It is the most exposed position in political journalism. To be a success as political editor of the BBC, you need the nous to make sound and instant judgments on unfolding events, the skill to communicate complex issues in a way every viewer can grasp, excellent sources, a huge capacity for hard work and a competitive spirit. Also required is skin with enough armour plating to withstand the brickbats that will be lobbed your way when your reporting annoys partisans for one or other of the parties. Nick Robinson, a superb occupant of the post for the past decade, has all these qualities in abundance.
One further thing is vital for the role. A voice. That essential tool of his trade was robbed from him when he was diagnosed with a cancerous tumour on his lung earlier this year and put under the surgeon’s knife.
His consultant tells him that the operation is “the surgical equivalent of removing a shelled, soft-boiled egg from an eggcup”. The procedure is a success but there is collateral damage to his vocal cords: “A disaster for which I am totally unprepared.”
This book, originally conceived as a notebook of life on the political broadcasting beat in the year running up to the election, thus evolves into something else as he relates his struggle to restore his ability to speak. As he takes us through the ups and downs of diagnosis, surgery, voice therapy and chemotherapy, we travel with him on a candid, moving and gripping psychological rollercoaster of hopes and fears. Though he’s clearly one of nature’s optimists, there are moments when despair has him in its black grip. “I was more scared to be told I’d lost my voice than that I had cancer. It is who I am. Without words, spoken words, I am nothing.”
When his cancer was made public, there was an outpouring of goodwill and many kind, private messages from politicians across the spectrum. It is typical of Robinson that he can be both touched by this and see the funny side. “A curious byproduct of an illness like this is the chance it gives you to read your own obituaries – but with all the nasty bits left out, since people know you’re still around to read them.”
It’s not just about him. In fact, it is not mainly about him. The greater part of this book is about politics, with many acute reflections and amusing anecdotes along the way. While this is not, and does not pretend to be, a disquisition about the ills of democracy, it is peppered with incisive observations about the deformations in the way we do politics. “One thing I’m not looking forward to in this campaign is cutting through the crap. And the early signs are that there is going to be a lot of crap to cut through,” he writes witheringly about the barrages of black propaganda unleashed by the parties. “There are fundamental truths here – Labour would spend more, the Tories less – but is it really necessary to insult our collective intelligence with warnings of plague and pestilence if the other lot get in?”
From the machinations of the “spectacularly disingenuous” David Cameron as he schemes to sabotage the TV debates to the ludicrousness of Labour’s “Edstone”, there are vigorous and often witty judgments on politicians. He exposes some of the inner wiring of the dynamics between political broadcasters and party spinmeisters, a relationship of mutual neediness and wariness. When Cameron holds a press conference with Angela Merkel, Robinson doesn’t get to ask a question. “I’m told that if I get one now I won’t get one on next week’s visit to the White House. Questions to the PM are treated like sweeties for children – they’re rationed and withdrawn for bad behaviour.”
With some diarists, you get the impression that entries have been tweaked with the benefit of hindsight to make the author look prophetic. So credit to Robinson for leaving in his mistakes. Part of his entry for 2 January reads: “At the start of 2015, this still looks like Miliband’s election to lose. He has a poll lead, the economic data worsened before Christmas, there are growing signs of an NHS crisis and the breach on the right is no closer to being healed.” On the 13th, Robinson writes: “He’s (Cameron) still capable of winning this election, but I don’t foresee a dramatic swing producing a clear Tory majority.”
He was far from alone in thinking that. A lot of journalists were too beguiled by the opinion polls, myself included. All credit to Robinson for leaving in what less honest authors would have excised. He is correct to suggest that the assumption that there would be a hung parliament warped the election coverage of both his own news organisation and others.
More often than not, Robinson has a good nose for where the truth lies, even when he’s having to follow much of the campaign from his sickbed. The first of the leaders’ non-debate debates prompts acid remarks about how much of the circus around them will be overblown. “The polls will test the views of people who have already largely made up their minds. Twitter or Facebook merely lend a loudhailer to the committed, the partisan and the organised, and the verdict of the commentariat, who will be packed together in the ‘spin room’, will be no more than a reflection of the political classes talking to themselves and producing their own instant brand of not particularly reliable conventional wisdom.”
Champing to get at least a slice of the election action, in between bouts of chemo, he insists on returning to our screens. The “man with only half a voice” records an analysis of Labour’s manifesto launch. No fewer than six BBC news managers are convened to adjudicate on whether it is broadcastable. He reports their ponderings: “Am I risking my recovery? Are the BBC exercising their duty of care? Will viewers find it totally distracting?”
There’s a warm response from the public – except from the cybernats, apparently still pursuing a grudge about his reporting of the Scottish independence referendum. One of them tweets: “I genuinely hope Nick Robinson gets better. Then immediately gets run over by a bin lorry.” Such charming people.
There’s more agonised debate at the BBC about how much he should do on election night. He’s on screen to give a first – and typically assured – reaction to the shock exit poll which leaves a lot of people speechless. All goes well. Afterwards, he has “a sense that I’ve climbed my personal Mount Everest. It feels bloody marvellous.”
Don’t buy this book because you feel sorry for Nick Robinson. He wouldn’t want that. Buy it because it’s a cracking read.
Election Notebook is published by Bantam (£20). Click here to buy it for £16
