Remarkable what a pro-SNP filter will do to your perceptions.  The BBC interviewed the SNP’s deputy leader Stewart Hosie who told us that the SNP would block any spending it didn’t like and that included defence spending and especially Trident…and Labour confirmed it would make a deal with the SNP if it was the only way to get into power.

This is the BBC’s report…

SNP to launch manifesto as parties continue campaigns

SNP deputy leader Stewart Hosie said his party’s manifesto would “lay out incredibly clearly how we intend to see a genuine end to austerity”, and would “try to bring progressive politics to the rest of the UK”.

Er…and that was that…not a mention of holding the country to ransom unless it got its way on Trident, the BBC preferring to emphasise ending austerity and imposing ‘progressive politics’.

How different other news providers….

The Telegraph:

SNP prepared to paralyse Armed Forces unless Trident is scrapped

Labour admits it is willing to do a deal with SNP to get Ed Miliband into No 10 as SNP threatens to block defence spending unless it gets its way on Trident

The Mail:

SNP threat to hold UK to ransom: Nationalists say they’ll block any spending they don’t like if they hold balance of power

The Times:

The Independent:

It’s not as if the BBC doesn’t know what the SNP said and recognised its significance, after all it was said in a BBC interview….the best the BBC can come up with is a reference to the ‘ransom’ in its what the papers say section…

Newspaper headlines: Migrant tragedy and SNP ‘ransom note’

 

In other words Fallon was right…Miliband is prepared to betray the UK to get into power by dealing with the SNP who will be happy to wreck the armed services for its own ends….and the BBC ignores both the threat from the SNP and the ‘stab in the back’ from Labour for the UK.

The Left are happy…migrants from African are dying in their hundreds and their deaths can be exploited by the likes of the BBC to promote an open door immigration policy….regardless of the consequences for European society and civilisation that that entails….and regardless of the consequences for the immigrants...’luring them to their death’.

Exrpressing cheap sympathy for the death of these people the BBC, and others, refuse to analyse what is going on.  Their simple, convenient, equation, designed as emotional blackmail, is that migrants are desperate to come here, they are dying in the attempt, and therefore to prevent them dying we must fling open the borders and let them in…never mind that in Libya alone there are reportedly over one million migrants , with more coming, waiting for their chance to head to Europe, the land of milk and honey.

The real solution is to send ground troops to stabilise Libya, to destroy ISIS and to prevent the boats being launched in the first place but the BBC, and the ‘Muslim community’, are opposed to that….the ‘Muslim community’ don’t want us fighting Islamic extremists like IS apparently, but are happy if the West could topple Assad in Syria for them…funny that.

Here is a classic bit of emotional blackmail and extremist rhetoric from the UN…..

Anti-immigrant rhetoric from politicians across Europe, including Britain, is blocking attempts to introduce large search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean that would save large numbers of migrant lives, a senior UN official has warned.

Laurens Jolles said political expediency was preventing measures being taken to reduce migrant deaths.

Jolles, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Italy, said: “In many countries in Europe at the moment, the [political] dialogue and the rhetoric is quite extreme and very irresponsible.”

No…. ‘anti-immigrant rhetoric from politicians’ is not killing anyone.  First it is the extremist pro-immigration, open border rhetoric that is encouraging people to try and come to Europe where they know they will be able to force countries to  look after them if they can make a landing.  It is the ‘come one come all’ rhetoric from the likes of the UN that creates these dangerous situations….you can see how Obama’s pro-immigration encouragement has resulted in a disastrous flood of illegal immigrants into the US…..The Spectator says...’The real culprit isn’t Triton but the EU’s tragic asylum and immigration policy. Though it is designed to save people, it instead lures them to their death.’

Second it is not the ‘politician’s’ rhetoric…they are expressing the will of the majority of the people that immigration should be controlled…and saying that immigration needs control is hardly ‘rhetoric that is quite extreme and very irresponsible’ as the UN claims.

Third the UN’s solution…ignore what the people think and impose draconian pro-immigration policies upon them.

Which is an irony….the UN tells us that these migrants are fleeing tyrannical, oppressive regimes and yet its solution is to create such regimes in Europe where the political ‘elite’ impose policies to deal with issues that the prejudiced and ignorant peasants, you and me, aren’t capable of understanding and who don’t have the capacity for intelligent thought and humane compassion in our sordid little lives that would allow us to empathise and understand these migrants.

The BBC thinks that hiding the realities of the situation will prevent an angry response as millions of immigrants continue to swarm across the borders….the reality is that the lack of debate and the lack of consent from the population for this immigration policy will result, eventually, in an extreme reaction against immigrants…the irony being that that is precisely what the BBC attempts to prevent.

In a Nicky Campbell phone-in we heard the accusation that anyone who opposes immigration would have opposed Jewish immigration in the 1930’s and thereby were themselves the equivalent of Nazis.

Campbell seemed to like that….but you could raise the inconvenient fact that the BBC blocked Churchill from the airwaves as he warned of the danger of Herr Hitler because the BBC didn’t want to upset Adolf just as they block or deride those speak of controlling immigration, or demand we change UK foreign policy so that we don’t upset the ‘Muslim community’.  If Churchill had been free to speak he may have influenced events and Europe may have done more to stop Hitler and prevented the war in which millions died.  The BBC’s good intentions helping to cause a war, just as their hiding of Assad’s chemical attack on a school before the crucial vote on Syria helped to create ISIS…..A ‘warning from history’….as is this…..

Terror on the streets of South Africa

Gaddafi also warned us…..

Back in August 2010, the Libyan despot went to Rome and made a blackmailing offer which many Italian politicians must now be wishing they had accepted.

Gaddafi said: ‘Italy needs to convince her European allies to accept this Libyan proposal – €5 billion [then about £4 billion] to Libya to stop illegal immigration. ‘Europe runs the risk of turning black from illegal immigration, it could turn into Africa. We need support from the European Union to stop this army trying to get across from Libya, which is their entry point.

‘At the moment there is a dangerous level of immigration from Africa into Europe and we don’t know what will happen.

‘What will be the reaction of the white Christian Europeans to this mass of hungry, uneducated Africans?’

‘We don’t know if Europe will remain an advanced and cohesive continent or if it will be destroyed by this barbarian invasion. We have to imagine that this could happen but before it does we need to work together.’

The BBC and their pro-immigration extremist ilk are storing up a dangerous and violent future for a Europe that is being  ‘invaded’ on many fronts.

Perfect example of how the BBC leaps upon race issues with glee…before checking what’s what…or as Breitbart says ‘Because of course the BBC can’t tell the difference between an outlandish, obviously fake social-justice obsessed parody account and a normal member of the public.’.….

