As controller of BBC Northern Ireland, the Rev Colin Morris was a canny operator. When I was series producer on Network for BBC1 in 1987, he gave me enormous assistance behind the scenes when we devoted a programme to debating Margaret Thatcher’s absurd Sinn Féin ban, when viewers and listeners were not allowed to hear the actual voices of politicians such as Gerry Adams, only actors impersonating them, word for word.
Colin could have made life easier for himself by blocking the programme, as the controversy-averse hierarchy would have preferred, but instead he gave me wise counsel on who to invite and how to frame the debate, chaired by Anna Ford. It therefore amused me when I asked him to appear in the programme himself and he ducked out with a good-natured chuckle. He invoked “the Morris iron law of studio debates”, that producers always invite “one-too-many contributors”. “In this case,” he cheerfully declared, “I am that one.”
As it happens, it’s a law that still stands, as one can often see in over-stuffed studio discussions on Newsnight or Channel 4 News.
