Friday, 21 May 2010

SPECULATION

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Too much to catch up on, so I won't even try! So just a vignette.
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Many of us suspected that the rumours (circulating for some time now) - that the last government acted a bit like previous Greek governments and deliberately hid the true scale of our national debt - were true. What is already a national scandal - the present level of our national indebtedness - (though it is not being treated as such by the political class or the BBC) may well be far worse than we feared. There have been statements from senior figures in the new coalition this week that suggest that they're finding lots of evidence for this. Sadly, they aren't producing it for us. If there is proof of systematic fiddling of our national accounts by Labour, our new government shouldn't act like members of a clubby, opportunistic political elite and merely suggest as much but then move on without seeking to punish the guilty parties (or party!). They should lay all the evidence before us and then call in the fraud squad. If Labour has been fiddling the books then calling in the fraud squad is hardly an unreasonable or an extreme response!!
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Imagine for a moment that the rumours are true. Wouldn't you expect the BBC, regardless of who was in power then or now, to flood our airwaves with Panorama or Analysis specials investigating the scandal? Wouldn't you expect Today to pry and probe day in and day out to get at the truth? If the rumours are true and the coalition government produces the evidence in great detail and with complete candour, how could even the generally pro-Labour BBC fail not to investigate further?
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These speculations arise as a result of the following depressing exchanges between John Humphrys and Norman Smith at 6.32am last Monday.
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Discussing George Osborne's remarks about already having found skeletons in the cupboard, John and Norm immediately ditched this discussion and concentrated instead on the cuts the coalition would soon be enforcing - their scope and their immediacy, and their falling on "Mr and Mrs Average" - as well as the setting up of an Office of Budget Responsibility. Here Norm did at least mention, in passing, that economic experts thought that Alistair Darling's growth predictions were "bluntly bordering on the heroic". (It would have been far blunter though to say they were absolute rubbish, of course. And blunter still to say (with a hat-tip to Tarzan) they were complete Ed Balls. And, being even more blunt, to say that, far from being 'heroic', they were much more likely to have been extremely 'cowardly' in their reluctance to admit reality to the voting public prior to a general election.)
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The really depressing bit follows, and it begins with a question from John Humprhys:
"And I suppose if one were being desperately cynical one might suggest that they've discovered all these skeletons in the closet at a convenient time because it enables them to say 'Look, we don't have any choice. Don't blame us for all these cuts and tax increases and all the rest of it. It's the other lot's fault. It's what they left us with."
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It's odd, isn't it, that John Humphrys's 'desperate cyninism' anticipates, to an eerie degree, Alistair Darling's "It's the oldest trick in the book, blaming the last government" defence put forward on The World At One on the same day?
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Is this going to be how the BBC reacts should evidence emerge that Labour has been systematically fiddling the books? To say that the Tories are just playing the oldest trick in the book, trying to deflect the blame for all these cuts and tax increases away from themselves and onto the last Labour government?
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This is, very obviously, to ignore the fact that the present government isn't responsible for our national debt and isn't responsible for the cuts and tax increases that are going to happen. It is Labour, Labour, Labour that is responsible. Obviously and undeniably Gordon Brown's responsibility.
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Well, not obviously and undeniably for the BBC, if Humph's question is anything to go by.
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And how did Norman Smith respond to Humph's question? By countering it, or qualifying it, or softening it? No, by agreeing with it: "I mean, of course there is an element of politicking here and of course the new coalition administration will want to apportion as much blame as possible onto Gordon Brown's administration..." Well, to quote Not a sheep again 'No shit Sherlock'. But also to quote myself, 'Norman Smith is a Labour apologist.' To concede that there is an 'element of politicking' here is to state an opinion - an opinion harmful to the coalition. There may well be an 'element of politicking' here (or there may not be), but that doesn't mean that the coalition aren't correct in their charge against Labour. And more importantly, why should we have to pay to hear Norman Smith give us his opinion that there is an 'element of politicking' here? He should, like John Humphrys, keep his opinions to himself.
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Moreover, if Gordon Brown's administration is to blame for the JAW-DROPPING level of national debt that our country and its taxpayers are liable for, and for the sheer scale of "the pain ahead" (as Norm put it) - and if it isn't no other party in the UK is! - why is it wrong to say so?
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No, if Labour are proven to have fiddled the nation's books to a scandalous degree I suspect that there won't be many Panorama or Analysis specials, nor much probing by Today.

3 comments:

  1. The bbc are simply carrying out Labour and loony left instructions.
    Tonight's QT on radio 4 was even more biased than before the election.
    If Labour has been guilty of fraud as most of us suspect, then it should be taken to court on this in a systemic fashion, and the bbc "instructed" to state this news in a balanced manner.
    Events may make this more insecure as on the 19th I was bombarded with news of a market downturn and low and behold on the 20th a large correction was made. Now I am warned of a second dip recession coming on the $ and Euro - Events dear boy, events.

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  2. I tried out 'Any Questions'. Grant Shapps was questioned far more than anyone else and interrupted 8 times. He was out on his own on most questions, with the other panelists, the presenter and the audience against him (except over HIPs).

    John McDonnell (who Jonathan Dimbleby had been calling 'McConnell' for some time before he pointed it out!) was interrupted just 3 times (and two of those were just to hurry him along). The other two both write for 'The Guardian', and it showed. The audience were anti-war, anti-Trident and, by the sounds of it, anti-Tory. They all had a good laugh at the "ghastly Tory Right".

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  3. I doubt HM's new Government will make too much of any Labour misspending and book cooking. They know that any evidence released will be utterly cherry picked and distorted by the BBC and turned into the opposite of the truth.

    The 'reporting' you've just covered is superb grounds for a direct attack on the BBC, Humphrys and Smith by HMG, but we know it's not going to happen.

    Bush's administration had ample information from documentary evidence of Saddam's links to Al Qa'eda and its WMD programme's, but they decided against publishing it for the precise reason they knew the MSM would just cherry pick and do the enemies propaganda for it.

    A bent and fellow-travelling media is killing our democracy.

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