Star Wars is ‘racist and homophobic’: BBC blunder as Twitter hoaxer is invited on air

Godfrey Elfwick

@GodfreyElfwick

Demisexual genderqueer Muslim atheist. Literal good guy. Itinerant jongleur. Pronouns are Xir, Xirs Xirself. Filters life through the lens of minority issues.

The perfect BBC interviewee.

A BBC spokesman said: “On this occasion, the Force was not with us.

“The guest presented himself as a 20-year-old who’s never seen Star Wars, and we put him on air under that pretence.

“WHYS producers always do their best to check guests in a live programme that invites global discussion from listeners.”

Sheeran has deleted her tweet inviting Elfwick on to the show.

 

 

The BBC brings us this…

Fewer nurses forecast for NHS – Labour

But is it true?  And if not why is the BBC putting up demonstrably false claims from Labour as headline news?

The BBC is scaremongering about the NHS by peddling Labour’s propaganda without question in an obvious and disgraceful attempt to smear the Tories….the morning news has been pumping out stories of the Tories’ ‘secret plan’ to reduce nursing numbers….Labour will, according to the BBC, provide 10,000 more nurses…paid for by…well the BBC doesn’t tell us……here’s their web report….

‘The number of NHS nurses in England is set to fall by almost 2,000 over the next four years according to government projections, Labour has said.

Accusing the Conservatives of having a “secret plan”, Labour’s Andy Burnham said fewer nurses would push hospitals “over the edge”.

The health document Labour is basing its claims on says fewer nurses would be employed because of “affordability”.’

 

A ‘secret plan’?  Or a freely available document?  A plan based upon ‘affordability’ or a plan based upon efficiency and making the most of every penny?  Here’s what the report actually says, as opposed to what the BBC tells us…

Firstly, planning the future workforce is more than just a numbers game. In order to ensure that future patient needs are met, we need to make sure that we have enough people with the right skills, values and behaviours available to work in the most appropriate setting for patients. The Five Year Forward View sets out new models of care that span both community and hospital settings. These models will require new skills and ways of working, and increasingly, we will need to commission new types of professionals, rather than just more of the same.

In other words it’s about retraining and moving staff around to provide a better service as well as adding staff numbers…working smart not just piling in large numbers of nurses who may not actually improve things but provide good headlines for politicians.

Here’s a graph that tells us nursing numbers are forecast to rise…though still under the level required to match demand…

And if it were a numbers game the number of nurses would seem to be going up not down…as for GPs and many other staff…

Here’s more of what the report says about recruitment…..

Overall, we are commissioning more education and training than ever before, with over 50,000 doctors in training and over 37,000 new training opportunities for nurses, scientists, and therapists. In many ways this is a good thing. But there are three reasons why we cannot and should not continue historic levels of growth in all areas indefinitely.

Last year, we significantly increased the number of commissions we made for adult nursing over and above local plans, representing a 9% increase on the previous year. For 2015/16, we plan to continue the growth in nursing numbers to meet safe staffing levels by commissioning 555 additional training posts, a further increase of 4.2%. This means in the two years of HEE we will have grown adult nursing training places by 13.6%.

We will increase children’s nurse commissions in 2015/16 by 161 (7.4%). This training is forecast to produce 5,876FTE growth in available supply by 2019, a 35.6% increase in this workforce, which should be sufficient to meet anticipated patient need in acute settings.

 We have also made a significant investment in paramedic training – a 87% increase over two years, providing for 1,902FTE growth in available supply over the next five years.

HEE’s investment plan shows our intention to increase paramedic training commissions by 378 places in 2015 to 1,231, an increase of 44.3%. This will mean HEE has increased commissions by 576 over two years (87%).

We have produced a phenomenal increase in the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) workforce. We will commission an additional 190 this year (25% increase) which will contribute to a 1,548 FTE growth in available supply (41%) over the next three years.

We will commission an additional 100 training posts for mental health nurses in 15/16 (3% increase) contributing to a forecast growth in available supply of 2,630 FTE (6.8%) over the next five years.

We forecast that if our planned training levels are achieved, then the number of GPs available for employment would be 36,830 FTE by 2020, an increase of 14.8% from the 32,075 FTE recorded as being employed in September 2013.

 

 

The BBC’s Roger Harrabin gives the impression of working with the Guardian newspaper to intimidate businesses and other institutions into ridding themselves of their fossil fuel investments.

The Guardian’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, demands that Scientists must speak up on fossil-fuel divestment in a recent article in Nature which attacked the Wellcome Trust and the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation for not offloading their shares in fossil fuel businesses saying ‘ these wonderful progressive foundations are failing to show the kind of leadership that could be transformative in shifting policy arguments and influencing others. The voices that will resonate loudest with the Wellcome and the Gates are those of scientists. I urge you to make them heard.’

The very next day Harrabin published this Are energy companies sitting on unburnable reserves? saying:

‘Are we approaching the twilight of the fossil fuel era?

The oil price remains stubbornly low. Renewables are becoming more affordable and moving into the mainstream.

On top of that, some investment managers are now beginning to question the value of their holdings in carbon fuels as the pressure builds for the world to limit climate change by reducing carbon emissions.

Some observers believe energy is at a potential tipping point.’

A pressure group, 350.org, began urging faith organisations, foundations and pension funds to withdraw funds from fossil fuels, arguing it is morally wrong to put your money in carbon fuels. So far, more than 220 institutions have taken the decision to divest.

Why did Harrabin feel the need to run this piece now when it is based upon a story run months ago?…

‘Vast amounts of oil in the Middle East, coal in the US, Australia and China and many other fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground to prevent dangerous climate change, according to the first analysis to identify which existing reserves cannot be burned.’

 

Harrabin for some reason makes no mention that the Guardian is at the lead of the campaign to force investors to divest their shares….the Guardian which is in partnership with that ‘pressure group’ 350.Org on this campaign.

The whole article is entirely one sided, guess which side. Only at the end do we get a hint of any opposition and then Harrabin only quotes the Shell oil company’s CEO..

“With an exceptional effort, as much as 25% of the world’s energy could come from renewables by 2050,” said Ben van Beurden. “But non-renewable forms of energy will have to make up the rest.”

However that is dismissed by the following comment to finish the article:

‘The UK’s former climate change ambassador John Ashton has condemned his comments. The oil giants, he says, will have to choose which side of history they are on.’

Hardly an argument based upon facts, science or reason….more like the Inquisition….believe!

Funny thing about the Guardian’s Rusbridger, whilst urging these companies and businesses to divest themselves of some of their investments that many pension funds rely upon he and his paper don’t follow that advice.

