Was watching Peter Mandelson on the Marr programme. Now the Marr sofa’s prime purpose is to provide a platform for a series of leftists to come on and attack the Coalition but Mandelson, as ever, pushed the envelope. With a straight face, he emphasised to Marr the need to sustain “fiscal responsibility”. This coming from a member of the Government which has devastated British finances! Marr never challenged Mandelson’s claim and thus it is being established that Labour were fiscally prudent. 24 hour propaganda in every guise.
BBC REVISIONISM
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This BBC “spectacular” is coming across like Walter Mitty is interviewing Walter Mitty.
Did Andrew Marr raise the subject of Peter Mandelson’s meetings with Saif Gaddafi, Nat Rotschild and Oleg Deripaska? Even the BBC web news manage to report that story – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9407335.stm – although they can’t seem to bring themselves to report on the close links between the LSE’s David Held, Saif Gaddafi and Ed Miliband; I wonder why – http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2011/02/bbc-hiding-labour-links-to-saif-gaddafi.html
Nothing on the Ed Miliband link Not a Sheep.
Marr did mention Mandelson’s links with Saif Gaddafi, but he did it gently, asking such questions as “Now you met Saif Gaddafi, Colonel Gaddafi’s second son, I think two or three times altogether?” and “What impression did you form of him?” Nothing about Nat Rothchilld or Deripaska, and certainly no questions along the lines of, “Lord Mandelson, you famously attended a pheasant shooting party with Said Gaddafi…”
Some challenging of Mandelson did come later (the only part of this abysmal interview where he was challenged), when Marr pressed him over whether Gaddafi had “duped” Blair over weapons of mass destruction and whether there was a link between the release of al-Megrahi and deals with BP – specifically BP. Attacks from the Left. (Mandelson briefly turned catty as a result).
Oddly, Marr did mention the “shooting party” in his interview with William Hague, but in a contextless way.
Hague was talking about the steps the government had taken to isolate the family of the Libyan leader, ending with “It’s very clear where we stand on his status as a head of state.”
Marr then said, “No more shooting parties for Saif Gadaffi in Britain?”
“I’m afraid not”, said Hague. “Mmm”, said Marr.
Few viewers, I would guess, know anything about this shooting party involving Saif Gadaffi and Lord Mandelson. If I’m being cynical (and I may be going too far here), I’d say that Marr introduced it here to cover his back – as people like Not a Sheep, who know about politics, would be expecting him to ask about it -while phrasing it in such a way as to leave it hanging, cryptically, in the air. Any viewer who registers the remark would not have connected it to Labour.
Is this too cynical?
Labour’s pretence that they never overspent and that the current need for spending cuts is nothing to do with them, guv is really starting to get on my wick. As is the BBC allowing them to do so with barely a murmur.
Sometimes I wish Labour had squeaked the last election and had to take the consequences of their own irresponsibility. That would have finished them for good, much like has happened in Ireland. And as a bonus, Cameron would be gone.
Alas, as we sow, so shall we reap…
I thought so at the time. I feel Cameron thought it was his only chance at getting the job, so he conceded Left, lefter and centre to the Liberals just so he could become PM.
That’s also why Labour made no real attempt to form a government with the Liberals. They pretended they were trying by inviting the Liberals to meetings but not actually making any concessions that the Liberals could use. This meant they could blame the Liberals for not going along with the “progressive” consensus. It was very clever really and a Balls stitch-up:-
1. The Liberals would lose a lot of support by aligning themselves with the “Nasty Tory” Party,
2. The Conservatives would lose out as they would get the blame for the cuts that any incoming party would have to make. They would also carry the can for the devastation of the Liberals (see their current poll rating).
3. They could get rid of Gordon Brown who was a vote liability.
4. They wouldn’t have to try and sort out the economy that they screwed up in the first place, and can waltz back in in five years blaming the Coalition for the mess that they woulfd still be trying to clear.
This of course can be done knowing full well that the BBC will be supporting all their dirty moves and blaming the wrong people.
And Cameron is too keen on himself to realise that it would have been better to let in a Left-Wing coalition who would have been kicked out within 18 months. The Conservatives would have been able to come back then with an overall majority and a mandate to govern properly for the people of Britain.
