NEVER MIND THE BATTLE, IT'S WINNING THE WAR THAT COUNTS

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Well, this morning Andrew Marr made an attempt to make up for months of bias on the party donations story by tackling his old dinner party buddie Harriet Harman on the issue of Labour's big donors.
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He had to of course.
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William Hague had challenged him last week to explain why he had failed to ask any Labour spokesman about Labour's equivalent lack of clarity over its big donors while, in complete contrast, asking so many questions to so many Conservative spokesmen over so many months about Lord Ashcroft. A rattled Marr promised that he would question the next Labour Party figure to sit on his sofa on the issue if the Conservatives answered the question about Lord Ashcroft's non-dom status (hardly a fair deal, as I said last Sunday!!). The question has now been answered, so Marr couldn't do anything else but quiz Ms Harman on the issue. If Mr Hague hadn't challenged him last week & forced him into that very public deal, would he have grilled Harriet Harman over the matter to anywhere near the same extent? I very much doubt it.
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How did he do? Well, he flung a few names at her, pointed to equivalences and pressed her on why she was refusing to tell us whether these Labour-backing moneybags are, or are not, non-doms. She floundered, and tried to talk on and on about Lord Ashcroft. He interrupted her a lot, though he also let some of her attacks run on longer than he should have done.
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William Hague specifically challenged Marr on not asking Labour about its large-scale funding from the Unite union. So Marr asked Harriet Harman about trade union funding in general (not mentioning Unite by name), but failed to challenge her extremely feeble answer. He obviously only asked this question because he had no choice but to ask it. If he didn't ask it William Hague would have had him banged to rights for breaking their 'deal'.
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Call me an old (well middle-aged) cynic, but all this was surely nothing more than an attempt by Andrew Marr to cover his own back. More importantly, he can now go back to questioning the Tories on Lord Ashcroft right up to the general election, week in and week out, and if challenged - as he was by Liam Fox before the interview with the Mad Hattie - will be able to say 'but I pressed Harriet Harman on that!' It will be his 'get out of jail free' card and I confidently predict that he will use it in the coming weeks.
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Why am I so sure? Because firstly, after asking the Conservative defence spokesman about Afghanistan and defence spending, he then leaped straight onto Lord Ashcroft. Dr Fox, as mentioned above, challenged him about bias & Marr moved quickly on to the opinion polls and hung parliaments. Note though that he then returned to the subject of Lord Ashcroft immediately after!! And secondly because during the paper review he had said "Well I have a pretty clear thought that this will be a subject during the election campaign. It's going to go on and on and on." I bet it is, and I bet Andy Marr will be helping make it go on and on and on.
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This blog will record all his future questions from Andrew Marr about Lord Ashcroft & compare their number to all his future questions about Lord Paul, Mr Bollinger, Sir Ronald Cohen, Mr Mittal, et al.
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Liam Fox's point was specifically made about Marr's questioning of Vince Cable, where there was indeed not a single question about dodgy Lib Dem donors (of whom there are more than one). Marr hadn't after all made a deal with William Hague last week to question any Lib Dems on the issue, and clearly felt himself to be under no obligation to do so!
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So William Hague won this battle with Andrew Marr but Marr will go on trying to win the war.