He himself is heading off to Oxford University (and will be chairman of the Scott Media Trust, owners of the Guardian)…the same university that ‘is believed to have the largest investments in fossil fuel companies of any UK university.’ but is coming under pressure to ‘divest’.

Rusbridger has a mini fleet of cars, and like Cameron in his green phase sometimes cycled to work…with a taxi following with his paperwork. Many of your pensions will be heavily reliant upon the investments in the fuel companies that Rusbridger seeks to vilify…that’s OK for Rusbridger because the Guardian tops up his pension with large annual bonuses as he told Piers Morgan in an interview in 2012…one in which he is incredibly reluctant to answer any questions:

What’s your current salary?
It’s, er, about £350,000.

What was your bonus last year?
I got about £170,000 which was a way of addressing my pension.

The Guardian itself, no doubt printing off its paper using ethically sourced, planet friendly fairy dust was financed by the profits made by its car magazine, now sold, tax free for £619 million.…to ‘secure its future’…so still living off the wages of sin…petrol powered sin….and it wasn’t an ethically driven sale but one driven by financial necessity…“The situation was not sustainable as a business could not have this lingering over it and the Guardian needed the cash to survive.” 

The Guardian itself says it has divested its own fossil fuel investments…but its thinking is more business than green…..

‘Fossil fuel assets had performed relatively poorly in recent years and were threatened by future climate change action, while an ethical fund already held by GMG had been a “stellar” performer and renewable energy was growing strongly. “This means we can adopt socially responsible investment criteria without putting at risk the core purpose of GMG’s investment funds: to generate long-term returns that guarantee the financial future and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity.”

In other words the Guardian has off-loaded fossil fuels because they were performing badly and their green investments were doing better…..profits all paid for by huge subsidies from the UK tax payer…so just how ethical is that…the Guardian padding out its profits from high energy costs imposed upon consumers rich and poor…forced into fuel poverty by Rusbridger and Harrabin?  Heat or Eat anybody?

The Guardian though has an investment fund abroad that it doesn’t seem to keen to reveal exactly what it invests in….I’m sure those hedge funds are green hedges….

‘The portfolio of assets in the investment fund is designed to spread Group asset risk over a wider base than the Group’s historical UK media sector focus. Investments are in a diversified range of assets, which are managed by anumber of specialist fund managers, including global and emerging market equity, fixed income, real assets and hedge funds. The investments are denominated in Sterling and overseas currencies, principally the US Dollar.’

‘Green’ hedge funds just as green propagandist Bob Ward’s paymaster runs…or doesn’t….

This is what Jeremy Grantham, Bob‘s ultimate boss and paymaster said about how he makes money:

‘Our first responsibility is to make money for our clients….and nothing is more important than oil.’

His first responsibility?…not to save the Planet…but to make money…from oil.

The simplicity, the Machiavellian naivety, the pious posturing from Rusbridger is astonishing….he grandstands with sanctimonious ‘ethical’ statements about the evils of fossil fuels, the Guardian ridding itself of their own investments knowing full well that the world cannot run without fossil fuels and their derivatives and that the Guardian’s stance is pure posturing as others will invest in energy companies and the oil will keep flowing and being used and that Rusbridger and Co will still be running their businesses on the back of that however much of a headline grabbing firewall they pretend to put between them and fossil fuel industry.

For instance they attack the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation…and yet the Gates Foundation funds the Guardian….so the Guardian should divest itself of that funding…to avoid accusations of hypocrisy.

The Guardian is also funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which has a huge variety of investments….all of which in some form or other are dependent upon fossil fuels from energy and pharmaceutical companies, mining and banking, Royal Mail with all its thousands of vans racing around the country belching out diesel fumes, and even Domino’s Pizzas…cooking on solar energy and delivering your pizza by pedal power…I’m sure.

The JRF says ‘In July 2014 trustees agreed that the Trust should be divested from all fossil fuels by 2020.’…but of course that is only companies that have an obvious fossil fuel connection.

Showboating about the obvious energy companies is pure hypocrisy when there is no business in the world that doesn’t rely upon fossil fuel in some shape or form however hidden that reliance is.

The benefits of fossil fuels far outways the disadvantages, the costs of stopping the use of fossil fuels is enormous, not just financially but in human terms. Rusbridger is condemning millions to lives of poverty and misery if not war, death and famine on a scale unknown before….but then again he has a track record there having recklessly published the Snowden material that has put lives in danger and meant that the fight against terrorism and gangsters like Putin has been made very much harder.

So does Rusbridger really put ethics at the forefront of his journalism and business or is he more interested, like Peston, in getting to the front of the pack whatever the consequences and whoever he treads upon on the way?

Is he, and Harrabin, more concerned about the environment than people?  Is he one of those who hates people?

His next campaign?  Save the planet….shoot yourself!  The ultimate divestment!

The BBC’s Peston has been pumping out article after article that strangely enough seem to favour the Labour Party…his latest effort doesn’t buck the trend…

Tories’ curious message on work

Reading it you get the impression that Peston is desperately looking for something to say that is negative about the Tory manifesto.  He is tortuously constructing a case against the Tory policy to take the lowest paid out of tax claiming that it goes against all Tory principles…but it doesn’t….Low paid workers get allowances and tax credits and many other benefits….upping their actual pay will take the bureaucracy out of that…rather than being taxed and then having to reclaim that tax they get it direct.

Peston bizarrely moans that the Tories are too left wing…..

This is not a point about whether the state is too generous to them.

It is about the contract we all make with the state.

And he goes on and on in a similar vein...’And another thing…’….it does look like he is determined to attack the Tory policies in a very negative manner…after all, taking the poorest out of tax altogether must be a Labourite’s dream…apparently not, when it’s done by a Tory.

Anyway….here’s ‘another thing’ to keep you amused…some old history from the Guardian…enjoy….

Peston’s run

One of the more interesting parts of the new Banking Act is its abolition of the requirement for the Bank of England to issue a weekly financial return. Combined with a certain BBC journalist’s rational desire to get ahead, it was the knowledge that the Bank of England would eventually have to fulfil its weekly compulsion to tell the world what it was up to that was the chief cause of the Northern Rock bank run.

Theoretically, removal of the weekly return requirement allows covert intervention into the banking system, and may possibly be used by the Bank to prevent future bank runs. This would let the Bank better fulfil its role of ensuring financial stability – thereby serving the public good, rather than that of Robert Peston.

When someone at the Bank of England (or the Treasury?) leaked to him that Northern Rock was turning to the Bank for support, Peston rationally decided to reveal all to the public in the BBC’s Thursday 13 September 2007 evening broadcasts. Peston argues that it was in the public interest to do so. This is debatable.

It was quite clear to anyone who has studied any financial history that a bank run would ensue. Indeed, I was waiting at the entrance to my local Northern Rock branch early on the Friday morning to watch the queues as they started to form.

