Interview: Michael Crick, BBC journalist (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
MICHAEL Crick is twitching with nervous excitement. Just back from delivering the Parliamentary Standards watchdog a dossier on the way Iain Duncan Smith runs his office, Newsnight's famously aggressive political reporter is now finding the microphones being thrust into his face. "This story is make or break for me," he says anxiously, between endless mobile phone rings. "If I've got it wrong, I'm destroyed. It's the biggest story I've ever done - except," he says with a grin, "I haven't actually done it, apart from one 500-word story in The Sunday Telegraph."
Crick, whose dogged pursuit helped bring down Jeffrey Archer and exposed John Major's youthful love-life, has again shaped the political agenda this week. After a five-month Newsnight investigation, he alleged that a salary paid to Duncan Smith's wife Betsy breached parliamentary rules. But when Newsnight dropped the film, the claims appeared in The Sunday Telegraph alongside a commentary from Crick, who then took the matter to the standards commissioner.
The BBC's response has been to "suspend" his Newsnight contract - no blame attached - during the investigation.
"I'm nervous," Crick admits. "Worried. I've got to be careful in everything I say. If the standards commissioner comes out and says there's a mass of evidence that Betsy Duncan Smith was working for her husband, then I'll look a bit silly. And Duncan Smith could sue - he's said he would - in which case I could also be very poor. Now, what am I going to do for lunch?"
Crick, 45, has a reputation for getting his facts right. He wiped the floor with Damian Green, the Conservative education spokesman, on Andrew Neil's Daily Politics programme yesterday, demanding that Duncan Smith provide itemised phone bills and annotated diaries as proof of his wife's work. "There is strong evidence that no one from IDS's team has effectively rebutted," he says. "It's possible that he'll come up with a load of material, but the more I read his statement, the more threadbare it gets." After 11 years at Newsnight, where his contract allows him to take half the year off to write books, he is careful not to say anything that will embarrass the BBC.
Although seen by some colleagues as a showman who enjoys being the programme's resident mischiefmaker, Crick is widely respected for his forensic digging, and the "Betsygate" film was seen as a way of boosting morale after the Hutton Inquiry.
THE decision to drop it has caused widespread concern within the BBC newsroom that management is keen to water down its political coverage. "If they won't let Crick run a story," one journalist was heard to complain on Monday, "how will the rest of us be able to?" "The one thing you need to know about me," Crick says, "is that I've got triplet sisters. Living with three younger sisters you have to be much more aggressive to survive - that's why I'm always talking more loudly and eating more quickly than I should."
When in London he lives with his mother in Clapham, where the walls are full of mementos to a career of making trouble, from the "Archer goes to jail" Evening Standard bill to the framed Daily Mail front page condemning a BBC "hatchet job" on John Major.
There is also currently water flowing through the ceiling from a first-floor bathroom. In his enthusiasm to move the story forward, Crick appears to have left the shower on this morning.
An avowed "anorak" and former trainspotter, Crick prefers delving in libraries to being among the media pack. Alex Millar, researcher on his biography of Alex Ferguson, says: "He'll comb through every document, speak to everyone. But he can also get the story through over-politeness. He treats everybody he meets with respect - and some of his best stories come from secretaries." How did he get the Betsygate story? "Luck, to be honest," Crick says. "It came my way because an internal Tory email warned of a 'Crick-style investigation'" - which prompted a mole to initiate one. He also admits to persistence.
"I'm quite an obsessive person - I don't just go to Man United, I go to every United match. I like to talk to everyone. When we were doing the Archer book, my wife and I tracked down everyone who'd served in the GLC during the Sixties, apart from one. Thoroughness is a wonderful thing." Does he have something against Tories? After all, his biography subjects have included Michael Heseltine as well as Archer?"
Absolutely not," he says. "If anybody had come along with similar stuff about Tony Blair, I would have pursued it with the same degree of diligence and perseverance." So what are his politics? "I was described as 'sceptical Labour' in the paper today," he says. "I can't honestly see myself voting for any party at the next election." He did, however, come close to being a Labour Party insider. In 1990, senior Labour figures asked him to stand for the safe seat of Bootle. "I thought, 'God, it's the safest Labour seat in England.' I knew it was the turning point in my life. But did I really want to move to Bootle? I thought, 'Nah,' and I've had a real sense of relief ever since. I can say what I like about anyone in politics."
HIS books now account for around 60 per cent of his income. Since he earned a £1,500 advance in 1983 for his debut, about the Militant Tendency, he has lately concentrated on more commercial subjects. "I earn enough from the books to live on," he says. The money has let him employ a team of researchers - up to six on the Heseltine book. "I'm just fascinated by what motivates high achievers," he says. "Archer and Fergie are men of incredible charm, but can be absolute bastards. How much ruthlessness do you need to be successful?"
After Manchester Grammar, Crick edited Cherwell while at Oxford. There he showed his own Heseltine tendency, launching a publishing business to profit from recruitment advertising - but lost money. In 1980 he became an ITN trainee alongside Edward Stourton and Mark Damazer - now one of the BBC executives responsible for dropping his film. He joined Channel 4 News, alongside Damian Green. "Damian taught me two great rules," he says. "Don't always assume a woman is pregnant until she has told you; and don't ever come up with an idea yourself, but latch on to other people's, so you'll have someone else backing you."
He achieved a childhood ambition when he moved to Panorama - although he hated the " uncollegiate" atmosphere. At Newsnight, though, he found his home - even applying at one stage to be its editor. He admits now that he would have been "terrible".
"I'm a very happy person, really," he says. "I've got the best job you can imagine. But I would like to do something positive." He laughs again. "I do think a lot of what I do isn't very constructive, holding people to account."
