THE BRANDENBURG BAIT

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Alas for the hard-working taxpayers of Germany, their parliament (with understandable reluctance) has now voted to hand over huge amounts of their money to bail out the profligate Greeks.
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Last night's Newnight led on the story. Well I say 'led on' it, but Peter Marshall's latest report started from a somewhat different angle, an angle familiar from so much of the BBC's coverage of this story, an anti-Cameron angle: "Well in two days the Eurosceptical new British leader has 'done Europe' - the power centres of Paris and Berlin. And the Europeans, struggling with their financial crisis, may well feel he's given them little more than small change. Everyone speaks of 'solidarity' but David Cameron was never going to divvy up funding, still less to surrender what he sees as British sovereignty".
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Everyone from Shirin Wheeler to Kirsty Wark has been pushing this line: Europe (especially Germany) should be showing solidarity with the poor Greeks by bailing them out. This will save the Euro. Britain should not be standing on the sidelines but should be showing solidarity too and handing over more money. The British taxpayer would doubtless be as reluctant as the German taxpayer but, then again, when have the interests of the British taxpayer ever been at the forefront of the BBC's mind? Nor do Peter Marshall's comments take into account the fact that we Brits are at least as up to our eyes in debt as the Greeks - and, if rumour is to be believed again, very possibly even more so - so we will need all the money we already have to rescue ourselves, never mind rescue the Eurozone.
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No, he was much more concerned to stoke up conflict between the new prime minister and the chancellors and presidents of Europe (just as he was doing on Thursday in Paris).
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He kept plugging away at it: "Now struggling with the Euro crisis, Angela Merkel was wishfully thinking that Britain might lend a hand." David Cameron "disabused" her.
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He still kept plugging away at it: "Even among critics of Angela Merkel here - and there are many - there's some resentment at Britain's refusal to to pay any part of the Great Euro Bailout", he said, before turning to one such critic, who sourly warned (to the accompaniment of Mr Marshall's nodding head) that, should we in the UK face collapse, our standing-aside now could seriously backfire on us. Who was this man? Remarkably, there was no caption to tell us and Peter Marshall forgot to tell us. (I bet he was a left-winger, probably from the SPD).
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There was no stopping Peter Marshall. After giving us a pair of contrasting German vox-pops, the second of whom said that 'we're all in it together', he returned to his attack: "Not 'in this together', certainly not in the financial sense, is the UK and its new premier."
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A new angle of attack followed. We saw Peter Marshall at the Cameron-Merkel joint press conference asking the new premier a question. We're so used to probing, mischief-making British journalists asking deeply embarrassing questions to our leaders that it's rarely shocking to hear them asking any question, even when putting it at a sensitive press conference between heads of government. This one was pure mischief-making: "One of the British diplomats is quoted this morning as saying it was 'crackers' for Mrs Merkel's government to act unilaterally against naked short-selling. Did you think it was 'crackers'? Did you tell Chancellor Merkel it was 'crackers'?"
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David Cameron's diplomatic answer was then spun by Mr Marshall, in a classic instance of BBC editorialising, into something worse: "That was both a pointed rebuke for Germany's measures earlier this week that set the world's markets tumbling and it was yet another reiteration (sigh) of Britain's independence."
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The spinning continued right to the bitter end: "The leader of Germany and the new leader of the UK say they get on harmoniously but on the key issue of the Euro there's discord and you can't help but hear that." Especially, if you're looking for it Peter!
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