WHAT DID THEY THINK IN A LABOUR STRONGHOLD?

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If you remember, last week's The World Tonight post-debate analysis took Ritula Shah to Reading University to talk to voters - four students, one the head of the uni's Labour Society - to get a "completely unscientific" survey of reactions to the second, with predictable anti-Tory results. Where did she go last night? She went to a working men's club in Stoke-on-Trent, which she described as a "Labour stronghold".
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She talked to four more voters (with apologies to them for having to guess the spellings of their names) - club committee member Anthony Munday, who "has been a Labour voter all (his) life", unemployed student Stephen Mulluck, small businessman Tony Wally, who has always been "a proud Labour voter", and Bill Cawley "who lives in neighbouring Leek but who is involved in local politics here in Stoke." (I looked him up. He's a Green). There was a mix of views about who performed best, but the general view (except for the Green) was that David Cameron did worst and that Gordon Brown got the best of it. Who were they going to vote for though? Well, the results were intriguing (so not a completely pointless exercise). Stephen, the unemployed student from Liverpool, said "I've always been pin-pointed on what my decision is going to be. It's got to be Labour for me." However, Mr Munday refused to say (I suspect BNP!) and Mr Wally said he was still undecided. Oddly, the Green Party councillor Mr Cawley said he was undecided too. (Is there no Green candidate in Stoke-on-Trent?)

Why didn't Ritula canvas opinion in a marginal?

A WEEK IN POLITICS

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What has the largely left-liberal The World Tonight (Radio 4) been up to this week?
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19/4 Presenter David Eades
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The World Tonight, being the Radio 4 current affairs staple with the most international perspective, is its channel's most Europhile show. For the volcanic ash story, it turned straight to the European Commission, specifically its spokeslady (and former Labour Party official) Helen Kearns.
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For an Icelandic perspective, it turned to Alda Sigmundsdottir, introduced by David Eades as "an Icelandic blogger and journalist". As soon as I hear such a vague description from the BBC I always suspect they will turn out not to be politically conservative. Alda's blog is http://www.icelandweatherreport.com/. She also writes for The Guardian's 'Comment is Free' and The Huffington Post. So not conservative then.
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The programme then discussed the Lib Dems. Here balance entered, as Iain Martin, the centre-right commentator from The Wall Street Journal & Sunny Hundal, editor of Liberal Conspiracy (and, like Alda, regular contributor to The Guardian's 'Comment is Free') discussed the wave of Cleggmania that swept the nation, according to the BBC that is.

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20/4 Presenter Robin Lustig
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This edition didn't go to the European Commission for more on the volcanic ash story. Instead it went to Lord Adonis.
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2. Obama's bank plans were discussed with "Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF and co-author of a bestselling book on the crisis called '13 Banks'". He voted for Barack Obama.
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21/4 Presenter Robin Lustig
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This was better. The issue of unemployment led, in the wake of news of a rise. Martin Weale of the think tank The National Institute for Economic & Social Research. He never strikes me as a partisan for any party, and I've found no evidence that he is either. A real independent expert! Whatever next? Similarly, Jonty Bloom's report from Liverpool featured Prof Peter Stoney from Liverpool University (who is in favour of the free market) and Andy Beach from Unison & John Moores University (who isn't). The debate between Yvette Cooper, Theresa May and David Laws resulted in the following interruption coefficients:

Theresa May - 0.5
Yvette Cooper - 0
David Laws - 0

Theresa May was the only one Robin interrupted.
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An interesting interview on Brasilia (and other soulless planned cities) between Robin Lustig and Jonathan Glancey of 'The Guardian' (them again!) followed.

Unfortunately, the programme then returned to the volcanic ash story and its relentless Europhilia, bringing to us the issue of a 'Single European Sky': "Well the European commission has wanted for many years to introduce a unified air traffic control system for all of the European Union. It's known as the Single European Sky. After all, says the Commission, there's already a single market and a single currency so why not a single sky? I asked the Belgian MEP Dirk Sterckx, who is a member of the European Parliament's transport committee, what exactly would a single sky mean in practice?" Every time an MEP is introduced without any details of party affiliation I just know that he's not going to turn out to be a conservative. Indeed he isn't. Dr Sterckx sits with our Liberal Democrats in the European parliament. He is in favour of a single European sky, of course. What effect has The Great Volcano Crisis had on the argument, wondered Mr Lustig? "We've seen that the public turns towards Europe", Dirk said. And what of the reluctance of national governments to give up their powers? "Very illogical" he thinks. (There can be no controversy over the choice of the next guest: Mike Granatt "used to head the Civil Contingencies Secretariat in the cabinet office". He has served as press officer for both Labour and the Conservatives.)
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For an American perspective on the upcoming second prime ministerial debate, Robin turned to Styrker Mcguire of Newsweek, Gavin Esler's liberal best buddy on 'Dateline: London'.
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22/4 Prime Ministerial Debate special, presenter Robin Lustig.
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This was pretty well handled, with a well-balanced panel of pundits, but...
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Before the debate:
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Norman Smith, intriguingly using (but completely mispronouncing) the word 'hyperbole' - a word I often apply to his way of over-painting problems for the Tories (Has he been reading me?!) - kicked things off. He used a fair amount of hyperbole here (such as "huge" and "absolutely colossal"), concentrating almost all of his opening remarks on the pressures facing David Cameron ("There is massive pressure on him". Even if Clegg were only to do OK, it would be "a disastrous outcome" for the Tories. "So enormous pressure tonight").