The big question is this: would the run have occurred without Peston’s broadcasts?

Peston’s broadcasts of his insider information meant that the Bank and the Treasury could only react to the run and did not have the time to proactively prevent it from occurring. A bank run could have been quite easily avoided altogether.

Peston has been blamed by many others for the Northern Rock bank run, most notably by members of the Treasury select committee. (Others have interesting ideas that the Treasury engineered the bank run itself in order to nationalise Northern Rock on the cheap, using Peston merely as a pawn.) Peston, of course, has vigorously defended his actions.

He had a role in causing sufficient panic among depositors for them to run on their bank. A defence that he didn’t know he would cause a run is not a very good one. 

 

Here…

Peston confronts his critics

The BBC’s Business Editor Robert Peston broke the story of Northern Rock’s descent into crisis and has been blamed for causing the subsequent run on the bank.

On a recent trip to the bank’s home city of Newcastle he was confronted by Doreen and Denis Shannon who lost £60,000 from shares in Northern Rock and with it their retirement savings.

 

 

Whilst as I said the BBC’s coverage of the Tory manifesto, that I saw, hasn’t been a bloodbath there have been a couple of moments when they let themselves down.

I was disappointed that John Humphrys, from a grounded, working class background and supposedly an experienced and professional journalist with integrity, should allow himself to become the frontman for the Labour Party peddling cheap sensationalist left wing smears on the Today programme instead of rigorous journalism when he not only attacked Fallon for his ‘stab in the back’ comment but went on from there to try and tar the whole Tory Party once again with the label of the ‘Nasty Party’ on the basis of that one comment when he interviewed Theresa May (08:10).

So once again let’s look at whether Fallon was justified in his comment or whether Humphrys is justified in decrying him.

Not so long ago the Left were crowing with glee when the BBC’s Eddie Mair launched his attack on Boris Johnson saying…

“And you, having heard that, tell your friend that that you will supply the address. What does that say about you, Boris Johnson? Making up quotes… lying to your party leader, wanting to be part of someone being physically assaulted – you’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?”

The Twitterati were delighted.…

Angi Mansi ‏@WorkPsychol Apr 2    Eddie Mair vs #BorisJohnson “You’re a nasty piece of work, and a liar”: https://youtu.be/ZAxA-9D4X3o  Irresistable interviewing Eddie.

The BBC were pretty proud of it themselves.

Or how about this...from the BBC in 2010?

If you ever doubted that class was still thought to be important in politics, just look at the number of times the words “Tory toff” appear before the name “David Cameron” in a certain left-leaning tabloid.

And if you want to get a feeling of how powerful this inverted snobbery is, just imagine it the other way round.

What if the Daily Telegraph always prefaced the name John Prescott with the words “Labour oik”? It would sound really mean.

So no problem for the Left when a right wing politician is the victim of a personal attack….why then the outrage when Fallon makes a perfectly reasonable and logical connection between Ed Miliband’s treachery and his possible future actions…selling out his brother for political power, selling out the UK’s defence in a pact with the ‘kingmakers’ of the SNP for the top job?

Does Humphrys have a very short memory or does he just conveniently forget things like this from the left wing Mirror in 2010?….

Ed Miliband’s unworthy of the top job

Ed Miliband – who only 22 per cent of voters expect to win the next election – has been told by the party’s former energy minister, Brian Wilson, he should quit to save the party.

“He should look in the mirror and honestly ask the question, ‘Will the electorate ever assent to me being Prime Minister?’” says Wilson.

Er, this is the man who shafted his own brother to get the Labour leadership, who was prepared to publicly and politically disembowel him in order to grab the top job.

That kind of bloke doesn’t give a stuff what’s best for the party OR the electorate.

And let’s face it – the party always wanted David Miliband, and nerdy little Ed knew that.

But he was desperate for power and was prepared to get into bed with the unions and sacrifice his brother on the altar of his own ambition to get it.

The very idea he’ll do what’s best for the country is farcical because he doesn’t actually know (or care) what the country wants.

And however much he stands on his soapbox and tries to “connect” with people, voters can’t ever get past the fact he betrayed his own flesh and blood in the cruel vindictive way he did. 

Someone who does that doesn’t give a toss whether people think he’ll be a good PM.

Pretty damning stuff from the lefty Mirror….Miliband so desperate for power that he publicly and politically disembowelled his brother!

Did anyone else think David Miliband was betrayed by his brother?

The Mail said…..

David Miliband’s wife who still can’t forgive brother-in-law’s Ed’s betrayal.

The sight of the two Primrose Hill-raised Labour apparatchiks engaged in political fratricide was astonishing, and in the subsequent two-and-a-half years, no amount of fine public words or behind-the-scenes finessing has healed that wound.

A black and yellow arrow is the vivid symbol of the International Rescue Committee. You will see it on flags flying over refugee camps from the Syrian borders to the Congo.

Yet it was the poison-tipped missile that thudded between David Miliband’s shoulder blades at the Labour leadership election which most informs his decision to abandon British politics for a place among New York’s glamorous charity elite. 

Younger brother Ed was the deceptively geeky assassin with the bow. He snatched the job David thought was his birthright.

The Express said…..

David Miliband’s wife urges him to quit over brother’s ‘betrayal’

Ms Shackleton, a concert violinist, is known to have become increasingly angry at Ed Miliband’s behaviour during the hard four-month campaign.

In the past, she had encouraged her husband to oust Gordon Brown and was angry when his brother talked him out of launching a coup. She regarded Ed Miliband’s unexpected decision to run for leader as a betrayal.

The Telegraph asked if Ed had betrayed Dave…..

I Did Not Betray My Brother, Ed Miliband Says

The Labour leader disclosed how he never believed David Miliband would return to front line politics following their fractious fight for the party’s top job in 2010.

Ed Miliband, 43, denied he had ever promised his 47 year-old brother a clear run to the leadership, a belief that has fuelled a sense of betrayal among David’s friends and family.

The election caused a major rift between the two and he refused to serve in Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet.

So the evidence stacks up against Ed Miliband and the BBC’s narrative…..shame they put that cheap sensationalism before genuine journalism.

As far as I can see the BBC’s coverage of the Tory manifesto launch hasn’t been a bloodbath though you could complain of the lack of a rounded journalism  in their reports, for instance when telling us about the right to buy from Housing Associations as if  this wasn’t already possible…the difference now is that the Tories are offering to subsidise that purchase….or indeed that many occupy such homes on a shared equity basis…ie they own part of the house and rent the rest….we are given the impression that this right to buy will denude the Housing Associations of stock..and yet that right is already there. Also it is rather odd that the BBC and others get worked up about the Tories trying to win ‘working class’ votes….allegedly stealing Labour’s clothes…that’s nonsense…many workers have always voted Tory….Thatcher won office because they backed her….the Telegraph’s cartoonist recognises that long history….

