NAUGHTIE RUNS AMOK WHILE THE TORIES LIE LOW

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Oh dear! In contrast to their spirited behaviour yesterday no-one from the Conservative Party was willing to go onto the Today programme this morning to discuss Lord Ashcroft with James Naughtie. (Naughtie told us that himself, naturally.) Perhaps the Conservative Party believes that the story should not be fed and that it will go away. If they believe that then they're clearly 'bonkers' (as Jim himself would put it). It won't go away, because the BBC (and their various allies) won't let it go away.
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By not putting someone up to take on Naughtie and have a right good brawl with him about BBC bias, the Today programme's most blatantly pro-Labour presenter was allowed free range to skew the story to his own political ends. This being James Naughtie, that's precisely what he did.
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Listeners, of whom there are a few million (many perhaps still floating voters), were therefore deprived of a Conservative perspective. Indeed, beyond his BBC colleagues Naughtie only discussed the matter with one man, the pollster Peter Kellner - another well-known Labour supporter and husband of the until-recently-completely-unknown EU foreign minister Baroness Ashton. (Couldn't they have sought a Conservative defender in the press or the blogosphere to put the Tory case? Why didn't they do so?)
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Naughtie took all three sections on the story, and was clearly up for it.
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First came his discussion at 6.35 with anti-Tory BBC political reporter Norman Smith. Norm began by saying, "well, my sense is there are still a number of loose threads flapping in the wind", which is what Labour and the Lib Dems are also saying. He picked at a fair few of those threads, as Labour and the Lib Dems are doing. Indeed, all Norman Smith did here was to outline the criticisms of the Tories from Labour and the Lib Dems. He didn't even bother to try and put the Tory response. Naughtie, supposedly the impartial interviewer, joined Norm in outlining yet more of these criticisms, describing such questions as "politically explosive". Neither Norm nor Naughtie mentioned any of those non-doms whose wide pockets have been laid open to Labour and the Lib Dems. Nor did they so much as hint at the hypocrisy of both of those parties over this issue. It sounded like a Labour strategy meeting. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qzgyk
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Naughtie began the 7.09 section with the words "There are at least two sides to the story of Lord Ashcroft". That sounded promising. Was he going to say, "There are the criticism of Lord Ashcroft and the Conservatives, but there are also questions for Labour and the Lib Dems to answer"? Though this is indeed the case, anyone who thought that this interviewer would say anything like that would be truly 'bonkers'! No, the 'two sides' worthy of mention were, for Jim, firstly, whether Lord Ashcroft had failed to honour his promises and, secondly, when David Cameron first knew of his non-dom status. Let's now replay that opening clause: "There are at least two sides to the story of Lord Ashcroft." Now we can see that each of the 'two sides' mentioned by Labour Boy Jim is anti-Tory one! http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8544000/8544691.stm
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Labour Boy Jim went on to assess, with Lady Ashton's husband, the influence that Lord Ashcroft's money has had in the marginals. Even The Independent found (rather embarrassingly for them) that Lord Ashcroft had only given a small proportion of donations to the Conservative Party since David Cameron became Conservative leader. Most had come from small donations from ordinary folk. Everywhere yesterday were Conservative voices pointing out that Labour has significantly more rich non-dom donors than the Conservatives, and the Lib Dems have (at least) one too. And that's not even considering the money (and bought influence) from the trade unions. (The comments on Nick Robinson's blog absolutely rout Nick, Labour and Lib Dems, on these points). Naughtie, of course, mentioned none of this. He only wanted to talk about Lord Ashcroft and "disproportionate spending" by the Conservatives. Ed Balls could not have been more focused on 'getting' the Conservatives. I keep trying to tell Tory politicians (by e-mail) that Naughtie really is out to get them. He really is out to get them!
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Lord Ashcroft and his "great deal of money" are "certainly a bit of an embarrassment" for the Tories, said Naughtie, returning to the subject with Nick Robinson at at 8.23. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8544000/8544821.stm An excited Naughtie called it "The Ashcroft Affair". He again chose not to bring up the Labour and Lib Dem donors. At least Nick Robinson touched (ever so indirectly) on the issue of Labour's own non-doms, if only to argue, very unconvincingly, that Lord Ashcroft's story is the most important. His case is different certainly, and he's an influential man for sure, but necessarily more important? That is open to debate Nick, as the comments on your blog show.
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