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Catching up with yesterday's The World at One finds Martha Kearney interviewing Ed Balls and beginning her interview not by asking about matters relating to the Labour Party but about something relating to the Conservatives: "I began by asking him about the criticism raised about the Conservatives' schools policy by the Tory leader of Kent County Council, Paul Carter. He told the BBC today that he had some concerns over the impact the Conservatives' planned foundation schools could have on the funding of other schools in the area."
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In response did Ed Balls say, 'Sorry Martha, I'll pass on that one. Let's talk about our policies instead'? Amazingly, he didn't!! No, he attacked David Cameron and Michael Gove. I never saw that coming! Nor did I forsee that he'd spend most of the rest of the interview attacking the Tories too. I'd always thought he was such a pleasant, positive chap. Martha must have been so surprised at Ed Balls's uncharacteristically nasty behaviour that she let his attacks go on unchecked. Yes, that must be the explanation.
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Nurse!
Who’s on Question Time Tonight? #BBCQT
3 hours ago
Sorry if this is off subject - though the headline suits nicely.
ReplyDeleteI must stop watching BBC1 while eating breakfast. It really is hard to swallow while my injured jaw is dropped mode. This morning the bit I caught was the local South-east news round-up. Now, I will be scrupulously honest here and admit that it is just possible that I missed the beginning of this report, and it just might have contained a balance, but I would lay odds from the studio-to-report switch that what I saw was the whole thing.
There was a debate last night on local issues with election candidates. Go to report. The voiceover told us that Labour had come in for heavy criticism of its immigration policies. (It's a hot potato in Kent because of the Dover illegals and our pothole-mending money being diverted to help them.) But - get this - this voiceover went right over the woman in the audience putting this point, possibly quite angrily, but we will never know for sure because her voice was completely muted.
Cut to Chatham Labour MP trotting out the same old guff: "We have taken steps to control immigration, working with Calais, blah blah.'
Ignoring the point that Labour policies have CAUSED the problem - perhaps what woman in audience was saying? Ends. Nothing from anyone else. Back to the studio for another story.
Surely (a) blatant propaganda and (b) this achieves the opposite of what they want because people in Kent are very aware of what's happening on the ground and can see this is pure political slime-balling.
So, a double-bluff from BBC Local? Or just cack-handedly on-message?
I've seen from other sources that the BBC are now flooding into Rochdale to try and find ammunition to discredit the "bigoted" woman.
ReplyDeleteAndy C