AND FINALLY...

The unwelcome news that the economy is shrinking twice as fast as expected (dropping by 0.8% from April to June, and by 5.6% over the last twelve months) is obviously big, bad news.

ITV's 6.30pm News ran it, understandably, as the second item in its running order (after the Norwich North by-election result).

Labour's friends over at the BBC 6 o'clock News, however, did no such thing. They didn't even run it third or fourth. Their fifth story was about Amy Winehouse and their sixth about Steven Gerrard.

Finally, in seventh place in the BBC's running order, twenty minutes into the programme, as the weather drew close, came the story of our country's continuing economic calamity.

Clearly the BBC considers this to be of less importance than the antics of a drugged-up pop-singer and a thugish footballer. Or else it is trying to protect the Brown government.