Anyone listen to this encounter between John “I like to interrupt” Humphyrs and Conservative Minister Grant Shapps? The hostility shown towards Shapps is really visceral but I was glad that he did not take it all lying down and fought back against the smearing that Today excels at doing. The “social housing” riff is simply a narrative that allows Today to attack the Coalition and employ the talking points Labour provides them.
SHAPPS WITH ICE
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I (almost) wept when I heard this travesty of an interview. Not because Humphrys was at his sneering, aggressive best but because Shapps refused to defend himself.
“Refused” because he was badly briefed by his civil servants who either misunderstood the statistics issued or wilfully (I wonder why?) allowed Shapps to be trapped. As the ineffable Tim Worstall revealed in this posting on Wednesday http://timworstall.com/2011/11/23/454-affordable-housing-starts/ “affordable housing” starts due to the official central government schemes mentioned were indeed 454, however – bringing in non-central government sponsored schemes – there were 9,760 “affordable housing” starts made in all.
To quote Worstal “The Minister is saying that central government plans delivered 454 affordable housing starts. Devolved, local and semi-private sector provided some 20 times that number”. If Shapps can’t/won’t defend himself then it’s an open door to the BBC twisting the figures to embarrass the coalition. Unsurprisingly the BBC ran screaming through the open door and, were I looking to traduce the coalition (albeit with twisted statistics), so would I.
Oh, is THAT what all the shouting was about – I had the kettle on at the time (and couldn’t discern what the raised voice was about), before tuning in to Classic FM, which has become my preference lately.
Humphrys probably thought that they had their political enemy bang to rights, it must have sounded so concrete when the BBC toadies and the labour party and shelter got together to make up this attack.
Ooops, the facts dont quite fit, it was not the silver bullet the axis powers beieved it to be, not quite thought through and Shapps was able to escape. He also corrected the furious beeboid, always sure to enrage them, the toadies DID make an accusation about Shapps refusing to take part, Humphrys knew that.
So, no real story of interest to the public, just another concocted bag of lies by the left, just another in a long line of hit pieces that went wrong. And to quote shelter as though they were the last word in integrity and honesty is typical of the BBC isnt it? In fact the BBC loves to quote from its stable of leftist mouthpieces coming out of the woodwork when needed. The fact that these loudmouths employ the methods of the modern quangoid cooperative on behalf of a client class of victims, not doing anything so beneath them as actually providing housing themselves they take in monies and spend it on lobbying and the bulk on themselves. But that is how charities have become degenerate frauds, corrupted by politics and greed.
Cue soft backgound music.
Cue woman with the sexy voice.
Action!
“Four hundred and fifty four.
Plucked from obscurity by a fine New Statesman journalist.
Nurtured and shielded from context by the Guardian.
Elevated to catastrophe status by John Humphrys.
Four hundred and fifty four.
This is not just a number. This is a BBC number..”
….And cut. Thank you, darlings. You were marvellous.
cassandra
I don’t know what interview you listened to but “success for Shapps” was not the result here. Shapps – using the statistics already in the public domain – could have silenced Humphrys within 10 seconds of the start of this item. He didn’t. Yes, he wriggled successfully (and, miracle of miracles, even said out loud that Shelter might be a tad impartial on its interpretation of the statistics) but the impression still left was of government heartlessness evidenced by the (non)fact that less than 500 rather than almost 10,000 “affordable” (ie subsidised) houses were started in the period under review.
Yes I suppose Shapps did come out of this in a slightly better position than the BBC would have liked. Mind you Humphrys would prefer any member of the government turning up to defend (in Humphrys’ view) the indefensible (ie anything to the right of the Labour briefing notes he uses as a crib) to be whipped through the streets of London and crucified outside St Pauls: but that ain’t going to happen this side of Christmas. Shapps, though, could have triumphed here: he could have nailed the BBC and Shelter for deliberately misusing the statistics available and could have shut down Humphrys’ hysterical interviewing technique pronto. He failed to do either.
p
At first, I thought the booking deal was an honest misunderstanding, and Shapps was pissed off that Today tried to make him look like a he backed out when he thought he didn’t do it on purpose. But then when they finally got around to the actual issue, it was clear that the Today agenda – which Humphrys obviously supported – was to inform the audience that Shapps really was a coward and didn’t want to appear on the show and talk about the social housing issue right before the official announcement. The numbers on the face of it don’t look good for the Tories, so the Today Beeboids used that line of attack.
Shapps figured it out, and was even clever enough to bring it up again later. What is so pathetic is that the BBC line is that the figures are “appalling” because one must constantly spend taxpayer money to subsidize housing for Gaia knows how many people.
What about all the empty houses out there now? Not counting Sussex, of course. I know for a fact that homes and buildings are often chopped up into smaller units. I’ve seen it first hand. It’s nothing unusual, happens all the time, all over the world. Yet the BBC and, let’s face it, Labour, refuse to admit that there’s another option besides throwing money into the construction industry. May as well revive Gordon Brown’s doomed PFIs, and keep them off the books, thus adding another several billion to your debt.
Shapps didn’t have the wherewithal to take that line, as he’s ultimately as wet as Cameron and the rest of them. I’d bet that there is no reason to build one more house beyond the 454 they’re talking about. Both sides are pathetic here, but the BBC has a duty to look beyond the Labour agenda.
Did Humphreys make the phone call, himself, personally? If not, how can he be sure that Shapps’ staff are to blame and it wasn’t the Beeboids who made a mistake?
Humphreys clearly has a degree of adamantine certainty that he is simply not willing to grant Shapps. It is Beeboid arrogance laid bare.
A good example of the BBC taking up the role of an unofficial opposition. It is not in their charter to do that and I would suggest most licence payers do not want that kind of anti-Government campaigning.