Have to laugh at the BBC’s unremittingly bleak coverage of the Budget. The sneering tone ran across all their media formats. I caught Osborne being interviewed on Today (8.10am) and I thought he did rather well. He was quick to correct Naughie when he tried to mischaracterise what had been clearly said. And rightly so. Somehow, when Osborne said GROWTH, A MILLION JOBS – the BBC heard GLOOM, MISERY. You can see the BBC wincing that it is not Brown and Darling coming forth to talk their drivel each year at this time.
A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU
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I didn’t see the Osborne interview but I did hear Jeff Randall who, in my opinion, often makes a better case for restraint than either Osborne or Cameron. Specifically, he bangs on about the size and cost of our debt – a massive problem which, in my experience, many people are still not fully aware of.
Labour, for all its faults, would have got this across by now.
That is not the way Labour speaks. I simply do not believe, from decades of experience, that Labour who created most of the debt would REALLY get a grip on it.
Roy Jenkins was the only Labour Chancellor in my lifetime who tried to balance the books properly. Gordon Brown spent OUR money like a drunken sailor – no, that is unfair to drunken sailors who are stingy compared to Brown.
15 years of massive Brown spending – he always called it “investment”, bloody liar – and we have lower educational standards, the NHS hardly better compared with the massive increase in spending, etc etc. Brown could be parsimonious when he wanted – he crippled the armed forces – but will go down in history as a spendthrift.
But this is always omitted by the BBC.
Sorry, perhaps I didn’t explain it well. I was only suggesting that Labour is more effective in communicating simple messages. It understands the power of repetition and, if the positions of the parties were reversed, I believe that more people would be aware of the size of our debt.
I am not suggesting that Labour would be able to reduce it – far from it.
Simple messages, possibly, but it might be nice if they made sense or added up.
Almost anything that issues from the Ed’s, indeed almost any from that shambles of a shadow cabinet, simply leaves me wondering what a Government of such talents would have dragged us into by now.
For once I think Nick Robinson may have hit the nail on the head, if probably unintentionally…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2011/03/reading_between.html
‘No wonder Labour are gambling on it all going wrong’
That they have an actively complicit media monolith in support is a bit of a worry, mind.
I’m sure Barry can speak for himself but I agree that were Labour currently in power, it would have done much of what osborne is feebly trying to do but, more to the point, would have portrayed themselves as “victims” of circumstance (cf the global financial melt-down/greedy bankers) rather than as the main cause of that circumstance. Osborne – and all the other “Conservatives” – should be constantly (even boringly) banging on about Labour’s, particularly Brown’s) culpability here. Every time the non-cuts come up, the “Conservatives” should point to why these “cuts” are necessary. Instead, I don’t recall one remark by Osborne on Today this morning pointing out why the cuts must go on and why he’s constrained in what he is “giving” to the tapayer. For once you can’t blame Naughtie who, although reading from Labour briefing notes, did not actually prevent Osborne making such points had he wished.
One point Osborne could make is that money splurged on job creation in the public sector (a la Brown) is only an accounting increase in GDP – it is not an increase in wealth. The “boom” which Brown stated he had made unending was an accounting chimera which was, in reality, an admixture of asset inflation and the aforementioned non-job creation in the public sector. Do I hear this from Osborne? No and why? Because he is also creating mock-wealth by, for instance, splurging our money on “green” nonsense and, more so, because he is embarrassingly compromised by having bought fully into Brown’s “boom” by promising – even after the financial collapse – to “share the proceeds of growth” with the taxpayer.
I was listening to the 5pm news on R4 last night (Wednesday). Danny Alexander kicked off his response to a Robert Peston budget piece by saying that the coalition had inherited a mess – to which the beeb interviewer (can’t remember who it was) almost fell over herself stopping him and stating that it should be “taken as read” there had been a budget deficit but it was time to move on and discuss the coalition’s policies.
they have a problem, Budget was fairly good and well accepted; many, many groups (OECD, CBI, IMF, IFS, World Bank, S&P, PIMCO, G20, FSB, BCC etc) backing Coalition’s cuts strategy; Cameron on an international high…all looking good, how the beeboids hearts must be bleeding. This weekend a big march is organised but in fact there are multiple groups…unions, students, SWP, lawful rebellion, people against the census, etc…it will be interesting to see how the BBC report it all and who gets the biggest billing
Posted this over at Guido’s – compare and contrast the NL/BBC line today with 5 years ago (see link):
What’s with all the NL/BBC b******s doom and gloom and job cuts about the 60% tax increase on the oil operators in the North Sea?
NL/BBC didn’t give a sh*t 5 years ago when McMental DOUBLED it. In fact it was quite a good thing:
“Meanwhile, the extra revenue raised would be used to “help consumers most affected by the significant increases in global oil and energy prices” such as pensioner households, the government said.
The money would also be used “to invest for the longer term in tackling fuel poverty”.
“I am also now able to freeze petrol and diesel and road fuel gases duties for this full financial year at an Exchequer cost for the full year of £600m,” the chancellor said.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4500540.stm
Crocodile tears.
Labour tax rises … mmmm……good
Tory tax rise……ooooooooh….nasty
Just switched off Milliband E’s latest offering, live on SKY, in disgust.
Having been at the heart of the cabal that took just 10 years to dig us into the hole we’re in, to compound all that he decides to whip up massive divisions by…. accusing the Coalition of the politics of division.
Give that man a standard. No, make that two.
Problem is, to fulfill the prediction he falsely claims he fears, he has the enthusiastic support and resources of a £4B media monolith that is so institutionally tribal that it is the bad joke of the season they get out there to show it’s not true… because they say so.
I in no way think it is coordinated or even deliberate, but the cumulative effect of 10,000 drips is threatening to sink this country in the very thing the sanctimonious twerp claims to be so afraid of.
From a Newsnight producer setting up a riot stunt with an activist ‘leader’, to a local radio ‘interview’ with a ‘cuts, Cuts, CUTS!!!’ single muvva, to a selective, unchallenged Mehdi Hassan ‘opinion’ on a news review or Ken Livingstone lie on QT, the entire bunch seem dedicated to driving a wedge through society at every turn.
Now, it may be some other media are equally complicit, for ratings or idealogical agenda…. BUT I DON”T HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM ORGANISING THE DESTRUCTION OF MY FAMILY’S DEMOCRATIC LIFESTYLE AND FREEDOMS OF CHOICE AND SPEECH from behind their unelected ivory towers.