The BBC’s correspondents seem to like the imagined paradox of Labour claiming to be the party of fiscal responsibility and the Tories the party of the Working Class…however such distinct labels are purely in the minds of the Media who are looking desperately for something interesting and clever to say about a very long election run up.

Both Nick Robinson and Peston are amusing themselves with the supposed incredible new world turned upside down with profligate Tories and prudent Labour…Here’s Robinson’s skit…

This week of political cross dressing goes on.

David Cameron tried to re-brand the Conservatives as the party of working people – the day after Ed Miliband claimed that Labour was the party of economic responsibility.

Peston gives us this…

It is a topsy turvy fiscal battle between Labour and the Tories.

Hard on the heels of the Tories promising to increase NHS funding by £8bn a year in real or inflation-adjusted terms, without announcing spending cuts or tax increases to pay for it, Labour is characterising itself as the party that won’t make any unfunded spending increases.

And this....he’s keen to press the analogy…

There is something a bit surreal about a Labour manifesto whose first page is a promise to borrow and spend as little as possible, in contrast to the Tories’ weekend claim that they would spend £8bn more on the health service but won’t say how to finance that spending.

 

So…Labour are now prudent bean counters and the Tories are the party of the working man?  And that is a surprise?

Such ‘cross-dressing’ has always happened…but don’t let that fool you as Peston and Robinson have…..here’s what Miliband said in 2013 to the TUC…still working clas it seems..or they think they are……

As the Labour Party – the party of working people – we have a special responsibility to stand for a better politics.

So I want to build a better Labour Party.

Working people should be right at the heart of our Party.

What a contrast to the Conservative Party that stands for a few out of touch people at the top.

How about this…

We are the party of work. Labour – the clue is in the name

Stephen Timms MP is the Shadow Employment Minister

Or Labour’s Rachel Reeves (Yawn)…

We are not the party of people on benefits. We don’t want to be seen, and we’re not, the party to represent those who are out of work, Labour are a party of working people, formed for and by working people.

Thatcher and Tory governments before her were helped into power by the working class vote…as the Daily Mail recognises…

In a bold pitch to blue collar voters who delivered Lady Thatcher’s three election victories, the Prime Minister will call the Tories ‘the party of working people’.

Only last year the BBC were telling us that the Conservatives had been the party for workers…

The strange death of the Conservative working vote

Politics.co.uk also recognised in 2012 that the Tories had once had support from the Working Class…

Will the working class return to the Tories?

Party insiders concede that the Tories cannot win an overall majority in 2015 without winning over significant support from blue collar workers. Conservative historians point to the 1950s and early 1960s, and then the 1980s when ‘Essex man’ dominated Thatcher’s thinking, as periods when the Tories benefited from working class support.

“Our idea is to try and recreate that coalition,” John Stevenson, whose Carlisle constituency is dominated by blue collar workers, told politics.co.uk.

Here the New Statesman admits that Labour hasn’t been the Party of the Working Class for a long time…

Working class voters and the ‘progressive’ left: a widening chasm

The triumph of identity politics means too many progressives appear willing to dismiss the white working class as socially backwards and not worth listening to.

Unless the left is comfortable becoming a movement of upper middle class liberals and ethnic minorities (no shame in that of course), it ought to start listening a bit more to the concerns of its electoral base while it still has one. For, to paraphrase Bertolt Brecht, it isn’t possible to dismiss the working class and elect another.

Voting patterns have always changed…here’s a study from 1976 that suggests the ‘working class’ were already disenchanted with Labour in the 1960’s…

Here Peter Kellner tells us that more often than not people vote Labour purely out of habit or because their father did not because of ideology…

New polling for Progress shows that working-class attitudes are not what some in the Labour party imagine them to be, writes Peter Kellner

Labour remains more popular with working-class than middle-class voters; but that popularity derives far more from tribe and tradition than values and ideology.

So the ‘working class’ has always voted for the Tories in some measure and Cameron is not ‘rebranding’the Tories as the party of the working class…it has always had a reasonably large scale support from the ‘workers’…. but what of Labour suddenly having a death bed conversion to ‘prudence’?  Nothing new there either…though it never lasts of course…spend and tax is always coming down the road sometime soon...here’s Gordon Brown telling us that we’ll have no more boom and bust under his prudent regime….

May 20, 1997, speech by the chancellor to the CBI: Exploiting the British genius – the key to long-term economic success:
“Stability is necessary for our future economic success. The British economy of the future must be built not on the shifting sands of boom and bust, but on the bedrock of prudent and wise economic management for the long term. It is only these firm foundations that we can raise Britain’s underlying economic performance.”

Peston and Robinson are having some fun at our expense because of course presenting the Tories as ‘profligate’ with recklessly unfunded policies whilst Labour has carefully and responsibly costed all of its policies is tripe….as we know from what the IFS said and what we can read for ourselves in Labour’s manifesto…and the fact labour won’t commit £8 bn to funding the NHS despite promising to do whatever it takes.  The Tory pledge to fund the NHS to the tune of £8 bn if there is economic growth is a conditional offer not an ‘unfunded promise’…if the economy grows they will fund the NHS...not hard to understand….

Because of our long-term economic plan, we are able to commit to increasing NHS spending in England in real terms by a minimum of £8 billion over the next five years. Combined with the efficiencies that the NHS Forward View sets out, this will provide the funding necessary to implement this plan in full.

The BBC’s two expert economics gurus are presenting a skewed version of reality and what the parties really represent and what they are saying and promising, thus skewing what people think perhaps, and how they vote?…..hardly what you would expect from the BBC with all its resources, training, integrity and professionalism.

Just a few questions on the Manifesto for the BBC to ponder.  Miliband says of the Manifesto that…

It does not do what most manifestos do.

It doesn’t offer a list of promises.

A shopping list of proposals.

Just look below to see if that is true…a huge list of proposals…hardly any of them saying how they will be funded….Labour is going for a large measure of state control over industry….with price caps, caps on the size of businesses, controls on how businesses work and run themselves, even a control over a company’s objectives, state control of the railways and transport networks,  nationalisation by the back door of nearly every business big or small in effect.

Also on the agenda…breaking up the Uk whilst handing us over to Europe, votes for 16-17 year olds, state control of the Media, a massive reorganisation of the NHS (unfunded), mass immigration to continue, no borrowing, or is it massive borrowing, and they won’t tell us what cuts or taxes they intend to implement, no non-doms and no ZHC…exept, em, they will still exist, just much more cuddly under Labour, welfare caps (bedroom tax like?), guaranteed jobs, 200,000 houses a year, paternity pay up, classroom sizes down, free childcare extended…..and oh yes…..the NHS, the whole education budget and international aid budget will all be ringfenced.

