Another boring story
It’s not a good day for Peter Mandelson. Well, at least it isn’t if you read the paper – any paper. Mandy admits tycoon meetings, says the Sun; Mandelson back under the miscroscope, says the Guardian; while the Mail is a little more wordy with Mandelson admits he has known Russian oligarch years longer than he previously acknowledged; the Telegraph, though, is worst of all: Mandelson admits public were misled, it says. It’s no better elsewhere: Pressure rises on Mandelson, says the Press Association; and ITV goes with something similar: Pressure mounts on Mandelson. So, what of the BBC? Well, there doesn’t seem to be quite the same level of enthusiasm. Instead it opts for the fairly innocuous Mandelson met with tycoon in 2004. Even that, though is an improvement on its earlier draft which had Mandelson clarifies tycoon meetings.
Understandably, the BBC’s Nick Robinson has so far resisted the urge to blog on such a dull-sounding story. Nor has Robert Peston, despite there being an obvious business angle this time. Well, it is the weekend, after all.
It really is astounding. Mandelson has been lying for weeks about this; how does one forget about meeting someone for the first time? And they really are going to let him get away with it. Also, when the story is mentioned, they keep using the opportunity to remind people of Osborne saga – like it is somehow related.
Yes, I was amazed at listening to the BBC this morning that its still Osborne in the firing line and although Mandelson is probably up to far more dubious activities not a word. Should anyone want an example of BBC bias surely this must be it.
Yes, and what’s worse is that the top story in the BBC’s RH side bar is headlines:
Osborne Donations Row
When will they come clean and admit THERE WAS NO DONATION?
Notice as well how Mandy has done this via a letter to the Times. So why isn’t he on the BBC being asked about it?
Normally he is never off the TV when he’s sticking the knife in.
You just know this is going to end in tears and Mandelson will be found out for being up to no good.
Hope the rest of this country see the BBC for what they are now.
Ive been in Pre-mod for more than one year on their message boards. Seems like they hold a grudge.
I only stated that they are New labour stooges and that they are Biased. Ne’er mind eh.
Also, when the story is mentioned, they keep using the opportunity to remind people of Osborne saga – like it is somehow related.
The Raven | Homepage | 25.10.08 – 2:16 pm | #
This point being highlighted perfectly by the “Key Stories” in the side bar, all of which refer to Osbourne’s supposed indiscretions.
Could they not find any stories on their site which relate to Mandy’s propensity for sleaze and muck raking, which they could link to? Probably not!
This is really going to hurt the BBC – if the conservatives get in in 2010 (although the BBC will try and prevent a “Tory” government at all costs). They have been rumbled and not by the usual “right wing” thinkers but even labour supporters, if the editors blog is anything to go by.
The Ministry of truth should be hanging its head in shame over this coverage. But they never will, they simply have no shame.
They cannot see, or understand, how the great unwashed – we members of the general public who pay their wages – could ever think they are biased. They think because they produce Eastenders or strictly come dancing that the proles are happy and don’t give a toss about news.
Day after day they churn out stories which could have been written by NuLabour spinmiesters and simply copied and pasted to BBC news editors with the instruction: “Doubleplus good coverage please”
Then their pathetic editors come crawling out of the woodwork to deny their are biased!
They are new labour toadies through and through; the bias is institutionalised, and they are rotten to the core.
Incoming conservative government: please remember all this and do the decent thing – make the BBC pay it’s own way.
It has lost the public’s trust, and so should lose public funding.
The mandy story was all over today this morning. Nothing about osbourne. The programme had lots of right wing types. Tory spokesman on item about exclusions; no govt spokeman. Then a long item about the financial crisis, and discussion with ken clarke and tim congdon. No lefties they. Then evan davies gave a public sector union leader a right drubbing on pensions. Plus the usual christian propaganda on thought for the day. Perhaps this site is beginning to turn the beeb around. It was as ever a terrific programme .
I see the BBC have been giving us one side of the Mandelson story YET again.
Here’s a little quote from the Times about 18 months ago.
“…BRITAIN’S EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, has been the subject of an official rebuke after refusing to reveal details of meetings with industry lobbyists.
The EU’s watchdog issued the formal censure last week after a two-year investigation into Mandelson’s refusal to name the lobbyists he had met.
The European ombudsman ruled that Mandelson’s office had been “wrongly blanking out the names of industry lobbyists” in documents released to the public. It said that “disclosure of names of individual lobbyists is essential”. The failure to reveal this information “would constitute an instance of maladministration by the commission”….”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2159307.ece
whitewineliberal: Oh really. Can you please name the Tories that were on the news? All I’ve see is Lib Dem Norman Baker on TV.
