You have to laugh at the sheer cynicism of the BBC. This morning we awoke to the news that official figures show the UK’s economic growth in 2013 was the strongest since 2007, the year before the financial crisis. Instantly, the BBC produced an economist who was able to tell us that whilst the UK IS experiencing economic growth, it is mostly in London and the south of England. Ah, that pesky growth, discriminating against our friends in the North. The BBC increasingly sounds like an echo chamber for Ed Balls and his cliched mantra that WHATEVER the growth is does not resolve his “cost of living crisis”. Nor can it – since that is a political invention to replace his clapped out “Plan B” narrative.
GOOD NEWS IS BAD NEWS…
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Today’s Five Live Drive has gone into overdrive trying to prove that this recovery is not happening. The good economic stats are obviously driving them spare. But never fear, with the right selection of downtrodden interviewees, it is easy to disprove the recovery!
It is just the same old BBC story. If the simple facts don’t fit their view of how things should be we get the famous BBC analysis to explain why.
Today the BBC told us of a huge new wind farm off Cumbria that will provide power for thousands of homes. No knocking, negative analysis given for this story, such as telling us it’ll provide power for zero homes lots of the time if it is like many other wind farms.
‘… the BBC produced an economist who…’
Probably BBC favorite Jonathan Portes, former economic adviser to Labour during their disastrous wrecking spree. Plus advised on education and immigration – everything he touched was a disaster.
Yet to the BBC, he’s independent.
I seem to recall the BBC not being terribly interested reporting what happened around London and the South East when the recession first hit towards the end of 2008 / beginning of 2009. Fifty percent of shops in my local area were closed by then for instance and many thousands were made redundant (not just bankers).
Of course the recovery is going to take longer to hit the regions beyond the South East – that is the way it always works in the UK whether you like it or not.
The ‘feelgood factor’ will of course lag behind the gradual return of economic confidence – what sort of economic illiterate could possibly think otherwise?
It was Peston and his predictions of decline and doom when the recession first hit that accelerated the pace of the downturn.
Not to mention he started the run on Northern Rock. No other journalist has ever caused as much economic mayhem.