After the debate:
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I've already reviewed Norman's instant reaction/spin in a previous post.
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He returned after the 10 0'clock news to spin again. He conceded that both Cameron and Brown had done "considerably better" this week, but was soon back to his old ways, saying again that Clegg "emerged as the winner" (no ifs, no buts). Can you guess which clip he first chose to illustrate the debate? Clegg's atrocious attack on the "nutters, anti-Semites, people who deny climate change exists, homophobes" who sit alongside the Conservatives in the Eurolandic parliament. He then said "actually Gordon Brown had a number of good lines". There was no such praise for David Cameron though. Who's surprised?
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Ritula Shah was out with the public, or more precisely with students from Reading University. A "completely unscientific poll" in the students' union bar saw a landslide for Clegg. Then four of the students were gathered. One, an American, remained undecided, liked Clegg's foreign policy but said that, looked on objectively, Cameron probably won. The second likes the Lib Dems but said that Brown is "someone" he "supports quite strongly". The third also said she admires Brown. The fourth is president of the university's Labour Society! So 'dunno, Brown, Brown and Brown'. How very representative!!

Following Peter Kellner of YouGov and Rory Cellan-Jones on Twitter, blogs, facebook came "a satirist's eye". The satirist Robin talked to was Alistair Beaton. Wikipedia describes him as "a Scottish left wing political satirist". Robin forgot to tell us that "at one point in his career he was also a speechwriter for Gordon Brown." That said, he was very even-handed in his barbs. He won't be writing speeches for Brown after this!!

23/4 Presenter Ritula Shah
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This edition began with Greece and presented two sides of the New Greco-German War. For the German view we had Michael Gahler, "an MEP from Mrs Merkel's party". (Ah, he's been labelled so we know he's a conservative!) For the Greek side we got Yanis Varoufakis, professor of economics, university of Athens, who criticised German delays. He worked here in England for some time before, as his webpage puts it, he "escaped Maggie's England for Sydney, Australia".
This may suggest where he comes from politically!!
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Mark Simpson then reported from Northern Ireland on the debate over there, talking to justice minister David Ford from the Alliance Party. Some 80's music was then played, before Mark said "the theme was from the 1980s, and so was the line of questioning for Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams. Was he an IRA leader during the Troubles? He repeated that he wasn't and said it was pointless even talking about it". Sir Reg Empey, Peter Robinson and Margaret Ritchie followed, with the "hardline" (as Mr Simpson put it, using his only label) Jim Allister of the TUV adding a comment towards the end.
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Finally, the 0.2% rise in GDP was described by Ritula as "slightly less than expected". "Slightly?" Is a difference of 0.2% in terms of growth figures "slight"?

THE WORLD TONIGHT, PART 2

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15/4 Thursday night's The World Tonight was a three-hour special, containing the Prime Ministerial debates. Throughout there three chief guests to speak up for the three participating parties: former Conservative MP Matthew Parris of The Times, former press-secretary for the Lib Dems Miranda Green and Lance Price, former Labour director of communications. That's as it should be of course.
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What happened in the wake of the debate? Norman Smith's review stressed Nick Clegg's success but highlighted Gordon Brown's attacks on David Cameron. His summary said that Clegg did well, Cameron's people would be "a little disappointed" and...oh, that was it. Gordon Brown escapes judgement from Norman Smith yet again! Well fancy that!
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Mark Easton then discussed what they said on the home agenda. Easton raised concerns about only one of the candidates. The issue was short-term sentencing, which Mr Clegg had attacked. "David Cameron actually defending the use of short sentences, which is an interesting thing for him to do. After all they have become increasingly controversial and regarded as not particularly effective." Mark Easton casts doubts on a Conservative plan again but doesn't criticise Labour! Well fancy that!
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Robin Lustig then focused on one of the issues: immigation. Who did he discuss it with? Mehdi Hasan of The New Statesman. "Does it concern you that immigration appears to be an issue which many voters are raising?", asked Robin. (Only "appears to be" ?) "It does concern me," replied Mehdi. "I'm someone who supports immigration and is actually dismayed to see all three political parties take this rather hardline view."
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The pollster Peter Kellner of YouGov (famous for being Baroness Ashton's husband and a Labour supporter) was a later contributor but the final guest was actor and writer Kwame Kwei-Armah.*Robin began his introduction to him with these words: "I think we could get a non-political view now". Kwame gave the thumbs up for Clegg and Brown and the thumbs down for Cameron. I don't think he really was an impartial guest. As evidence of this, here's a count of how many times Kwame used particular variants of the party leaders' names. Note that never called Cameron anything other than 'Cameron' but called Brown 'Gordon' on four occasions and never just used his surname:

Nick Clegg - 1
David Cameron - 0
Gordon Brown - 1
Clegg - 1
Cameron - 4
Brown - 0
Nick - 2
David - 0
Gordon - 4

THE WORLD TONIGHT, PART 1

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How has that most consistently left-liberal of Radio 4 current affairs programmes The World Tonight been getting on recently?
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Mon 12/4 The programme reviewed Labour's manifesto. Ritula Shah's expert was none other than Prof Colin Talbot, who seems to be the BBC's favourite academic. For once he didn't attack the Conservatives, but instead (like Labour supporter Sir Gerry Robinson on The World at One) criticised Labour's policy on foundation hospitals, and public service reform in general. So an attack from the Left. Then Ritula jointly interviewed Labour-supporting Steve Richards of The Independent and Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome, displaying a little impatience with Tim and giving Mr Richards both the first and the last word. No BBC analysts were tasked with fisking the Labour manifesto.
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Tue 13/4 The programme reviewed the Conservative manifesto. The first difference in approach was that, whereas on Monday's programme the criticisms of Labour by the Tories and Lib Dems were briefly read out by Ritula, here we heard audio clips from Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg attacking the Conservatives. The second difference was that the BBC's Stephanie Flanders "has been running a fine tooth-comb through the Conservative plans" and was invited on to give her verdict. She was distinctly unimpressed. "Are we any wiser?" asked Ritula. "I'm afraid not", replied Stephanie. Thereafter, it was all about her repeated surprise at what wasn't in the Tory manifesto. She was surprised so often her eyebrows might very well have achieved lift-off and now be orbiting around Saturn.
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The third difference, following on from this, was the much greater time spent scrutinising the Tory manifesto than Labour's. Conservative education policy was closely examined. Vox-pops from London were canvassed on whether the idea of parental involvement in schools is a good idea or not. The results were mixed, but the final words of the final vox-popper, left hanging in the air, were 'I'd be sceptical'! That said, there was a balanced report on charter schools in New Orleans from the BBC's Zoe Conway followed by Dr Anthony Seldon, who was broadly supportive, though he also had some concerns. Tuesday's equivalents of Messers Richards and Montgomerie were Philip Stephens of the Financial Times and Nick Wood "a public relations consultant and former Conservative media director". The former was critical, the latter supportive. Guess which one was repeatedly interrupted by Ritula Shah?
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Wed 14/4 The programme reviewed the Lib Dem manifesto. Audio clips of criticism from Gordon Brown and David Cameron followed, meaning that the Lib Dems did as badly as the Conservatives in this respect. Only Labour didn't get this sort of treatment! That said the clips here were much shorter than those directed against the Conservatives, so it turns out that the Conservatives fared worst after all. Here both Brown and Cameron got just 8 seconds each to have a go at the Lib Dems. Compare that to Tuesday, when Brown got 29 seconds and Clegg got 19 seconds to attack the Tories. The Lib Dems (like the Conservatives, but unlike Labour) also got a review from Stephanie Flanders, who offered a balanced appraisal of it rather than the wholly negative review she gave the Tories. Will the Lib Dem reputation for honesty help them in the general election, wondered Robin Lustig. He asked Helen Coombs from IPSOS MORI.
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What of tax cuts? Mark Littlewood, of the economic think tank The Institute of Economic Affairs and former head of media for the Liberal Democrats, and Martin Ivens of The Sunday Times were the interviewees here. Mark is that rare thing, a free-market-loving Lib Dem, so he wasn't wholly without criticism of his party's proposals. Robin Lustig asked all from questions from the left-side of the argument.*
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Later in the programme, the BBC returned to one of its key election themes, as Robin said "Now here's a political question for you. What do the following prime ministers all have in common: William Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, Anthony Eden, Harold McMillan, Alex Douglas Hume? The answer is that they all went to Eton. And if the Conservatives win the election on May 6th David Cameron will become the 18th Old Etonian to join the prime ministerial ranks." Paul Moss then reported on the links between Eton and politics, complete with the strains of The Eton Boat Song and a Tatler writer called Ticky Hedley-Dent (perish the thought that she was invited to take part because of her posh name!). Blairite David Aaronovitch put the boot in.
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