Just some of the eyecatching, massively expensive proposals from Labour..and all done without borrowing a dime.

One of the biggest cheers of the day came when Miliband said in his speech that he would commit to another massive reorganisation of the NHS with …

The abolition of their terrible Health and Social Care Act.  

Andy Burnham last year said that the reorganisation process of the NHS was…

The biggest bombshell ever to land on the NHS.

We need to look at what has happened to the NHS in the four years since the reorganisation began.

I said it then – and I say it again today: this was the wrong policy at the wrong time.

We said the reorganisation would drag down the NHS – and so it has proved.

The King’s Find ponders about the disruption that would engender…..

‘It is hard to see how Labour’s plans to dismantle the Health and Social Care Act could be achieved without disruptive structural changes to the NHS.

Not a peep from the BBC about this stunning, hypocritical and contentious proposal.

Then of course we get to the funding of the NHS, Miliband said this in his speech…

Nothing is more dangerous to our NHS than pretending you will protect it without being able to say where the money is coming from.

You can’t fund the NHS with an IOU.

Hang on though…the King’s Fund has spotted that Labour hasn’t actually committed to funding the NHS at all…

Here’s the King’s Fund asking where’s the money from Labour?

The big question is about funding, with Labour now the only one of the three main parties not to have pledged to find the £8 billion a year in additional funding called for in the NHS five year forward view. Given this is the minimum requirement if the NHS is to continue to meet patient needs and maintain standards of care, this leaves a significant gap at the heart of its plans.

Miliband, Balls and Liz Kendall, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister all promised that Labour would ‘Do whatever it takes to fund the NHS’.…and yet they refuse to commit to spending, what they have already agreed is the necessary amount of £8bn, to defend the NHS.

Then we get to Miliband’s ‘Mission’ as Prime Minister….as reported by Nick Robinson…

Ed Miliband’s “mission” as your prime minister would, he said, be simply summed up: “I will always stand up for you.”

It was one of the most powerful speeches I’ve seen him make.

So what did Miliband actually say?….

For too long, you have been told something that simply isn’t true.

That’s what’s good for the richest and most powerful is always good for the whole of our country.

Who do you think will stand up to those powerful interests?Whoever is making their case, I will always stand up for you.

With me as Prime Minister, no powerful interest, will outweigh the interests of working people.

Giving power back to those to whom it really belongs:

The British people.

 

So Miliband will stand up to those powerful vested interests, he will fight against the lie that ‘what’s good for the richest and most powerful is always good for the whole of our country.‘  He will be ‘Giving power back to those to whom it really belongs:  The British people.’

Except of course he won’t…only two weeks ago he sold out the British people to Big Business and Europe and denied the British People their voice by denying them the referendum on Europe….

Ed Miliband will attempt to win over a reluctant business community on Monday by warning that an EU referendum proposed by David Cameron would trigger a bitter two-year campaign.

Labour gives more power to Europe and Big Business gets the last say…Miliband ‘Giving power back to those to whom it really belongs:  The British people.’?  Hardly think so.

Here’s what the manifesto also says about decentralising power…

People who live in this country know that too much power is concentrated in too few hands. Those who make decisions on behalf of others, whether they are in Westminster, the European Union, in business, the media, or the public sector, are too often unaccountable. Our over-centralised system of government has prevented our nations, cities, county regions and towns from being able to take control and change things for themselves. We will end a century of centralisation.

But Labour will deny you a referendum on Europe.. Labour makes that decision for you….

“It’s simply the wrong direction for our country”

Then there’s Labour’s big idea…its rebirth as a party to be trusted on the economy….

It is a manifesto which shows Labour is not only the party of change but the party of responsibility too.

So page 1, line 1, sets out Labour’s Budget Responsibility Commitment.

A clear vow to protect our nation’s finances.

A triple lock of responsibility.

First, we are the only party at this election which can show how every policy in our manifesto will be paid for.

No commitments requiring additional borrowing.

Not a single one.

That is the first lock.

Second, our manifesto writes the first line of Labour’s first Budget:

“This Budget cuts the deficit every year.”

And that Budget will only be presented when that has been verified by the Office of Budget Responsibility.

That is the second lock.

Third, the next Labour government will meet our fiscal rules: with the national debt falling and a surplus on the current budget.

A triple lock.

We have no proposals for any new spending paid for by additional borrowing. All of our commitments will be paid for by reducing spending elsewhere or by raising extra revenue.

 

So no borrowing?  Cuts and tax rises instead? But definitely no borrowing….On the current account at least….they allow themselves up to £32 billion or so for ‘infrastrucutre investment’….but can we even trust them on the current account….not likely as they won’t say when or how they will end the deficit…if we have a deficit we have borrowing…and interest to pay.

What of that cutting the deficit every year?  Really?  By how much?  It could be £1.  The Manifesto tells us nothing.

And that last… the national debt falling and a surplus on the current budget?  Again when?  And national debt falling that too could just be £1…unless they put numbers to these promises they are meaningless and makes Labour unaccountable for future failure to meet such promises…which is the idea of course.

What else is on offer…oh yes..control of the Media…just not the BBC…

No one media owner should be able to exert undue influence on public opinion and policy makers. No media company should have so much power that those who run it believe themselves above the rule of law.

Yet the current system for protecting against these threats is inadequate. Labour will take steps to protect the principle of media plurality, so that no media outlet can get too big, including updating our rules for the 21st century media environment.

Our system of public service broadcasting is one of Britain’s great strengths. The BBC makes a vital contribution to the richness of our cultural life, and we will ensure that it continues to do so while delivering value for money.

And climate change…Miliband’s favourite subject…

We will put climate change at the heart of our foreign policy.

[ We will have] a legal target to remove the carbon from our electricity supply by 2030.

 

What else?

We will continue the fight against ISIS, in partnership with our allies in the region and the world.

Because they are an evil organisation that must be defeated.

The same ISIS that Miliband helped create when he ducked the Syria vote.

How about getting personal?  Doesn’t that just discredit politics?  Only when you are called a back-stabber, however when you are peddling your immigration open door policy it pays to play to your roots….

I am the son of immigrants.

I stand here today, with deep gratitude and love for my parents and what they gave me.

And deep gratitude and love for what our country gave us.

I know immigration can benefit our country

What other titbits are there?

An £8 minimum wage.

Exploitative zero hours contracts banned….or will they be?…

The next Labour government will call a halt to the abuse of zero-hours contracts.