The BBC might have reported the story, but as usual nothing is being mentioned that Mandelson LIED about his first meeting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7690459.stm
“The row about the party on board Mr Deripaska’s yacht relates to allegations that the shadow chancellor George Osborne, who was also attending, attempted to solicit a £50,000 Tory donation from him. Mr Osborne has firmly denied the claims.”
That’s now ‘the row’ though. This is a different issue – Mandelson meeting Deripaska a full year before Osborne was even Shadow Chancellor, and then lying about it.
whitewhineliberal
I can confirm that there was an item on the Toady programme this morning about the Mandleson letter to the Times. Quite understated as you would expect, between Humphrys and some lightweight female BBC correspondent I had never heard of before. Where was Robinson or Peston? Of course the opportunity was not missed to bring Osbourne into the discussion to a much greater level than Mandleson was being mentioned when previously discussing “Osbourne”.
The only other Conservative I heard was the shadow Schools Minister talking about exclusions – a subject the Conservatives have raised.
As I posted on the general thread, this morning, while the Press used phrases like ‘Mandleson admits’, the BBC”s website – acting for all the world like Buckingham Palace circa 1953 – said that Mandleson had ‘clarified’ his position.
It’s an attempted whitewash of one of the most evil men in recent British politics.
Whitewineliberal:
Name says it all, when it comes to who agrees with the BBC line.
As for the BBC, rumours have it that “Mandy” as the BBC likes to affectionately call him, is in the shit right up to his neck. Robinson’s boast about not reporting his dealings with the Russian ‘cos obviously it wasn’t anything to worry about, will come back to haunt the Labour shills in the BBC news department.
But, the story with Osbourne (a twat bye-the-way), is pre-empting a story-line of equivalence with what Mandelscum has been doing. They tried to do this when Haine and the like, were caught out with donations scandals (still not resolved incidentally).
I actually think that Mendelscum and the wankers at the BBC have been deliberatley planning this, since Mendelscum realised he’d been caught out a few weeks ago. It an obvious case of collusion, again, between BBC Newss and Labour spinners.
Spot the difference between a BBC website story covering a political friend/fellow traveller and a BBC/socialist class enemy!
The BBC website covers the Mandelson affair by instantly contradicting the accusations,no evidence is allowed to put directly by an accuser, every paragraph is an attempted clearing excersise, the quote box attached is given over to a Mandelson quote whereas if a class enemy is being attacked the quote box is given over to an attacker of the reported subject.
What you get in effect is an attempted instant demolition of the charges against Mandelson!
The nature of BBC bias is stark and undeniable when the coverage of the recent Osbourne accusations or the BNP meeting/protest and the Mandelson cover job are placed side by side!
The BBC trust should have been onto transparent cover up jobs like this in an instant but they are now merely accomplices having been infiltrated and sabotaged long ago.
The BBC is becoming more of a joke as each day passes:
Recession fear as economy shrinks
The fall in UK output has been blamed on the credit crunch, falling house prices and rising energy prices, which have forced consumers to tighten their belts.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7686552.stm
What utter twats the BBC are, forever polishing that Brown turd. Here’s the truth.
Sterling plummets on the back of Brown’s debt-fuelled economy
……Debt is how Brown governed. It was his dope. It’s the key to understanding the UK economy in the last decade and the reckless nature of Brown’s short-termist policies.
…..Brown gambled the UK economy on a hunch that interest rates would stay low. It has failed, and now the UK public finances are going to hell in a handcart. We’re being led by a Prime Minister who ran up a 3% deficit in the boom years and we’re now looking a deficit hitting 7% by the 2010 general election • territory not seen since the IMF bailout. There is a serious prospect that Brown will try and inflate his way out of this debt problem, a prospect which terrifies currency dealers. I have heard serious people talking about parity with the dollar.
I would love to hear Brown explain why sterling’s crash is a problem that started in America. It’s a problem that started in 11 Downing Street • when he decided to conceal debt, leverage up the British economy and personally design a banking regulatory structure that allowed UK banks to be literally the most leveraged out of any outside Reykjavik.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2545296/sterling-plummets-on-the-back-of-browns-debtfuelled-economy.thtm
The BBC. So far up the Labour arse as to be a national embarrassment.
The BBC have crossed a line with their coverage of the “Storm over Corfu” and the pathetic justifications being offered by such as Steve Mawhinney are attracting appropriate derision.
The Conservatives must realise that the BBC will do anything to ensure a Labour victory at the next election and plan their campaign accordingly. maybe every time a Conservative spokesman appears on a BBC “news” programme they could ask the questioner why the BBC is “institutionally biased” against the Conservative party – constant repetition might get the message across to the general public.
Does anyone want to offer odds on Mandy being Pestons “nu-lab” source ?
Decent chance, 1327. Peston is about as close to the internal workings of the Labour party as any one of them since Marr.
