Leaving the drama behind

John Moss

You know, it is really SAD that Peston and Robinson can be so gullible as to be sent off like faithful bloodhounds following a trail laid for them by Campbell and Mandelson, rather than reporting real news.

Let's see - the economics editor might want to report the CPS paper released today highlighting the real state of UK Government debt at something like 150% of GDP when all pension, PFI, Notwork Rail, Northern Wreck etc etc liabilities are brought on-balance sheet?

The political editor might want to report how Harperson is guilotining debate on pro-choice amendments to the HFE Bill and not calling those amendments to the vote? Or, the rebellion brewing over the un-compensated 10p tax losers or the non-implimentation of family friendly flexible working?

It really is just very, very, poor journalism.

Sally Chatterjee

It presents a perfect opportunity for Cameron: he can dump the lightweight Osbourne.

The Shadow Chancellor has been exposed as a lightweight and shrill man by the current economic woes. Think of it, even a baboon could pin the blame on Brown but the Tories can't seem to articulate that Brown was part-responsible for the problems.

It also allows Cameron to point the finger at Brown and say "I sacked the man once I discovered he was influenced by a shady oligarch, yet you promoted him".

Marcus Cotswell

Well done on the Bastiat nomination and good luck ...

Faceless Bureaucrat

Concur regarding your bad luck in choice of dates for your overseas jaunts, Fraser. But whilst you are in transit, you might want to consider Rothschild's real motive in all this...

Henry Rogers

Fraser,
If Osbourne has messed up, better now than later. Natural Selection at work. If he hasn't it will cost the Times and the BBC a fair amount in lost face, at the very least and could even, glorious thought, lead to a third Mandelson resignation. But he'd be saying, like the villain of those old movies played by Christopher Lee "The World shall hear from me again."

puncture

I love the fact that one of the judges for this prize is Matt Ridley. He didn't do much to promote "the protection of private property", did he?

Maybe he'd better off judging a prize for "promoting massively-expensive taxpayer-funded bailouts of major banks after badly taking one's eye off the ball while chairman of the board".

Funnily enough, his Bastiat biog doesn't mention Northern Rock....

BrianSJ

And how bad are the allegations for Mandelson? He seemed a little tetchy about it on TV. For someone with his track record, there is no smoke without sleaze.
Has he published a response to the Osborne 17:00 statement?

Max Kaye

Would senior Tories - even Eton-educated ones - conduct dodgy deals whilst Mandelson was lurking around.

Seems like a fit of Rothschild pique has played nicely into Nu Labour diversion tactics.

What bad news is being buried today? And who is the Rothschild 'friend' who is willing to corroborate Rothschild's version - and even testify in court?

J H Holloway

Let me get this right. Mandy was staying on the yacht and was involved in setting EU trade rules that could have helped or hindered Mr Aluminiumski.

Yet the story is that Osbourne stepped on the yacht for a cup of tea and may have been offered 50k - which sent through Leyland DAF would have been legal anyway.

Come off it, Fraser. The Tories may still quake when Mandy starts sh*t-stirring, but the responses on Peston's blog and elsewhere suggest the public have already decided this is old fashioned Labour spin.

The BBC, Crick and the rest should stop and think. Mandy's exposure to potential sleazeski is far, far higher than Osbourne's.

William Norton

So...every time a major scandal breaks, Fraser is nowhere to be seen, eh? Reminds me of someone else.

Has anyone ever seen Mr Nelson in the same room at the same time as the Prime Minister? He is really the deceptive Clark Kent disguise for the dynamic new hero SuperGord?

Stop Talking Balls

If Osborne goes, it won't be because some sinister cabal of 'Brown, Mandy and all Labour high command [are] doing their utmost to destroy him'. It will because this arrogant, inadequate man will have destroyed himself.

geoff

Safe but badly damaged. How badly remains to be seen.

But the contrast is the powerful thing. Whilst Brown bestrides the world stage, saving banks and planning a spending surge to save the economy, Osborne is busy saving his own skin after mistakes on a free holiday spent with rich investors.

nadds

Great to see such fair and balenced reporting on this by the BBC & Channel 4

Where's the interest in a now minister of the Crown, who in a previous Euro role, met a dubious Russian amongst others (no doubt there are more tales to come out) before and during his deliberations on trade tarrifs directly relating to the Russians business.

Quite disgracful coverage and I bet none of the BBC management have the guts to justify their coverage

Richard in the West Midlands

Perhaps it will be the third resignation of Mandy that you weill miss.

Hysteria

would not be a "devestating blow" - far from it......

Eddy

What the hell is all the fuss about?

If Osborne has to resign, will Mandelson? They were both on the same boat with the same person.

TGF UKIP

Fraser, first of all I have just wikipediaed The Bastiat Prize to find out what it was and so my heartiest and most sincere congratulations, I hope you win. But as for a Scottish hack "with a laptop in some overseas Starbucks" don't they have bars in New York?

So far as your second best mate is concerned, as usual we differ and I think you are being conveniently blind to his shortcomings. Not only hugely unimpressive and unconvincing to the wider public (no matter how clever and slick you perceive him to be) and with previous form here - the £500k inadequately declared "office" contribution and the £5k speaking fee and accompanying fibbing from the Channel Island engagement - while Dave may have to stick with him for appearances sake in the short term, your mate cannot go on as Shadow Chancellor.

So far as a replacement is concerned I know that as one of the original media conspirators you cannot breathe the name of his obvious replacement, David Davis, especially given what you have written about him in the fanzine so recently, I (and the BBC) live in hope that Dave will delight all his mates on the Tory Left by appointing The Mouth. That should empty the constituencies of party workers.

