Green confusion at the Guardian
The Skimmer 9:52am
Do folks at The Guardian not speak to each other? We've always known the place had a pretty poisonous atmosphere, but don't they ever compare notes? This morning, left-wing harpie columnist Jackie Ashley writes this:
Which can only mean she can't have read this, by the paper's excellent chief political correspondent, Nick Watts, on the front page of the same edition of the same newspaper:"Cameron has simply ditched his green agenda. On green taxes, persuading people to turn from cars and cheap air travel and even on issues like airport expansion and nuclear power, they have gone silent."
OK. So maybe Watts and Ashley don't speak to each other and Ashley was just ignorant of her own paper's scoop. But didn't one of the Guardian's many editors spot the conflict between the two articles and seek to reconcile it? Or is the atmosphere so poisonous that they simply wanted Ashley to look stupid? If so, they succeeded."A third runway at Heathrow airport would be scrapped by a Tory government that would instead build a £20bn TGV-style high speed rail link between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds."In one of David Cameron's boldest moves on the environment, the party will today unveil plans to cut 66,000 flights a year from Heathrow by tempting passengers on to the first new rail line north of London in more than a century."
P.S. The Tory plan involves high-speed lines that only go as far North as Manchester and Leeds. Guess they really have written off Scotland ... perhaps they assume it will quickly go independent the moment there's a Tory government in London.
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YouCannotBeSerious
September 29th, 2008 10:25am Report this commentharpie? you may wish to take issue with her comment, but why the need for such personal abuse? Out of order.
Oscar
September 29th, 2008 10:47am Report this commentThe liberal left media (and large chunks of the right media) are doing a hatchet job on the Conservative party conference as predicted. They worked hard to claw back a few percentage points in the polls which are now being mentioned by the BBC at every possible opportunity, and they aint about to let it go by a Tory bounce at the end of the week. To that end BBC coverage of conference on the Today programme this morning was extraordinary. We were treated to a long analysis of the polls that concluded noone really wants to vote Conservative; a history lesson from David Willets about Chamberlain and Birmingham; and they dug up Stephen Dorrell to pin all the blame for the credit crunch on Thatcher, with Will Hutton to stick the boot in. But the real coup was what was obviously Downing Street/Today wheeze. At 7.40 they oddly announced that they were going to interview Alistair Darling but he was too busy. Oddly enough he was available precisely half an hour later to intervene in what was uspposed to be George Osborne's interview. Instead we got a long, long exposition from Darling (alaready covered in the news bulletin by Peston) about B&B. Osborne was given a few aggressive questions right at the end. As an example of slick, well though through, expert bias I'd say this got ten out of ten.
TrevorsDen
September 29th, 2008 11:17am Report this commentLeft wing harpie is probably being too kind.
And of course time and again Brown is limply questioned on his mantra that it began in America not my fault and will do everything to ensure stability.
How does he expect stability with a 50 billion deficit.
At least even as I write a city gent on BBC News24 was saying Browns comments were a bit rich and that there was no mention of us being the most over-borrowed nation on earth. This same guy also said the Darling announcement was completely botched with Robert Peston giving out more information than the treasury
Hereford
September 29th, 2008 11:27am Report this commentOscar: Yep right on. Desperate evasion of any positive exposure to the Tories. The bias is now so obvious that it is evident that the BBC is in a position of impunity.
Hereford
September 29th, 2008 11:29am Report this commentBTW has someone should make an FOI application for the pre-broadcast briefing notes for BBC programmes such as this morning's. Unless the bias is totally unconscious, it should show up and be challengeable.
Oscar
September 29th, 2008 11:37am Report this commentI should have mentioned that Evan Davis advocated that people should vote for Vince Cable, in the middle of his interview - no ifs - no buts. What ever happened to BBC editorial codes on impartiality?
LSS
September 29th, 2008 11:52am Report this commentNot much we can do about the Beeb until a change of government occurs. When the change happens it's going to be a form of de-Nulabourisation to purge a lot of important institutions of political bias. The Beeb, the Met etc... a lot of carpet baggers will be heading to the dole que soon.
Oscar
September 29th, 2008 1:45pm Report this commentLSS - look the BBC is doing the damage now. The Conservatives won't get the chance to change things if our state broadcaster continues its sabotage. Something has to be done now.
Adair
September 29th, 2008 2:15pm Report this commentThe Harpie "personifies the destructive nature of wind ".
Sounds spot on.
Jed Yoong
September 29th, 2008 2:38pm Report this comment"Or is the atmosphere so poisonous that they simply wanted Ashley to look stupid? If so, they succeeded."
The atmosphere is indeed "poisonous"...**Slither** **Hiss**
TGF UKIP
September 29th, 2008 6:52pm Report this commentOscar and LSS, the situation of the Tories and the BBC is very similar to that of them and Gordon. Just as Gordon will continue to lie with impunity because the Tories are too fastidious to prove him and call him the liar he is, so it is with the BBC. They will continue to be the Brown Broadcasting Corporation because the Tories don't scream bloody murder to stop them.
As I've posted several times previously, the Tories may well perceive their problem to be that most of the bias is over the heads but into the minds of the vast majority of the population and Tory allegations and complaints of bias may be interpreted as Tory whingeing.
The answer as I've indicated before is to give the public a reason for the BBC to fear the Tories and bias their coverage in Labour's favour. So all Dave need do is promise that in power the Tories would abolish the licence fee, review the structure and size of the BBC (still 20,000 plus employees) and throw the airwaves open to more competition specifically in news and current affairs with a specific invitation to Fox News.
Will Dave's Tories do it? Nah! not a cat in hell's chance. For one thing Dave with all his green political correctness still has the forlorn hope of ingratiating himself with the Today programme but above all Dave does not wish to see the likes of Brit Hume or Bill Kristol wondering on the public airwaves why there is no genuinely conservative party in the UK.
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