JOHN, MARK AND JUSTIN

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At least Today didn't entirely swallow The World Tonight's deviant line!
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Continuing on from my earlier posts, there was confirmation that Labour is (paradoxically) keen to hear the BBC discuss Mark Easton's holiday freebies story rather than the far-more-damaging-to-Labour lobbying story from the characteristically unsure-footed Sir Stuart Bell on this morning's Today programme.
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Labour veteran Sir Stuart gave the game away, saying in answer to a question from Justin Webb, "Well I think the Labour Party meeting last night was more to do with the three cabinet ministers rather than the question of 20 MPs who had not declared their interests on foreign trips. So essentially what I'm talking about today is this further error of judgement in our colleagues, twenty of them, which unfortunately means that 646 MPs are now tarred with the same brush..." To his credit, Justin (who was not reading from the prescribed Mark Easton/Michael Crick/The World Tonight script) pulled him back to the cabinet ministers and pressed him on it! Not that Sir Stuart gave any real answers. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8582000/8582281.stm
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Still the narrative, a "cross-party affair" (as Justin called it), was back in place soon after with the appearance of the man himself, Mark 'Stick-the-knife-into-the-Tories' Easton. In outlining the rules to John Humphrys he used a far-from-hypothetical example of an MP who, say, goes to the Maldives. There is such an MP, and he's a Conservative, David Amess. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8582000/8582305.stm. Andrew Dismore (the sacrificial Labour lamb) followed, as he did with Michael Crick and on The World Tonight. He's the one on the Parliamentary Committee on Standards and Privileges. Then Easton went back to the Maldives guy, Mr Amess (this time naming him). As Sir Stuart said, Labour is much more comfortable here, where the guilt is spread much more widely across the parties.
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John Humphrys returned though to the big story at 8.10, but he spun it in the expected way.
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He began by saying that their was anger at the former cabinet ministers not just from the opposition but "not only on the opposition benches. There was plenty of anger among Labour MPs too. Well now the government has reacted. The three ministers involved have been suspended from the Labour Party". So there you go, Labour is outraged and has taken strong action against the three . Labour's all right really, it's only a few rotten eggs.
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Interviewing Jack Straw, John Humphrys first discussed the individuals then questioned the rules. Shouldn't the rules the changed? The rules, the rules, it's the fault of the rules. After the few rotten eggs came the generalities. The government's thinking on the generalities was where the bulk of the interview lay. So the discussion moved from three individuals from the Labour Party to parliament as a whole without dwelling on the in-between i.e. the Labour Party itself, which is riddled with sleaze.
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