Ross and Brand shouldn't distract us from the other news of the day

Hereford

Darling seems to be sporting a halo in the picture. Is this a subtle and subliminal change in the Speccie's attitude to him and his policies?

DavefromLuton

Don't bother with Peter Riddell, read the Times leader on the same subject. It is much more critical

Jonathan Bowers

Has anyone considered who told the Daily Mail about the Brand / Ross call ? Last week the distraction was George Osborne and Peter Madelson. Was the Brand / Ross story started by the govenment spinners to distract the voters in Glenrothes from being reminded about the dire state of the economy ? What will be next weeks headline distraction to get the recession / falling house prices of the front pages of the newspapers.

Chuck Unsworth

Well apparently we're in good hands because Brown and Darling are determined to make 'the right decisions' and 'tough decisions'. So as long as they do that whilst the country actually goes to hell in a handcart everything is going to be OK.

Meanwhile one has to wonder who benefits from the BBC spending vast amounts of airtime and effort in talking about the sordid little goings on of two complete and vastly overpaid talentless buffoons rather examining than the more serious - and national - economic crisis. Cui Bono? Possibly Brown and Darling?

Interesting, too that Brand has been sacrificed whereas Ross has not. Of course this is about money, isn't it?

I'm profoundly unimpressed by the BBC 'Management'. Where's the spark, where's the leadership, and where's the integrity? And for the BBC to announce in hushed tones that Thompson has 'interrupted his holiday' to deal with this matter is simple and disgusting contempt for the licence fee payer. I really couldn't care less if Thompson went on permanent holiday. He's simply not up to the job. Nor for that matter is Darling - but we knew that from day one.

In all of this the real frustration is that none of these incompetents are answerable to those who pay for them.

oldtimer

"...we still have remarkably little idea about how it (the government) intends to steer the economy to safety. At some point, the government will have to make tough decisions rather than just talk about them."

The reason is that Brown/Darling have no idea how to steer the economy to safety. They are up the creek without a paddle, trying to lay down smoke to cover their own embarassments and policy failures. That is why Cameron was right, in my opinion, to focus on the `No more boom or bust` mantras endlessly repeated by Brown in his first ten years in office. That issue needs to be firmly nailed in the public mind. Any other line gifts Brown the chance to change the issue - something he attempts anyway in his non-answers at PMQs.

The brutal fact is this. There is not all that much, in practice, that the government can do in the short run. The Conservative idea of funded tax cuts is right, but can be little more than marginal in impact. Bolder stimulus measures would soon run into the irresistable force of fx rates and/or the immovable object of limited capital availability.

Nothing much will be done this side of an election. After it, I expect government spending cuts, higher net taxes and higher inflation. The key issues for the next government will be (1)where the axe on spending must fall and (2)how should the tax system be changed to encourage private sector spending and growth.

Jennywren

Brown's treatment of the Financial Crisis will be like Bush/Blair's Iraqi adventure; sound at the beginning but no plan for a follow through.

JR

Personally I think it's sad people get themselves into a frenzy and the newspapers clear the front page about something so inconsequential. What a nation full of idiots to whip themselves into a lynch mob about some misguided comedy in a way they never do about the country's economy.

Good luck to Brand who's off to make millions in Hollywood. I hope people see the irony that he is fated in the land of the free (where there is no BBC) - the confused arguements of the mob over the last few days have been pathetic.

JONNY

The toadying sycophancy of the BBC's Director General plus the clunking fist of our Calvinistic PM plus Young David definitely not doing what he does best plus the almost universal twit-twit-twitting of old-maidish hypocrisy from all and sundry
much of it ascribable to envy and malice regarding the obscene amounts of money they're said to be 'cheating the tax payer of'
makes me almost sympathetic to this pair of nauseating clowns.

biggestaspidistra

"Good luck to Brand who's off to make millions in Hollywood. I hope people see the irony that he is fated in the land of the free"

Yes Hollywood is waiting for Brand and Nora Desmond. I believe Brand was chased out of town after his last visit.

mac

New Labour has a cynical and self-serving appreciation of the power of the panem et circenses approach to retaining political control.

Today's bread is distributed in the form of generous benefit payments and also salaries and pensions for a deliberately bloated public secto, while our latter-day circuses are dumbed-down TV, radio and newspapers awash with vacuous 'celebrities' and over-hyped sports 'personalities'.

O tempore, o mores!