I urge everyone to read the blogs Of Steve mawhinney/Robert Peston/Nick Robinson, they will peel the enamel from your teeth but they are very revealing!
The BBC agitators know they have been caught bang to rights obeying labour orders to exploit a smear story while protecting a Labour minister, its exactly like the child and the broken window excuse, child with a football standing next to a smashed window, boy looks guilty and says ‘it woz a bird wot flew into it’!
Toe curling self justifications by people who know they have no defence, just relying on any bullshit however weak, they simply havent got the character or sense to see that putting their hands up and saying sorry would earn them more respect than the blatant lying they are now clinging to!
Those three will be keeping their heads down for a while hoping it all goes away? Will the BBC trust investigate? Haaa fat chance, they have already been handed detailed instructions on the conclusions of any investigation that may be carried out ie not guilty blah blah!
Surprise surprise, the Mandelson story has virtually disappeared from the BBC web site, except for a small headline in the side bar, a denial “no interference from Mandelson”. If you click on the story then we’re told “Lord Mandelson clarified his dealings in a letter to a national newspaper” and to the right of the page there are no fewer than eight headlines about Osborne, including “Should Osborne face an inquiry”. The latest allegations have absolutely no link to the Osborne story – the only possible reason for them being there is to detract from Mandelson’s dodgy dealings and further smear the Tories.
I can barely watch BBC news these days, their political reporting is all either “Gordon says…” or “the government has promised…” the only time the Tories get a look in his when the BBC is attacking them. I might as well go and visit the Labour Party web site.
Again, if this doesn’t convince the Tories to do away with the BBC nothing will.
Suggestion for DC at the next PM Questions.
Your final answer last week said George Osbourne should be investigated. Could the Prime Minister clarify which law he beleves to have been broken and to whom he thinks the matter should be referred to.
Thank you. Could the Prime Minister offer any suggestions as to why the BBC’s leading economics commentator, your official biographer I recall, should be at the forefront ot the BBC output on the so-called Osbourne affair when Nick Robinson would seem to have been sufficiently briefed to run the story by himself.
Oh how I would love to hear the PM replies and see how Today in Parliament covered it the next day.
Yeeees!
The NOW have got the goods on Mandelsnake tomorrow:-
Mandy faces EU probe
Top Brussels watchdog makes complaint about Peter Mandelson
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/article52917.ece
Look forawrd to wall to wall coverage from the Beeb’s two blind monkeys tomorrow.
Mandelson had to resign twice from a New Labour government, then he is brought in a a”Lord” to handle business matters – and the BBC treat this as normal.
I used to believe in the system when the House of Lords balanced the outlandish policies from the commons, but now I would like to see them abolished – every single institution in this country has been undermined by this government that now there are no checks and balances anywhere
Robert Peston is a friend of Roland Rudd,who is a friend of Lord Minge,who is a friend of….
Well spotted JRSIHG – you even beat Guido to that!
We shall now, as you say, sit back and wait to enjoy the thorough BBC evisceration of this crook.
Or not, as seems rather more likely.
What a difference a change in presenter makes!
Scroll forward to approx. 41:00 for your viewing pleasure.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00f1w9b/The_Andrew_Marr_Show_19102008/
Exit jug-eared turnip-headed amateur Andy Marr and enter unassuming and delectable Sophie Raworth. She runs rings around him.
Good to see the old queen Mandelson visibly rattled, Raworth remaining clinical, probing yet civil and completely unfazed by Mandelson’s veiled threats. He cannot open his mouth without lying and Rayworth sees right through him.
Being of a suspicious turn of mind I wonder it this Mandelson affair is all it seems.
“Keep your friends close but your enemies closer”
If that is Gordon brown’s gameplan then it might make sense.
tempt a man with ermine and a title and make sure he finds himself in the spotlight and then sit back and wait.
Could be. If so GB has certainly gone up in my estimation.
The BBC is inclined to have its political line on Labour’s unelected Lord Mandelson filtered through European Union statements, as here:
“‘No interference’ from Mandelson”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7690998.stm
But the following alternative report, from ‘The Independent’ is not so EU politically orientated:
” A final favour? How Mandelson’s last act in Brussels boosted Russian oligarch ” (by Jane Merrick).
[Extract]:
“Peter Mandelson’s last act as European Trade Commissioner was to advocate new trade rules that will directly benefit the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
“Less than a month ago, in one of his final speeches before being recalled to the Cabinet and after he accepted hospitality on the Russian’s yacht, Lord Mandelson announced a new EU trade strategy giving multinational companies freer access to raw materials, including scrap aluminium and natural minerals used in the production of the metal.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/a-final-favour-how-mandelsons-last-act-in-brussels-boosted-russian-oligarch-973813.html