Hi folks! Am back after a short break and just in time to hear the BBC chirping with delight at the problems Osborne is facing in his Autumn financial statement. I caught the Today broken earlier and their delight that Osborne was not going to hit some of his targets was visceral. There was the unholy trinity of Flanders, Robinson and Easton on at 8.10am to pronounce on the failures of the Coalition. How they miss the sunny uplands of the Labour years when the country was professionally steered towards bankruptcy. The thing is, I have little sympathy for Osborne (who in my opinion has wimped out of making the really hard cuts to the State sector required) but when one remembers the kid gloves worn by the BBC when Brown and Darling went a spending it is perfectly obvious a double standard in play here.
GLEE CLUB…
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Visceral delight? Goodness. I heard grimly austere support from Flanders, lovelorn admiration from Robinson and tub thumping delight from Easton.
‘heard..’
It’s a mentality that for sure exists a lot within the BBC bubble, but is not in itself any more than a confirmation of personal fealty, and hence… how to put it… pretty pointless.
‘Bet you wonder how I knew, ’bout your plans to make us red…’
Not sure if the loss of marbles is well attributed either.
‘Grimly austere support’.
Examples aplenty needed to back that one up, I’m afraid. Can you oblige?
And Flanders calling the Euro crisis an ‘alibi’ for Osborne. What’s that then?
I guess it depends how you translate what you hear, Jim. I await the views of others. As for “Two Eds” Flanders and her Keynsian tendency, not sure why she would change her ongoing economic views….
Indeed it does.
The ‘two Eds’ thing is getting a little distasteful fellows. Flanders is a top flight economic journalist. We should judge her on that not alleged ( by the Mail) youthful romances.
ahahahahahahahahahaha
you cannot be serious!!!!
It’s mildly amusing but does highlight a real issue for the BBC as so many of its journalists are friends of, children of, or spouses of Labour Party MPs etc. It has got so silly that before the last election they sent the son of a senior Labour MP to interview him.
Flanders has clearly had long standing relationships (of whatever form) with the two Eds opening up the possibility of bias. A judge would recuse herself based on that so why doesn’t Flanders?
‘Flanders is a top flight economic journalist. We should judge her on that’
Not sure you’d want to be judged on that, but getting taken seriously appears a boat you have long since waved away over the horizon to get holed and now is found resting at the bottom of the Marinas Trench.
‘She’s like the Elton John of finance’
Past it and trading on old glory and insider connections?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/30/stephanie-flanders-budgets-banks-ed-balls
‘I ask her whether it’s true that she went out with Ed Balls and Ed Miliband. This she doesn’t think is funny at all. “It was so much less interesting than people think, even at the time, let alone now. It’s just not relevant, any more than anything else people have done 20 years ago would be relevant to what they do now.”
Right wing rag. Mind you, Jim, when someone doesn’t answer a question like that, how do you usually respond?
But wait, there’s more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2011/feb/20/stephanie-flanders-bbc-economics-interview
Is there any truth in the rumour that you dated both Ed Balls and Ed Miliband?
I’m not going to go there. It’s widely known that I took Ed Balls’s job at the FT, and it’s true that I’ve known these people for a long time, and people can draw their own conclusions. But whether or not you’ve sort of snogged them at whatever moment just seems completely mad
So that would be… what Jim?
Mr. Paxman may not be so forgiving were he to be across the chair asking the questions.
As she is so reluctant to speak, there is irony in this..
http://www.speakersassociates.com/Stephanie-Flanders.aspx?gclid=CPPz8JiHg7QCFcrItAoddl8AqA
Whaddyarekkon? Good for a half-Bowen or a Full-Miliband on the circuit? The speaking one, that is.
But at least the BBC has no interest in who snogged whom in different times…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033499/BBC-plan-film-Tory-links-vice-girl-George-Osborne-cocaine-pictures.html
JKR on script oversight?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14880321
‘The Indy says..’ and the BBC merely quotes, eh?
Good season for pulling other ones with bells on, mind.
It’s just not relevant.
‘It’s just not relevant.”
It’s not, it’s not, it’s not….
If you say so, Jim.
That ‘tell it often enough’ strategy… didn’t work out too well the last time either.
Ask Mrs. Hodge for an update.
Nor are your contributions on here, Jim, I’m afraid. They get more surreal by the day.
I’m not sure what you find distasteful about “Two Eds”, Jim. It could be a lot more distasteful than that. (And no, that’s not a challenge, before anyone gets the wrong idea.)
It’s very relevant to highlighting the incestuous nature of BBC journalists and political personalities, predominantly Labour.
It’s possible Jim is regretting raising anything of the sort by now.
Defining a woman, who has a distinguished career, by alleged youthful romances is snide and irrelevant and (tin hat on) sexist.
What Flanders did or did not do with the two Eds isn’t the issue. It’s how incestuously close many in the BBC are to Labour that is.