My previous comment was a reply to Roland’s last paragraph.
Marr’s interview with Mandelson fell into two parts. The first part dealt with Ed Miliband and the domestic political scene and showed Marr at his worst – and at his most protective (of Labour).
Mandy has made some sharp criticisms of Ed Miliband recently (especially in the book he was so shamelessly plugging, with the BBC’s help), saying that Miliband risked making his party as unelectable as it was in the days of Foot and Kinnock, that he risked making it even more mistrusted over the economy, that Ed became Labour leader by a “wafer-thin” majority because of the union barons and that he is quick to say what he’s against (Tory and Blairite policies) but rarely says what he’s for.
Strong stuff, yet Marr put none of it to Mandelson. Wouldn’t any self-respecting journalist, with such dynamite material at hand, have used at least some of it in this interview? (Unless he’s a partisan hack, of course).
This is what Marr asked Mandelson about Ed Miliband:
Now you have been observing from a distance what’s been going on since Ed Miliband, slightly to your surprise (as to many peoples’ surprise), won the Labour Party leadership. You have been pretty close to him from time to time. What do you make of how he’s going?
And that was it.
Marr knows what Mandelson has said, yet he asked him nothing about it. Mandy said lots of nice things about Ed in reply today, and expressed his hopes for the future, unchallenged.
The answer is in your question; “Wouldn’t any self-respecting journalist,”. At £600k a year, self respect and ethics do not exist.
The rest of the section on domestic politics was just as useless from Marr.
When Mandelson warned of the dangers for Labour of alienating the Lib Dems, Marr backed him up. Mandelson then agreed with Marr’s supportive point. Cosy.
The next tough question was “And what about tax?” As David points out, no challenge over Mandelson’s talk of “fiscal responsibility”. No challenge at all. In fact, all we got was this:
Mandelson: They don’t like the fast and furious spending cuts that the government is making at the moment, I think in a rather foolhardy…
Marr (loudly): Yes
Mandelson…way.
Again, that was it.
No member of the previous labour regime has ever been seriously challenged about the errors and mistakes and bad planning and wild overspending by the BBC.
The past does not exist where labour are concerned where the past is never far away form the minds of the BBC where the tories are concerned. They forget so very quickly, the past lost in a pinkish fog of happy memories of a wonderful government unfairly treated by the tories and the ungrateful public.
Socialists giving other socialists ego handjobs every time they meet, you can bet your life that is Cameron had been doing deals with the mad colonel and licking his boots like labour did the BBC would be blaring it from the rooftops with rent a comment scum lining up round the block to throw the accusations.
Just watched the Marr Show paper review, with Kate Adie and Andrew Roberts. Marr craftily mentioned the profiles of Saif Gaddafi in the Independent and Sunday Times that show Saif’s links to Mandelson and Blair.
Except that Marr didn’t put it that way. He said to Kate Adie, “And just briefly (why ‘just briefly’ Andy?) you mentioned Saif Gaddafi as being crucial to this. There’s a very interesting trough the papers of him and the circles around him. Lots and lots of business connections. Lots of connection to London.”
Yes, a lots of connections to the the biggest beasts of the Labour Party too!!
Kate mentioned Prince Andrew, BP and Deripaska, even though the newspaper page being showed by the camera clearly also showed Lord Mandelson and Tony Blair.
Marr then intervened with an OK and a “let’s move to…”. This prevented the wonderful Andrew Roberts (a true right-winger) from having his say on this story. On to New Zealand (safe for Labour, but a story the BBC haven’t given justice too.)
Although I’m inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt, I’m not inclined to give Marr the benefit of the doubt here. He knew what he was doing, phrasing it like that, ignoring the Labour names, excluding Andrew Roberts.
In fact Andrew Roberts got to speak about Libyan internal politics (his own choice), the New Zealand earthquake (at Marr’s invitation), the Royal Wedding (at Marr’s invitation), Queen Victoria and (at Marr’s invitation) the Oscars.
A rare true right-winger on the sofa and he’s largely made to talk about non-political stories and trivia. Deliberately?
What else? But we can see through the subterfuge.