scarper before the mob, brandishing its metaphorical nooses masquerading as interviews, could catch up.

It’s fair to say that Boris is more of an extrovert than I am – and also, unlike me, he’s quite interested in politics – so he’s not avoiding the lieges entirely. Indeed not. He’s taken to social media to speak to them unmediated, as it were, through a live prime ministerial podcast and even the occasional tweet, as perfected by Derek Trump, President of America and the Wider World.

Some say such leader’s addresses are what dictators do, but that was in the days of telly. On social media, the mob can have their say right away on the PM’s disquisition, and some will take the opportunity to be downright disrespectful.

I’ve never understood the media’s sense of entitlement in a democracy. If it’s a free country, why is it compulsory to go on somebody’s daft show? You couldn’t imagine Sir Harold Macmillan or Sir Anthony Eden submitting themelves to such ordeals. It detracts from the dignity of the position.

Prime and First Ministers are severely grilled by opposing elected representatives every week at their respective question times, in public and on the telly. Beyond that, they should just be able to sit in the hoose tweeting, apart from the occasional visit to a factory to see how rubbish some people’s jobs are or a prison to make sure everyone is locked up properly.

My advice to Boris from an anarcho-syndicalist perspective is: don’t tell jumped-up broadcasters anything; don’t give them any rope with which to hang you; avoid them like the proverbial p.

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ON the subject of Belligerent Broadcasting, that’s the title of a new study by academics Angela Smith and Michael Higgins, who found that a makeover show called What Not To Wear began the “rise to rudeness” on television.

Although I wear clothes from time to time, I must confess I’ve never seen the show, nor indeed the others named – Kitchen Nightmares (something to do with cooking) and The Apprentice (something to do with joabs?).

However, that need not stop me condemning them based on hearsay or, indeed, evidence given this week to a House of Commons committee, where Professor Smith enlarged on her findings and recommended minimising the confrontation and conflict that disfigure so many programmes today.

This famously reached rock-buttock in The Jeremy Kyle Show where, as I understand it, various women would accuse sundry men of fathering their child.

Any party which cracks down on rudeness – with fines or preferably imprisonment – will get my vote at the next election, if we must have one. I say that because these only lead to more confrontation and conflict, with politicians being as much to blame as [checks notes] Trinny, Susannah, Gordon, Lord, [CORR] and the aforementioned Jeremy for declining standards.

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I WAS in a garden centre recently, where I saw an amazing thing: a little robot the size of a shoebox that scooted around cutting your grass. I’m easily amused, and was so transfixed by the ongoing demonstration of this gizmo that I had to be escorted out by security guards at closing time, all the time blubbering: “But it cuts the grass – that wee thing!”

As I’ve just bought a wee hoose with a large hilly garden attached, I thought such a machine might come in handy if the elixir wears off and I get old like other people.

As if that weren’t enough, it was reported this week that scientists had created a pair of “robo-shorts” that waddle aboot (with you in them), rather like the troosers in Wallace and Gromit, only with less disastrous consequences.

The robo-shorts originally had a military purpose, helping soldiers carrying heavy equipment to patrol for longer in difficult terrain, but could help the elderly when their legs have started to get a bit rubbish.

I must say, at this rate, it’s going to be an absolute pleasure being old, with little to do except press buttons saying “trim”, “briskly” and “dawdle”.

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PRIVACY is a real problem nowadays. Compared to the past, in some ways we have too much of it and, in other ways, too little.

Former glamour model Tracy Dixon certainly experienced the latter when she took the opportunity to do a bit of nude sunbathing in her garden, only to look up and see a police helicopter hovering overhead. You could write this off as coincidental.

The backgarden in my last house was very private and, if the weather was irritatingly hot, I would sometimes sit there with my trousers rolled up to the knees. I worried about planes overhead, and was sure I heard tittering through the hedge once, but in general I think I can conclude that no one was much interested.

However, in Ms Dixon’s case, that was far from the case: the helicopter kept coming back and it transpired it was being flown by a “sex-obsessed” constable called Pogmore who has since been imprisoned. Ms Dixon is also suing South Yorkshire Police.

Quite right. That said, I have pontificated authoritatively before: if people insist on getting naked then it must be done beneath thick blankets, behind blackout blinds, and with a roof positioned firmly overhead.

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