OUR MAIN STORY IS...

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The big breaking news story between 4.00-5.00 on Monday 12th September 2009 was the arrival of the first of Sir Thomas Legg's letters to MPs. The three main party leaders were handed their letters first. David Cameron came out best, with a request for more information on £200-worth of mortgage payments that he paid back some time ago. Nick Clegg, however, was told to repay £910. By far the worst was Gordon Brown, who Sir Thomas told to pay back £12, 415.10. Ouch! Also in this hour, former Labour home secretary Jacqui Smith had to apologise to parliament over her expense claims. Big news, breaking like a tidal wave.
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So when the BBC News Channel's 5.00 programme with Huw Edwards began I (and surely every viewer) was expecting it to be the lead story. (It certainly was on Sky's 5.00 news programme). No, amazingly it wasn't.
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Surely to the sound of jaws dropping across the country, Huw said "Our main story is that Vanessa George, the nursery worker from Plymouth convicted of sexually abusing children in her care, described her own behaviour as 'vile' and admitted that she knew she was doing wrong."
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Only in some strange parallel universe should this have been considered the main story at 5.00 on Monday 12th September 2009!! In what sense is it even a big story at all?
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On the day when we found that yet more of our national assets are to be sold off (doubtless, like our gold reserves, at a knock-down price), and when a 13-year old suicide bomber killed dozens in Pakistan, and when a sitting Labour prime minister was ordered to pay back over £12,000 of taxpayer's money, and when legions of other MPs are about to find them being shown again to be troughers they are, and when lots of shameless Labour MPs are going around grousing about Sir Thomas Legg, on that very day the BBC New Channel chooses to lead its 5 o'clock broadcast with a convicted paedophile saying she knew she was doing wrong.
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Absolutely staggering!
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Now, the main story at 5.00pm should obviously have been about Gordon Brown, our prime minister. Is it really too cynical to think that the BBC put a (relative) non-story as its main story because it wanted to downplay the importance of a potentially very damaging story for the Labour Party? Is that really too cynical?
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UPDATE

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It looks as if it is too cynical, because ITN's 6.30 News has also just led with the Vanessa George story! Tabloid news values rather than bias seem to have driven this otherwise truly bizarre decision. To the BBC's credit then, it's 6.00 News did lead with the Expenses story!

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MICHAEL CRICK ON 'NEWSNIGHT'

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Not even Michael Crick could make this one look worse for David Cameron than for Gordon Brown, you'd think! In his report, he didn't even try. But being Michael Crick, there was this: "There were a lot of smiling faces. Presumably they'd been cleared. But one senior Conservative, a former leadership contender I saw, looked absolutely furious. He tore up his brown envelope and stomped off into the Commons chamber." A senior Conservative caught out on expenses and getting into a strop about it? What a surprise that Crick saw that!

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Now, though, think again! When Jeremy Paxman chatted to him after the report, the attack on Cameron and the Conservatives came - along with a defence of Labour MPs: "But there is fury, particularly among Labour MPs, who think that Sir Thomas Legg has treated them unfairly by putting a cap on gardening costs and cleaning costs, but not putting any cap on mortgage interest costs. And there are more Conservative MPs who have claimed bigger amounts on mortgage interest, among them David Cameron who's claimed nearly all of his second-home allowance for mortgage interest, and they feel that Labour is being treated unfairly in that regard."

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And on he went in the same vein: "There are senior ministers, I think, who think it's very unfair what Sir Thomas Legg has done in applying this retrospective cap."

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Poor Labour! Wicked Conservatives!

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Absolutely staggering!

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(Note also that it was David Grossman and not Michael Crick who covered the embarrassing story about Jacqui Smith. Surprise, surprise!)