Meanwhile, when is a "senior" Tory going to appear on the BBC and pass the observation that Nigel Lawson or Norman Tebbit would have made - "Interesting that the BBC seems so keen to do the Labour Party's dirty work for them." How times and men change!

John Page

Good wishes for the prize. Amazing how Osborne hits hot water as soon as Lord Freebie returns. Radio 4's 6.00 news suggested the story won't disappear immediately.

hadrian

Wel, Fraser, we trust your holiday, at least, will be as scandal free and blamless as a Free Presbyterian's! And we wish you all the best for the prestigious award.
As for little George's predilection for luxury breaks and consorting with magnates, that in itself, hardly constitutes a crime. Even being involved in any conversation, involuntarily, where the dodgy questions of donations spring up cannot at all be inflated into guilt; moreover we have the little one's explicit refutation of any allegations of touting for business from sinister and illegal sources. 'No money asked for, no money given,' seems a pretty clean dismissal of the charges.
What this does throw up is just how downright murky and dirty politics can be; and, surprise, surprise, who do we find in the thick of all this but that repulsive rat, Mandelson? One has to recall the allegations against him were far more serious, for the simple fact of what office he held at the time and his past, less than pure record.
The vision of him and his just about as repugnant boss and sudden friend, Broon, smiling smugly on his birthday, will I trust remind us all of the socialist hypocrites and unprincipaled serpents at the heart of our government with its trail of lies all down the line from both before and following Iraq.
Of course Osborne perhaps is reaping what he so stupidly has sown. I rather suspect Simon Heffer will be feeling the winds of vindication today! I'm far from being the biggest fans of Cameron and Geo but at least their instincts lie in substantially the right direction.However the return of Hague, on the other hand, to such a lynch-pin position, would be pure magic!

Michael St George

Fraser, even if he has been only half as naive as you suggest, that plus the manifest incompetence and utter lack of cogent ideas he has displayed in the past two weeks should result in his going overboard. He is fast becoming a liability.

Whether Call-Me-Dave has the wit to realise this, and the ruthlessness to ditch him in the interests of party and country is of course another matter.

Anyone remember the name of a previous leader who tried to support the unsupportable out of misplaced loyalty, and ended up merely damaging himself, his party, and his country as a result?

DM

But nothing happened when you went off to Sweden in the summer, Fraser. You were safe then till party conference season.

This episode has the dirty fingerprints of Mandelson all over it.
Where are the questions about his involvement? He was in power as a EU commissioner. He is current trade Secretary.

George Osborn neither asked for, or received a donation. He may have talked about one, yes, he probably did, but is that illegal? Or does politics have to be so sanitised, that the thought police have to patrol it??
I think the BBC's well out of order here. I am not as quick as others to concern myself about BBC bias, and reckon a lot of their problems are mindset, laziness etc rather than deliberate conspiracy, but this makes me much more questioning.

Oscar

I haven't got much add to the eminently sensible comments above. On the question of what bad news were Labour/BBC out to bury today - well there is plenty of course. But the fact that according to the normally reliable ICM the polls haven't moved for Brown since his conference speech could be one source of the whiff of desperation that is now coming from Labour ranks.

Oscar

BTW whatever happened to the policy inquiry into the David Abrahams affair? That one has gone very very quiet. No BBC hounds on that trail.

TrevorsDen

"on a free holiday spent ..."

This is news to me perhaps someone can confirm this. Just what was free?

Only a visit to a yacht at someones invitation along with gawd knows how many others including an EU trade commissioner.

This used to be called networking.

Nicholas

Rothschild Senior bankrolled Mandelson's think tank 'Policy Network' to the tune of £250,000 so Rothschild Junior can hardly be considered a reliable witness:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/rothschild_bankrolls_mandelson_think_tank.htm

People in glass houses, etc. This one is going to backfire big time and (hopefully) bring down the BBC with it.

hadrian

TGF UKIP- Don't you realise Master Nelson is a staunch, abstemious Scottish Presbyterian and so is a Starbucks man, not a denizen of up market bothies?! Happily, unlike our fellow countryman,Comrade Broon,he also possesses a delicious sense of humour. Best on the box for years, in fact.

john

Fraser
I'm surprised at you.
There's nothing in this story and I'm surprised you've been so gullible. OK, so you've been out of the country, but we all rely on the internet.

THX1138

Osborne will resign without trace.

mac

Rothschild's activities in all this ought to be sniffed very inquisitively. Who is his puppeteer?

Nicholas 9.46: I do hope that you're right. The BBC hierarchy's inability or unwillingness to rein in the egregious Peston is telling, as its increasingly undisguised partiality.

steve procter

The dirty games have begun - welcome back Prince of Darkness. If you have something to say Mandelson then do it yourself openly and boldy, rather than subjecting us to this slimey world of tell-tale games by cronies. But I very much doubt you will, because the fact remains you too were on that boat.

RH

This is a foretaste of what we have to come in the run up to the next election. 'Scandals' dreamt up by Mandleson and co and blown out of all proportion by their partisan friends in the television media. The coverage this has received in comparison to the real scandals of the ruling party is shameful and exposes the myth of the supposed impartiality of state funded news stations. Don't forget the Labour party took the money each and every time, the previous prime minister has recently been shown to have lied and lied again in relation to the F1 affair (amongst other things). But where is the scandal for the BBC and C4..that Osborne was present when somebody else discussed a bad idea and then rejected it! I despair for what remains of democracy in this benighted land.

Nick Kaplan

Fraser; congratulations on your nomination for the Basiat prize, it is truly a great honour to be considered for an award inspired by such a great thinker.