New Labour evangelist Tim Allan must have been having a good old chuckle this morning after the results of his dirty work against the BBC bore fruit. Allan was, of course, the PR man who leaked a tape of the memorably injudicious speech that BBC sacred site John Humphrys made at a PR forum.
Humphrys must have realised that the scorn he poured on the government during the address left himself vulnerable to attack, and so it proved to be when the great man measured up to David Blunkett on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 and queried a tabloid story about the pensions secretary’s private life.
“Can you carry on doing your job in the cabinet with the kind of publicity that you’re getting?” Humphrys asked, which led to this instant Blunkett riposte: “Can you carry on doing your job at the BBC with the kind of publicity that you’ve been getting?”
Monkey’s match report: Blunkett 1, Humphrys 0.
Touché! See also Thompson spooked by Sky News, as noted by Ritter in the B-BBC comments:
Someone tell the producers on BBC1 drama Spooks they aren’t helping director general Mark Thompson’s crusade to boost News 24. Mark says he’s tired of turning up in newsrooms and studios to find Sky News on the monitors, rather than News 24.
You might want to have a chat with Peter Fincham then, Mark. Despite protestations a couple of years ago from ex-controller Lorraine Heggessey that Spooks doesn’t plug Sky News, last night’s episode of the latest series of the hit MI5 drama featured no less than five – count ’em – Sky News presenters. If even MI5 tunes into Sky to find out the latest news then what hope does News 24 have?
Presumably Mark’s staff prefer Sky so they can be first with the news too!