THE WORLD ALMOST OF ONE MIND

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Today's edition of The World at One was heavy with lefties. The resignation of somebody at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen prompted interviews with Sergio Serra, Brazil's chief negotiator, left-wing loudmouth Bianca Jagger (getting her dates all mixed up, unnoticed by Martha Kearney) and Ed Miliband. The issue of an early general election was discussed with a Labour MP Gordon Banks and the Labour-supporting pollster Peter Kellner. The politics panel today consisted of Labour's Jim Knight, Lord Chris Rennard of the Liberal Democrats and the programme's only guest from the centre-right Theresa May.
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The questions asked of Martha's guests on the politics panel show a certain degree of bias too, in that both of the left-of-centre panellists go four goes, whereas Mrs May only got three such opportunities.
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Lord Rennard, the Lib Dem, was asked to comment on the Lord Ashcroft story (giving him a clear run at goal), on unemployment being a lagging indicator, on whether an early election would be good from Labour's perspective (!) and whether general elections are different these days - i.e. nothing specific to the Lib Dems. He had no defending to do and could attack at will.
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Jim Knight was asked about Lord Paul (Labour's own dodgy donor) and about the date of the election, but Martha Kearney also asked him about unemployment in a way that positively invited him to attack the Conservatives - which he duly did - by citing the words of Labour and the Beeb's favourite economist, Danny Blanchflower, who has recently been sharply attacking the Tories (of unemployment as a lagging indicator, Martha asked "This is something that has happened, hasn't it, in previous recessions, the economist Danny Blanchflower has been warning about?") and later invited him to have another go at them (which he duly did, attacking Lord Ashcroft again): "One of the arguments (in favour of an early election) is that the Conservatives would have less money to spend if you went for a shorter election campaign."
He got a bit of defending to do, but not much and had plenty of open goals provided by his interviewer. (He didn't bother defending however. He just ignored the point about Lord Paul & went on the attack against Zak Goldsmith instead!).
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Theresa May, on the other hand, was asked questions either about specific Conservative issues ("Doesn't Lord Ashcroft, Theresa May, have to now clarify his position? It's becoming a political embarrassment to you." "Do you think there is a certain amount of tactics here. I mean I know a lot of Conservatives are talking about the idea of an early election because I guess then it reaches the stage if he, Gordon Brown, doesn't call one you can say he's frightened of going to the country?") or about Labour's glorious 'achievements' ("Just to put Harriet Harman's point to you. She's saying that there's beginning to see a slowing down of the rate of increase in unemployment. Doesn't that show that government figures, that the government measures have got it right when it comes to tackling unemployment?"). Theresa May had to be a defender throughout.
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