Channel 4 fact check

mart

Mr Snow's harrying of Mr Osborne was pretty undignified.

Face-to-face TV interviews add little light to these matters. The trading of statistics is sterile always. And the harrying of an interviewee, whether chasing a headline or pressing a partisan point, is not in the interests of the intelligent audience.

Interviewers should look to Eddie Mair for an example of the art. Interviewees should look to Vincent Cable.

(The rest of Channel 4 News was mostly brilliant this evening, as usual.)

TomTom

Osborne is a joke. He is simply not up to the job, Redwood is....but no voter expects the Tories to be any better than Labour....they simply want the chance for their friends to get fat on government contracts rather than Labour cronies

Peter

Osborne is an unconvincing lightweight that is rapidly becoming a potential liability. The Tories need a "big beast" shadow chancellor, someone with a bit of gravitas and real-world experience going in to the election. There are just too many policy-wonks-made-good at or near the top of the party at the moment for its own good.

ken from glos

I watched.Again it was the fault of Osbourne for not being properly briefed and prepared to deal with that old lefty Snow.

When will the Conservatives ever learn.I could have done better because i knew all the figures.Piss poor performance as usual.

George McVittie

Osborne won't have done himself any harm. Those few people, other than Polly Toynbee and Helena Kennedy, who still watch Channel 4 news don't actually believe anything Snow says.

Nick

But isn't Snow's point that as the UK economy is supposedly more at risk due to the global credit crunch, because of our greater reliance on the property market and financial services as a driver for GDP, then why does the IMF predict stronger economic growth in the UK than the USA, Japan, Germany, France and Italy over the next couple of years ???

Michael D

Richard Lambert, who comes across as about as independent as anybody can be, hit the nail on the head on the Today programme last week on the day the IMF revised figures were announced. In his view, the key advantage the UK economy was the flexible Labour market - a legacy wholly attributed to the Thatcher supply side reforms. The issue is that the UK economy has continued to grow in spite of Brown rather than because of Brown. This message might not have had any traction in the past but should fall on fertile soil now. It is in Labour's advantage to bog debate down in trench warfare over the semantics of figures.

Liz Brown

Osborne did try to correct Jon Snow but it was incredibly difficult for him to get a word in as Snow (as far up his own a****e as always) hardly let him string a word together, let alone a full sentence

Jackie

Since when did Jon Snow have any credibility?

I fear he has overcalculated Britian's growth in the way that his publisher over-estimated how interested we'd all be in Jon's memoirs. He was paid an astronomical fee for a book that sold next to nothing.

Outside his little London coterie, the British public have never given two figs for this man.

Perry

All the same, especially important to be well briefed, - and, let’s face it, with a bit of heavy weight – unless you are nimble and can ‘sting like a bee’.

Do such people exist nowadays in the oppo? (or if they do, are they allowed airtime?)

Fergus Pickering

Osborne is not partiularly good at thinking on his feet, not as good as Cameron and Haig. But he doesn't have to be good at that, does he? Getting it right is more important than getting it quick.

THX1138

Osborne was rubbish as usual but hey ho in Speccie land it's not his fault it's down to that nasty leftie Mr Snow for asking a difficult question

I was just phoned up by a gap year toff from team Boris looking for votes I said I was thinking about a vote for Boris until I saw his dismal showing on Newsnight. The caller told me that it was all that leftie Paxo's fault for asking difficult questions, again nothing to with the candidate not being able to string two words together under a bit of pressure.

It's not the medias fault that these guys are rubbish.

Take some responsibility for your candidates.

EyeSee

Channel 4 News are just useful idiots for the likes of Alistair Campbell to use at will.

Ian C

I did not see the C4 news but it sounds as if Osborne has reverted to where he was before the Inheritance tax coup - unable to think on his feet and probably badly briefed if he did not know the defence to his own offense. Once again you are providing what he should have had up his sleeve (not your job!). Snow is as bad as Humphreys - they're the reason I no longer watch/listen to their respective programmes because you cannot learn anything by doing so unless they are on a day off. They constantly interrupt and never allow a complete answer, picking answers apart before a viewer/listener has a chance even to absorb the question, lat alone the answer. It is very bad journalism and it's time their masters removed them for this and the over-extended egotism they constantly parade for their own benefit, not ours.