Instead, we will have a new principle: Those who work regular hours for more than

12 weeks will have a right to a regular contract.

 

We will build at least 200,000 homes a year by the end of the next parliament.

Devolution to Wales and Scotland has worked…..And we will extend it further.

We’ll reverse David Cameron’s tax cut for millionaires to help pay down the deficit.

Abolish the “non-dom” rule.

End the Conservatives’ Marriage Tax Allowance.

A legal target to remove the carbon from our electricity supply by 2030.

Labour will ensure that all parts of the country benefit from affordable, high speed broadband by the end of the Parliament.

We will reform corporate governance to protect our leading firms from the pressure to put tomorrow’s share price before long-term growth potential.

Institutional investors will have a duty to act in the best interests of ordinary savers. They will have to prioritise long-term growth over short-term profits for the companies in which they are investing.

We will improve the link between executive pay and performance by simplifying pay packages, and requiring investment and pension fund managers to disclose how they vote on top pay.

Labour will establish a British Investment Bank with the mission to help businesses grow and to create wealth and jobs.

We will support employers to pay more by using government procurement to promote the Living Wage, alongside wider social impact considerations.

Labour will cut tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000 a year, funded by restricting tax relief on pension contributions for the highest earners and clamping down on tax avoidance.

We will introduce a Compulsory Jobs Guarantee, paid for by a bank bonus tax.

We will guarantee every school leaver that gets the grades an apprenticeship. We will create thousands more apprenticeships in the public sector, including the civil service. Every firm getting a major government contract, and every large employer hiring skilled workers from outside the EU, will be required to offer apprenticeships.

Labour will freeze energy bills until 2017, ensuring that bills can fall but not rise, and we will give the regulator the power to cut bills this winter.

The generation and supply businesses of the ‘Big Six’ energy companies will be separated.

We will bring down energy bills by making homes more energy efficient, delivering a million interest free loans for energy home improvements in the next Parliament.

A new National Rail body will oversee and plan for the railways and give rail users a greater say in how trains operate. We will legislate so that a public sector operator is allowed to take on lines and challenge the private train operating companies on a level playing field.

Rail fares will be frozen next year to help commuters while we implement reforms. A strict fare rise cap will be introduced on every route for any future fare rises,

City and county regions will be given more power over the way buses are operated in their area. They will be able to decide routes, bear down on fares, drive improvements in services, and bring together trains, buses and trams into a single network with smart ticketing.

Where private companies are involved in providing clinical services, we will impose a cap on any profits they can make from the NHS.

We will protect the entire education budget, including the early years, schools and post-16 education, so that it rises in line with inflation.

We will end the wasteful and poorly performing Free Schools programme, and switch resources to where they are needed, allowing us to cap class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds at 30 pupils or under.

We will help families by expanding free childcare from 15 to 25 hours per week for working parents of three and four-year-olds, paid for with an increase in the bank levy.

We will double the current two weeks of paternity leave to four weeks, and increase the amount of paternity pay from £140 to more than £260 a week.

We will unlock a Future Homes Fund by requiring that the billions of pounds saved in Help to Buy ISAs be invested in increasing housing supply.

We will cap structural social security spending as part of each spending review, so that it is properly planned and controlled.

There will be a guaranteed, paid job for all young people who have been out of work for one year, and for all those over 25 years old and out of work for two years. It will be a job that they have to take, or lose their benefits.

Half a million families have been hit by the Bedroom Tax, and two thirds of those affected are disabled, or have a disabled family member. It is cruel, and we will abolish it.

The system needs to be controlled and managed so that it is fair. Low-skilled migration has been too high and needs to come down. We need much stronger action to stop illegal immigration.

Most immediately we will work with our allies to counter and confront terrorism. ISIL’s barbarism and expansionist ideology, alongside terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and Al-Shabaab, represent a particular threat to global security

The BBC’s coverage of Labour’s Manifesto is extraordinary, the BBC is not just on a different page to everyone else but a different planet….what do we get from the BBC?  The Tories NHS plans are unfunded but Labour’s are fully costed and paid for…even when BBC interviews with Balls show that to be untrue…then we get the analysis of the Manifesto…well…mostly we get the ‘news’ that it is all about image, showing Labour to be fiscally responsible…really?  What about the contents…are they actually costed and paid for?  Hard to tell really from the BBC coverage which ignores the intense criticism Miliband has received from the likes of the IFS.  And then we get constant clips of what Miliband attacking the Tories rather than what he said about his own policies….which is a bit odd on the day he launches his manifesto….the Tories being dragged in to defend their policies rather than Labour politicians being questioned on their own manifesto.

Despite the fact that Miliband has been shot down by the IFS, not once but twice,  in BBC interviews, and Ed Balls has also been shown to be economical with the truth, again in BBC interviews, how is it that the BBC presents us with headlines like this piece of soft soaping…

Miliband says he is ‘ready’ to lead country

And follows it up with a report that was somewhat less than critical in its analysis with Nick Robinson telling us that…

Ed Miliband’s “mission” as your prime minister would, he said, be simply summed up: “I will always stand up for you.”

It was one of the most powerful speeches I’ve seen him make.

Contrast that with the Times which gets to the heart of the matter…

Miliband’s bid for economic credibility shot down by IFS

Or Politics Home….

IFS: Parties ‘just making up numbers’ on tax avoidance

Or City AM…

Ed Miliband offers no more clarity and electorate won’t know what they’re voting for, says IFS

Or The IEA:

Mark Littlewood, director-general at the IEA, says:

This manifesto does little to inspire confidence in Labour’s ability to manage Britain’s economy. With an annual deficit still running at a staggering £90 billion, vague pledges to merely reduce it each year are simply not good enough.

What little detail we have is exemplified by funding giveaways through price caps, fare freezes, levies and wealth taxes. This smacks of the politics of envy and is liable to reduce competition and investment in the UK.

 

You have to ask how so much of the BBC coverage manages to avoid such intense criticism of Labour’s policies especially as that ‘fiscal responsibility’ message is central to its manifesto’s claim that it can be trusted on the economy.

The BBC’s coverage is woeful, it can’t even report what it has ‘reported’ in other BBC interviews.

Ed Balls was given a complete battering on the subject of funding the NHS by Justin Webb this morning on the Today programme (08:10), and he was given similar treatment in this later BBC interview….but I didn’t hear thoat ‘battering’ referred to in any subsequent BBC news.

Webb asked if Balls was committed to finding the full £8 bn for the NHS….Balls replied ‘no’, Webb uttered a shocked ‘Really?’ going on to ask again about the commitment to fund the NHS fully especially as in the Manifesto it says that Labour will fund the NHS not just with £2.5 bn but £2.5 billion above whatever the Tories offer…..and Webb suggests that Labour supporters will be surprised to hear a Labour man refuse to say he will fund the NHS fully.

