BBC criticised over PM health quiz

Sep 28 2009

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson criticised the BBC for questioning the Prime Minister about whether he was taking painkillers.

Gordon Brown insisted he had no medical problems which might get in the way of him continuing to serve as Prime Minister.

And, in answer to a direct question from interviewer Andrew Marr, he denied that he was dependent on prescription painkillers.

Rumours about the Prime Minister's possible use of painkillers circulated in Westminster following speculation on an internet blog, but Mr Brown's interview on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show was the first time that he has been confronted with them in public.

Some unconfirmed media reports recently suggested Mr Brown might use concerns about his health as a reason for stepping down as Prime Minister ahead of the election to allow Labour to chose a new leader to take it into the campaign.

Marr told Mr Brown he wanted to ask about "something everybody has been talking about in the Westminster village... A lot of people in this country use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through. Are you one of them?"

The Prime Minister responded: "No. I think this is the sort of questioning which is all too often entering the lexicon of British politics."

Lord Mandelson told a rally of the Progress thinktank in Brighton that Labour should demand from the media "equal scrutiny of what other politicians are saying and the same degree of personal intrusiveness that we saw the Prime Minister receive from Andrew Marr on his programme, based on what I have not the foggiest idea and I wonder if Andrew did either".

In the interview Mr Brown went on to discuss the well-documented problems he suffered as a result of a boyhood rugby injury which cost him the sight in one eye, revealing that he recently underwent an annual check-up which showed no deterioration in the vision of his good eye.

When Marr tried to steer the interview back onto the issue of painkiller use, the PM cut him off, saying: "I've already answered that question."