Monsier Oui

"Greece 3.5%, Australia 3.2%, Norway 3.1%, Finland 2.4%, New Zealand 2.1%, Sweden 2%, Austria 1.8%, Spain 1.8% and Ireland 1.8%."

No members of the G7 then?

Fraser Nelson

The G7 is Brown's great get-out clause as they contain France, Germany, Italy, Japan - all problem-set economies. We should compare ourselves to the English-speaking world, every since member of which has had better economic growth than Britain since 1997.

Tiberius

As I've watched Question Time throughout the term of New Labour, I've often considered how it seems that more than anything else, to be a seemingly successful politician you have to be able to bullshit. How else could Rodri Morgan or Hazel Blears ever have made it? Personally I'd rather live under a government of intelligent politicians like Osborne, even if he can't talk the hind legs off a donkey about growth rates or endogenous growth theory. Look at his speech recently, reproduced on ConservativeHome, and decide whether he knows what he is doing or not.

mart

THX1138: Read the comments through again. Mine was generous to Mr O (at least, I didn't focus my comments on him). Most of the other commenters aren't generous at all.

You've got to say it how you see it. I couldn't bring myself to criticise a man attempting to answer under such relentless and partisan attack from the interviewer. Mr S was so blinkered on the 1 point something growth forecast (is that really growth?) that he wouldn't listen for the first sentence of an answer that didn't accept the premise expressed in his question.

David Lindsay

Osborne is thick. That is not news. He might well be very nice. But he's thick. He is Piers Fletcher-Dervish to Cameron's Alan B'Stard.

THX1138

Mart- I sort of agree that Snow, Paxo & Humphrys s do get a bit carried away but It would be a very boring viewing/listening if the interviewers agreed with interviewee. I remember Frost asking TB what it was like being the greatest post war PM do you really want that?

I prefer the late great Brian Redhead quote from his spat with Lawson when accused of bias "Do you think we should have a one minute silence now in this interview, one for you to apologise for daring to suggest that you know how I vote and secondly perhaps in memory of monetarism which you have now discarded."

All Snow has done is yet again expose how useless The Boy George is as for his number two Hammond the real "Hugh Abbot" of British politics he's even worse. We need a big beast like Ken Clarke as shadow chancellor for a bit of rough and tumble with Darling.

Tiberius -It's all very well having some policy wonk write some speech about economic theory who cares? No one. It's appearances under pressure in the commons or in set piece interviews that we remember.

Lest we forget he was asked a simple question about what is supposed to be his area of expertise and he flapped about like a trout on a river bank and we all know this isn't the first time. Dave needs to cut him loose now I know they are mates and all but Osborne is a liability.

Tiberius

THX1138: not economic theory but practical measures to alleviate the consequences of Brown's catastrophe. The top man needs the televisual appeal etc. - talent is what is needed below and while the Tories do seem short of good people in some areas, the Shadow Chancellor is not one of them.

Oscar Miller

I watched the interview and thought Snow was briefed by Labour HQ - they'd been salivating about the IMF 1.6% announcement all day - picked up by wee Hazel Blears on the morning's Today show. All an absurd piece of spin. Last week the IMF forecast was presented as bad news, downgrading Darling's own growth forecasts. I thought Snow was biased. But I did wish Osborne had been able to demolish such a rubbish assault. He really does need better briefing. In the bigger scheme of things, I didn't think it would make any difference to public opinion. But Osborne can't afford such laxity as things get tougher and dirtier the nearer the election gets.

Bob Gray

THX1138: Interviewers need neither agree nor disagree with interviewees. Those of us with attention spans of a reasonable length are not perturbed by 'a very boring viewing/listening'. We just listen to the question, listen to the answer (or lack of), and then draw our own conclusions.
You don't remember Jack De Manio feeding out the rope to many an interviewee? All done with his usual courtesy and deference.

THX1138

Bob -Was he the guy that always got the time wrong? I do sort of remember him I grew up with Radio 4 in the background.