Webb says that must mean Labour couldn’t find the money…Balls replied that he will not commit to a figure until he knows where the  money is coming from….but as Labour has already agreed that £8 bn is the figure needed to save the NHS that must be up to being questioned.

Balls maintained that line in the other BBC interview…however he also repeated what Miliband and Liz Kendall, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, said…that ‘We will do whatever it takes to fund the NHS’.

Which is great. Except the very next line he said…

‘The only promises we will make are ones we can show where the money is coming from.’

Now those two lines are not compatible….The NHS says it needs £8 bn a year extra to keep afloat…Labour offers only £2.5 bn claiming that that is fully costed and funded (it’s not)….but then says it will ‘Do whatever it takes to fund the NHS’.

That is a promise, not just to fund up to a level of £8 bn but to any figure, whatever is needed….and that is completely uncosted and unfunded.

Here’s the King’s Fund asking where’s the money from Labour?

The big question is about funding, with Labour now the only one of the three main parties not to have pledged to find the £8 billion a year in additional funding called for in the NHS five year forward view. Given this is the minimum requirement if the NHS is to continue to meet patient needs and maintain standards of care, this leaves a significant gap at the heart of its plans.

 

It’s good to see the BBC has finally caught up with Labour’s dodgy promises on the NHS although somewhat late after allowing the Tories to be smashed for a couple of days with claims that they are making unfunded promises whilst Labour escaped any such critical analysis with their supposedly fully costed and paid for policies…..that legend has now become truth in many people’s minds.

However the fact that Balls’ fiscal credibility was pretty much destroyed by Webb, as in the other BBC interview, wasn’t reflected in the subsequent the news bulletins.  After a couple of days of headlines about the Tories and the NHS not a mention that Labour hadn’t actually found the funds to pay for the NHS but instead referred to how Labour would deal with the deficit which was spoken of in the first part of the interview with Webb.

One of the biggest election themes for days, funding the NHS, was sidelined when it came to Labour’s own fiscal irresponsibility.

Then we had Miliband making his big speech launching the Labour manifesto. How did the BBC report that?  Did they concentrate on the contents or whether they were actually funded as claimed by Labour?

No, the BBC instead preferred to tell us that the manifesto was all about Labour presenting itself as the party of fiscal responsibility that could be trusted to run the economy.  Now I imagine most people will realise that a political speech during an election is all about sending a message and we don’t need to be told that repeatedly and at length by the BBC.

Once is enough, a quick nod in the direction but then the BBC should have been looking at the manifesto to see if the contents actually live up to that claim of being ‘responsible and credible’ on the economy.

In this report Nick Robinson skims over the contents and then says this…

Although this manifesto contains a clear retail offer with plenty of important policy promises – eg on the minimum wage and train fares and child care – it will be remembered for Ed Miliband’s attempt to convince the country that he embodies both Radicalism and Reassurance.

‘Plenty of important policy promises‘?  What would they be Nick?  And are they funded?

He then goes on to say…

If he succeeds he’ll govern Britain for the next five years. In which case you and I ought to get familiar with what the rest of that manifesto says.

Familiar with the contents?  Yes, that would have been nice…shame the BBC’s economics bod doesn’t give us the details himself…still we can always read it for ourselves I suppose.

Peston isn’t much better with this waffle which spends most of the time putting Labour’s case for them…here he is putting ‘Plan B’ before us…but not before spinning the tale about Tory NHS profligacy and Labour responsibility..

There is something a bit surreal about a Labour manifesto whose first page is a promise to borrow and spend as little as possible, in contrast to the Tories’ weekend claim that they would spend £8bn more on the health service but won’t say how to finance that spending.

Labour, if it wanted to, could make the case that although it is trying to be austere, it is less austere than the Tories – and that therefore the lesser spending cuts or lower tax increases that its fiscal rules require would be less of a brake on economic growth than Tory plans require.

A good number of economists would argue that Labour’s approach would not only protect funding of important public services but would also reinforce the momentum of growth in the economy.

In this report Peston seems entirely confused but is still pumping out pro-Labour messages…again he goes with the  ‘many economists support ‘Plan B’ line…

There are at least as many credible economists arguing for Labour’s approach of borrowing to invest

Again he tells us the Tories haven’t told us how they would fund the NHS…butu they have…through growth.

Labour has subjected itself to discipline which the Tories have decided they don’t need (largely because they think voters will give them the benefit of the doubt, based on the cuts they’ve delivered in the current parliament).

But hang on, whilst the Tories can’t rely on growth to fund the NHS Peston tells us that Balls can rely on that elusive growth to fund his claims of fiscal credibility…

…the deficit will be cut every year – would on current forecasts for economic growth allow quite a bit of additional spending: the overall deficit would still fall as a share of GDP so long as overall spending increased marginally slower than GDP, all else being equal; and it would also fall in absolute terms so long as economic growth generated an increment to tax revenues marginally greater than the spending increment. So this rule again wouldn’t tie the hands of Ed Balls desperately tightly, if he became chancellor.

Peston mentions the IFS saying Labour would need to make cuts of up to £18 bn but fails to tell us the rest of what the IFS said and is only usng the figure to illustrate how terrific Balls’ options are…the IFS said..

It allows them to say well we would be cutting very little, but also that we would be cutting. But it really makes a big difference, there’s a huge difference between £18bn of cuts over the next three years and no cuts. Literally we would not know what we were voting for if we were to vote for Labour.

Peston suggests the Tories would contest Balls’ plans….

Which will doubtless prompt the Tories to argue that Ed Balls isn’t committed to serious public service reform at all.

But Peston is able to put Labour’s case for them…saying…

To which he [Balls] would say three things…

Really?  Why not ask him and challenge him on his policy instead of defending him and putting his case for him?

Curious what emphasis the BBC chooses to go for when given the option….the news and presenters still insisting the Tories NHS plans are unfunded whilst all Labour’s are costed and paid for, still headling with the shiny new ‘fiscally credible Labour Party’ narrative and strangely reporting what Miliband said about the Tories’ spending plans rather than what he said about his own policies….here’s Sarah Brett on 5Live (about 13:38)

It is odd how Peston and Co keep referring to the Tories making unfunded promises on the NHS whilst Labour has fully costed theirs when the evidence, from other BBC interviews as well, shows Labour are dodging a bullet on this….even Eddie Mair has laid into Labour as Craig at ‘Is the BBC biased’ tells us…

Eddie’s questions were deeply unhelpful to Labour. He pressed them especially over their failure to match the Tories’ pledge to throw billions at the NHS (which, he repeatedly said, Labour supporters would expect them to do)