Why can’t the BBC employ an economics editor who isn’t a long standing friend of the Labour leader and his shadow chancellor? Why can’t they employ a political correspondent who isn’t the son of a Labour MP? Why can’t they employ a presenter of a ‘flagship’ news show who isn’t a friend of the former Labour leader in Scotland who gave her production company work?
However her (alleged) dalliances with the Rt. Hon. gentlemen must surely call her supposed position of impartiality in the BBC into question.
Given that Nick Robinson being chair of the Oxford YCs is always considered irrelevant by BBBC commenters, I would say no if you wish to remain consistent.
was he shagging any of them?
So… (allegedly) getting jiggy way back when with two of the current (tba) top Opposition pols still being BJ’d by the BBC at every turn is in your head equated to being a political wonk back in one’s school days a few decades ago and flipping over later on when the optimal bread buttering side for a PPE drone is clear to see.
And where you presume to advise what is not relevant that is addressed, you now seek to raise as relevant what you wish?
Unique.
Full marks for consistency, mind.
lol.
Toenails has thoroughly repudiated his ‘Tory past’ many, many times; almost with the zeal of the ex-smoker.
So, Sorry, no. Please try again.
Hi Jim
I am interested in this “Flanders is a top flight economic journalist.”
If so you might think that she would have been useful in discussing Greece and its problems.
Stephanie Flanders told us that Greece would NEVER default.
I note that this evening one of the ratings agencies has decided tonight that Greece has now defaulted twice this year alone..
Top credentials, yes indeed. They don’t get any better. Top flight? Not after so many advocacy failures.
“Two Eds” is still funny. I’ll stop using it when the BBC removes Kevin Connolly’s “teabaggers” line from this article. Never mind nearly four years of Mark Mardell calling me a crypto-racist.
“I guess it depends how you translate what you hear, Jim.”
Yeah, Jim – don’t you realise? If Vance interprets something that fits in with his own prejudices, it MUST be right. If you don’t hear anything which backs up his assertions, then it’s not a case of him being mistaken, it’s you being plain WRONG. This is the Biased BBC way, and no alternatives will be entertained.
And let’s just ignore all those times when Vance misreported what he heard or saw. I’m sure it’s the BBC’s fault that he can’t always tell which channel he’s watching.
‘no alternatives will be entertained’
Odd, as you guys seem to live on here like a rebuttal version of ‘Open All Hours’ being allowed to come up with just th… OK, no alternatives at all, just shrill knee jerk sniping.
Meanwhile the BBC appears, unlike this blog, to have modding on blogs they don’t like, banning of twitter followers they don’t like, expedited complaints for those asking questions they don’t like, and FoI-exclusion legal teams on the poll-fee for anything else not conforming to the BBC ‘way’.
All the ways you appear not to realise exist.
Do you only watch the BBC before regurgitating what you think they think you should?
Oh, here we go – the other Biased BBC fallback: anybody who disagrees with Biased BBC must be in league with the Beeb.
Bless. You’ve got to feel sorry for people who need conspiracy theories to make themselves feel important.
Oh, here we go – the other cherry vulture failback: anybody who points out logical fallacies must be distracted from in any way possible.
Bless. You’ve got to feel sorry for people who need forums they hate and no one but them pays any attention to (apparently) to make themselves feel important around their 3 chums.
I tend to agree DV but remember that GO is chained to the LibDems. Didn’t hear the programme so can only assume the BBC were as as per usual standards i.e. I very much doubt Flanders was supportive nor Robinson admiring as Jim suggests above.
I did, and in all honesty didn’t hear much wrong with it.
Easton was on his knees rapt with delight at the prospect of more righteous austerity.
Can’t confirm that. I only heard the radio broadcast, not the TV one.
Give us some quotes to get our teeth into, will you please, Jim? And plenty of em, of course.
Think yourself lucky if you didn’t see bBBC News 24, where they have found a ‘women’s centre’ full of unmarried mothers and welfare-scroungers, all of them wanting us to pay more to support their immoral lifestyles.
‘unmarried mothers and welfare-scroungers’
Given the implied mutual exclusivity, maybe the whole single parent, feral kid issue can be matchmade away in one fell swoop?
Or were the latter mainly on free WiFi iPads feverishly banging off the next ‘you’re all Daily Mail readers (except…er… guys like us)’ retort to website forums?
Please also listen to Roger Harrabin’s report from sunny Doha on the same programme this morning and Ed Davey giving away £2bn with the BBC’s complete approval.
http://order-order.com/2012/12/05/ed-balls-pre-budget-disaster/
‘His ex girlfiend Steph is on the BBC now trying to help him out.’
Comment 21.
Be quick now… fly, my pretties… fly!
hohoho
and that’s the idiot who wants to run the economy
he couldn’t run a bath
I was listening to Nicky Campbell on R5 this morning and he had John Pienaar on to help. In order to give the listeners some background to the problem they started reeling off the reasons for the deficit. Funny though they never included the Labour Government in their list.