Evan Davis was on great form today, lambasting those nasty, capitalist Tory voting types for buying Royal Mail shares, falsely claiming Clegg supports the Guardian over Snowden and now a fine example of wilful blindness.
At 08:21 on the Today programme Davis was talking to Vince Cable and claimed that:
‘It’s odd that politicians grumble about high energy prices when at the same time they are adding to those costs [with their green taxes]’
Funny how I’ve yet to hear him raise that very issue with Ed Miliband, the very man who wrote the law that requires all these green taxes…and who now complains bitterly about high energy prices.
The BBC tell us that when energy company SSE raised prices:
The decision prompted fevered political debate over who to blame for the rise.
Not on the BBC it didn’t…..no finger of blame was pointed in Miliband’s direction…he was given plenty of airtime for his soundbite that it was a ‘scandal…and the government is allowing the energy companies to get away with it.’
Here the BBC quotes Labour without any real attempt to question their claims:
SSE ‘out of touch’ over gas and electricity price rise says Labour
Shadow Welsh Secretary Owen Smith said the rise was “breathtaking,” given the difficulties customers were facing.
Labour leader Ed Miliband, who pledged a price freeze for 20 months if his party wins the next election, described SSE’s price rise as a “scandal”. He accused the UK government of “letting energy companies get away with this”.
In the interview in this report Miliband is asked some obvious questions but is allowed to bat them away with nonsense answers.
He’s asked what if the energy companies put up prices before his price freeze?..he says:
‘If power companies get together and collude that will be illegal.’
Well, yes, but that wasn’t the question….that being…what is he going to do if power companies put up prices..without ‘collusion’? No answer.
He was allowed to get away with claiming the companies were ‘unreliable witnesses’….and he isn’t? No self interest here for the Labour leader in grandstanding?
He claimed they had been overcharging for years and now they had to answer for that.
Have they? Not according to the facts..and this analysis on Guido Fawkes
So Miliband has an easy ride on the BBC Breakfast couch.
Plenty of hypocrisy from the BBC on display there.…but the Guardian tries to outshine them, Polly Toynbee allowing her hatred of Tories and Michael Gove in particular it seems, to overcome what little sense she has (via Guido):
A remarkable headline…one as it’s not true, two Baby P and Hamzah Khans died during the Labour years…and three the sheer hypocrisy of that headline as Toynbee politicises the deaths of these children……
and yet not so long ago when Tories claimed that Mick Philpott’s living arrangements, with several women, numerous children and an income of £60,000 per year from benefits, made the case for welfare reform the Left claimed this was politicising the deaths of the children…when in fact the deaths had no part on the Tory claims…it was the ability to claim benefits for that lifestyle that they were highlighting.
From the Guardian:
George Osborne was accused of a demeaning attempt to use the killing of six children by Mick Philpott to bolster the Conservatives’ case that the welfare state is subsidising inappropriate lifestyles.
In what is turning into a bitter row over welfare reform, Labour accused the chancellor of overstepping the boundary of decency by implying there is a connection between welfare and the crimes committed by Philpott.
Osborne in fact very carefully and deliberately avoided any connection between the deaths of the children and his own point…unlike the Left..who were the ones in fact ‘politicising’ the deaths.
Again where’s the Lefty outrage at the headline? If you’re a Daily Mail columnist or a Tory it seems you are more ‘accountable’ than if you are a champagne swilling socialist.
Yet more hypocrisy from Labour…and once again the BBC makes no comment on that hypocrisy:
Labour’s Chuka Umunna told us it was Labour’s (13:07) :
‘constitutional and democratic duty to scrutinize what the government does and hold to account the government for its policies.’
So that’ll be why Labour’s Andy Burnham is saying he will sue Jeremy Hunt for questioning his stewardship of the NHS under Labour……so accountable…..
The Health Secretary has been sent a legal letter after taking to Twitter to criticise Mr Burnham, Labour’s former health secretary, over his record in government between 2009 and 2010.
Mr Burnham has acknowledged that suing his counterpart as would be an “extraordinary step”, but said that he is considering it because of the “exceptional circumstances” he has found himself in.
He is demanding that Mr Hunt should remove the comments from the social networking website or face further legal action.
Now Mr Burnham, writing on the Labour List blog, has accused the Conservative party of starting a campaign to “politicise” the failures in the health system after the Francis report.
He said: “What has followed can only be described as an orchestrated smear campaign against the last Government and the integrity of Ministers who served in it.”
Of course Labour aren’t used to being held to account….13 years of disastrous rule goes practically unmentioned by the BBC.