(Evening Standard, October 15 2003)
MICHAEL Crick is twitching with nervous excitement. Just back from delivering the Parliamentary Standards watchdog a dossier on the way Iain Duncan Smith runs his office, Newsnight's famously aggressive political reporter is now finding the microphones being thrust into his face. "This story is make or break for me," he says anxiously, between endless mobile phone rings. "If I've got it wrong, I'm destroyed. It's the biggest story I've ever done - except," he says with a grin, "I haven't actually done it, apart from one 500-word story in The Sunday Telegraph."
Crick, whose dogged pursuit helped bring down Jeffrey Archer and exposed John Major's youthful love-life, has again shaped the political agenda this week. After a five-month Newsnight investigation, he alleged that a salary paid to Duncan Smith's wife Betsy breached parliamentary rules. But when Newsnight dropped the film, the claims appeared in The Sunday Telegraph alongside a commentary from Crick, who then took the matter to the standards commissioner.
The BBC's response has been to "suspend" his Newsnight contract - no blame attached - during the investigation.
"I'm nervous," Crick admits. "Worried. I've got to be careful in everything I say. If the standards commissioner comes out and says there's a mass of evidence that Betsy Duncan Smith was working for her husband, then I'll look a bit silly. And Duncan Smith could sue - he's said he would - in which case I could also be very poor. Now, what am I going to do for lunch?"
Crick, 45, has a reputation for getting his facts right. He wiped the floor with Damian Green, the Conservative education spokesman, on Andrew Neil's Daily Politics programme yesterday, demanding that Duncan Smith provide itemised phone bills and annotated diaries as proof of his wife's work. "There is strong evidence that no one from IDS's team has effectively rebutted," he says. "It's possible that he'll come up with a load of material, but the more I read his statement, the more threadbare it gets." After 11 years at Newsnight, where his contract allows him to take half the year off to write books, he is careful not to say anything that will embarrass the BBC.
Although seen by some colleagues as a showman who enjoys being the programme's resident mischiefmaker, Crick is widely respected for his forensic digging, and the "Betsygate" film was seen as a way of boosting morale after the Hutton Inquiry.
THE decision to drop it has caused widespread concern within the BBC newsroom that management is keen to water down its political coverage. "If they won't let Crick run a story," one journalist was heard to complain on Monday, "how will the rest of us be able to?" "The one thing you need to know about me," Crick says, "is that I've got triplet sisters. Living with three younger sisters you have to be much more aggressive to survive - that's why I'm always talking more loudly and eating more quickly than I should."
When in London he lives with his mother in Clapham, where the walls are full of mementos to a career of making trouble, from the "Archer goes to jail" Evening Standard bill to the framed Daily Mail front page condemning a BBC "hatchet job" on John Major.
There is also currently water flowing through the ceiling from a first-floor bathroom. In his enthusiasm to move the story forward, Crick appears to have left the shower on this morning.
An avowed "anorak" and former trainspotter, Crick prefers delving in libraries to being among the media pack. Alex Millar, researcher on his biography of Alex Ferguson, says: "He'll comb through every document, speak to everyone. But he can also get the story through over-politeness. He treats everybody he meets with respect - and some of his best stories come from secretaries." How did he get the Betsygate story? "Luck, to be honest," Crick says. "It came my way because an internal Tory email warned of a 'Crick-style investigation'" - which prompted a mole to initiate one. He also admits to persistence.
"I'm quite an obsessive person - I don't just go to Man United, I go to every United match. I like to talk to everyone. When we were doing the Archer book, my wife and I tracked down everyone who'd served in the GLC during the Sixties, apart from one. Thoroughness is a wonderful thing." Does he have something against Tories? After all, his biography subjects have included Michael Heseltine as well as Archer?"
Absolutely not," he says. "If anybody had come along with similar stuff about Tony Blair, I would have pursued it with the same degree of diligence and perseverance." So what are his politics? "I was described as 'sceptical Labour' in the paper today," he says. "I can't honestly see myself voting for any party at the next election." He did, however, come close to being a Labour Party insider. In 1990, senior Labour figures asked him to stand for the safe seat of Bootle. "I thought, 'God, it's the safest Labour seat in England.' I knew it was the turning point in my life. But did I really want to move to Bootle? I thought, 'Nah,' and I've had a real sense of relief ever since. I can say what I like about anyone in politics."
HIS books now account for around 60 per cent of his income. Since he earned a £1,500 advance in 1983 for his debut, about the Militant Tendency, he has lately concentrated on more commercial subjects. "I earn enough from the books to live on," he says. The money has let him employ a team of researchers - up to six on the Heseltine book. "I'm just fascinated by what motivates high achievers," he says. "Archer and Fergie are men of incredible charm, but can be absolute bastards. How much ruthlessness do you need to be successful?"
After Manchester Grammar, Crick edited Cherwell while at Oxford. There he showed his own Heseltine tendency, launching a publishing business to profit from recruitment advertising - but lost money. In 1980 he became an ITN trainee alongside Edward Stourton and Mark Damazer - now one of the BBC executives responsible for dropping his film. He joined Channel 4 News, alongside Damian Green. "Damian taught me two great rules," he says. "Don't always assume a woman is pregnant until she has told you; and don't ever come up with an idea yourself, but latch on to other people's, so you'll have someone else backing you."
He achieved a childhood ambition when he moved to Panorama - although he hated the " uncollegiate" atmosphere. At Newsnight, though, he found his home - even applying at one stage to be its editor. He admits now that he would have been "terrible".
"I'm a very happy person, really," he says. "I've got the best job you can imagine. But I would like to do something positive." He laughs again. "I do think a lot of what I do isn't very constructive, holding people to account."
(Evening Standard, October 15 2003)
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, October 15, 2003
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