CHASING CRICK BACK TO MONDAY

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Back to Monday...

Monday's Newsnight began by discussing David Cameron's attack on Gordon Brown over Brown's lamentable record on the issue of parliamentary expenses. It featured the first of the week's Tory-focused reports from our old friend Michael Crick. "'We can't go on like this' David Cameron's famous poster declared at the start of last month and indeed the Tories didn't go on as buoyantly as they did last year. January was a poor month for Mr Cameron's party, especially on the economy (was it that good for Labour either, with that worrying 0.1% growth figure which so deflated their much-built-up-to crowing campaign?) , so today he moved to what seemed much firmer ground after recent events with a very personal attack on Gordon Brown (as if Brown and his cronies haven't been continually making very personal attacks on 'superficial salesman' Cameron for years) for his handling of MPs' expenses and parliamentary reform."
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Crick then noted than Speaker Bercow had warned MPs not to discuss the cases of the three Labour MPs being prosecuted for fraud. A I'm no fan of BBC reporter Norman Smith but even he put this in context on that evening's PM: "Well initially a lot of us thought he was rapping David Cameron over the knuckles because Mr Cameron has made a lot of the running today with very personal and inflamed language..." (and I bet anti-Tory Smith was all over News 24 saying as much for some hours afterwards!), but Smith went on to report that the Speaker's office had subsequently made it plain that it was potentially prejudicial comments from Alan Johnson not David Cameron that provoked Bercow's intervention. The ever-biased Crick did not provide any such context, even though he is a senior political editor at the BBC and must surely have known it. It wouldn't do to embarrass Alan Johnson though. Much better to leave Bercow's statement hanging, context-free, in the air for Newsnight viewers to draw the false conclusion that Cameron was getting his knuckles rapped by the Squeaker. That's Crick's 'honest' reporting all over!
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At least Crick allowed a Conservative, former MP Michael Brown of The Independent, to say some supportive things about the hated Cameron, though Mr Brown also voiced some strong criticisms too - or he wouldn't have been on!! -, though he also featured an attack from Nick Clegg (who attacked Lord Ashcroft, which would have pleased Crick). Crick also very briefly mentioned that the Labour Party had dropped the lawyer who is representing the three fraud-accused Labour MPs.
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The next exhibit in this post's case against Michael Crick is this characteristic sentence: "Tomorrow MPs vote on the government's plans for a referendum to change our voting system to the Alternative Vote, which some people say would be fairer." Who says that exactly? Who are these 'some people'? Labour Party strategists? That is a biased way of putting it, glossing it in a favourable way for the government. Crick could just have easilly have said, "Tomorrow MPs vote on the government's plans for a referendum to change our voting system to the Alternative Vote, which some people say would favour the Labour Party electorally and could help Labour cling to power with Lib Dem support in the event of a hung parliament."
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Professor Robert Hazell of UCL was the academic of the day. This left-leaning prof (see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/staff/hazell.htm and http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2007/06/gordonsgo/) criticized the Conservatives on the basis of newspaper reports that they were 'wobbling' over the Wright reforms. His contribution amounted to nothing more than that.

It wouldn't be a Crick report without at least some attempt to spotlight Tory 'splits'. Here's today's example: "Activists grumble Cameron has already centralised his party in dozens of ways. Candidates complain party HQ now insists on vetting and redrafting everything they write".(what everything??).
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Crick needs to go now.
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