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The BBC News website well merits the nickname of Pravda. If a story is embarrassing to the Labour government and can be ignored, it will be ignored - however big a story it is. And this story is a big story (political dynamite you might say): "A top investment advisor has described Britain's economy as a 'must to avoid' and says 'gilts are resting on a bed of nitroglycerine'". (Sky News)
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Labour's criminal mishandling of the economy, leaving us languishing precariously at the rear of the world's recovery, along with its unwillingness to start acting now to cut the deficit, has prompted Bill Gross, manager of the world's biggest bond fund Pacific Investment Management Co, to warn investors to shy away from Britain over our Everest of government debt.
(http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/UK-Economy-Warning-As-Investor-Bill-Gross-Says-Gilts-On-Bed-Of-Nitroglycerine/Article/201001415536628?lid=ARTICLE_15536628_UKEconomyWarningAsInvestorBillGrossSaysGiltsOnBedOfNitroglycerine&lpos=searchresults) *
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As you can see Sky News reports this alarming story.
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As does The Times: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article7004213.ece
And The Daily Telegraph:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100024048/uk-gilts-are-resting-on-a-bed-of-nitroglycerine-so-what-are-the-tories-saying-about-this/
Even The Guardian (which describes Mr Gross's comments as 'headline grabbing') reports it (and comments on it too):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/26/uk-economy-debt-bob-gross
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Guess who ignores it however? Type in "Bill Gross nitroglycerine" and you will get this from the BBC News website: "Sorry. There are no results for your search."
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Wherever you look on the site you won't find the story there - whether it's under 'Politics' or 'Business' or 'Stephanomics' or 'Peston's Picks'.
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Pravda strikes again.
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It did come up in yesterday's Daily Politics with Michael Heseltine and Phil Woolas. Andrew Neil made the point about Bill Gross and that 90% of UK gilts in 2009 were bought by the Bank Of England. Unfortunatley he didn't point out that one of Gross's colleagues is ED Ball's brother !
ReplyDeleteI got the impression that even Heseltine didn't understand how gilt markets work. Naturally Woolas didn't.
Andrew gave Woolas a very satisfying hard time over the Iraq enquiry !
Later in a discussion about investing in gold coins, Andrew got a dig in about Brown selling UK gold reserves.
How long can he survive ? Andrew that is, not Woolas !
It was a fun show, with Harriet Harman floundering delightfully at Prime Minister's Questions and Eric Pickles stonewalling hilariously with 'snippy' Andrew Neil. His 'God bless him!' (about Andrew) had me laughing out loud.
ReplyDelete'The Daily Politics' really is the place to go to hear news that the rest of the BBC ignores. Andrew's been first on quite a few stories the rest of the Beeb have had to catch up on (when they couldn't avoid talking about it), particularly on 'climate change'.
Sometime in 2008 it was leaked by BBC insiders that the management had issued an edict to “go easy on Gordon”
ReplyDeleteI have no reason to disbelieve this and cite a couple of examples in support of this.
When Brown floated his idea of taxing financial transactions (the Tobin Tax), not one country thought it was a good idea. Headlines and comments in the press and on TV, with one exception, ranged from “Brown humiliated” through “Scorn over Brown’s proposals” to “Brown slapped down”.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner dismissed the idea of such a tax, saying: "That's not something that we're prepared to support."
Diplomatic language for “What a jerk”
Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty also rejected the proposal, telling Sky News it was "not something we would be interested in Canada". He added: "We are not in the business of raising taxes, we are in the business of lowering taxes in Canada. It is not an idea we would look at."
Diplomatic language for “What an utter tosser”
The one exception in all of this reporting, the BBC, of course. It was reported as “Lukewarm reception for Gordon Brown’s proposal” (Now disappeared from the BBC website)
Ben Bernanke, the head of the US Federal Reserve, appearing at a recent Congressional hearing, slammed Gordon Brown’s handling of the UK economy and directly blamed Brown for the parlous financial state the UK was in.
Widely reported in all of the media, on Sky and elsewhere as it should have been.
When the head of the central financial regulating body of the world’s most powerful economy slams the handling of the economy of another country everyone sits up and takes notice.
The BBC’s response was to ignore it. Not one word on their website. Not a peep on BBC World
Sometime in 2008 it was leaked by BBC insiders that the management had issued an edict to “go easy on Gordon”
ReplyDeleteI have no reason to disbelieve this and cite a couple of examples in support of this.
When Brown floated his idea of taxing financial transactions (the Tobin Tax), not one country thought it was a good idea. Headlines and comments in the press and on TV, with one exception, ranged from “Brown humiliated” through “Scorn over Brown’s proposals” to “Brown slapped down”.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner dismissed the idea of such a tax, saying: "That's not something that we're prepared to support."
Diplomatic language for “What a jerk”
Canadian finance minister Jim Flaherty also rejected the proposal, telling Sky News it was "not something we would be interested in Canada". He added: "We are not in the business of raising taxes, we are in the business of lowering taxes in Canada. It is not an idea we would look at."
Diplomatic language for “What an utter tosser”
The one exception in all of this reporting, the BBC, of course. It was reported as “Lukewarm reception for Gordon Brown’s proposal” (Now disappeared from the BBC website)
Ben Bernanke, the head of the US Federal Reserve, appearing at a recent Congressional hearing, slammed Gordon Brown’s handling of the UK economy and directly blamed Brown for the parlous financial state the UK was in.
Widely reported in all of the media, on Sky and elsewhere as it should have been.
When the head of the central financial regulating body of the world’s most powerful economy slams the handling of the economy of another country everyone sits up and takes notice.
The BBC’s response was to ignore it. Not one word on their website. Not a peep on BBC World
Andy C
The bbc are currently not so adulatory of Obama.
ReplyDeleteThe bbc World service did Obama's State of the Union speech live from Washington but pulled the plug when he got into difficulties with the audience over blaming everthing on the Republicans and other such thorny issues.
What world shattering news would make this change of schedule? The story of the UK mother "murdering" her terminally ill son.
You could not make it up.
According to B-BBC website, Obama's humiliation of the judges of the Supreme Court who were present at his speech is big news in the US, but not reported here by the BBC.
ReplyDelete