I don’t know if the BBC’s political correspondent, Carole Walker, has a dog which she walks in the park but if she does she should not be alarmed if some man sidles up to her and slips her a brown envelope full of cash.
That could well be a very grateful member of the Labour Party who has seen her latest report that provided apparent, and no doubt unintended, backing to Ed Balls’ malicious allegations against George Osborne.
This is what Osborne said about welfare and the Philpott case:’
“I think there is a question for government and for society about the welfare state, and the taxpayers who pay for the welfare state, subsidising lifestyles like that.
“And I think that debate needs to be had,” said Mr Osborne.
All perfectly reasonable and fair, you might think.
Not to Ed Balls who says:
“I believe George Osborne’s calculated decision to use the shocking and vile crimes of Mick Philpott to advance a political argument is the cynical act of a desperate chancellor. For the chancellor to link this wider debate to this shocking crime is nasty and divisive and demeans his office.”
Nothing cynical, nasty or desperate about our Shadow Chancellor.
However Osborne made no link between the deaths and the welfare system. He specifically separated the issues…..his reference to welfare was solely linked to Philpott’s lifestyle and not linked to his crime.
The BBC’s Carole Walker has decided, against the quite clear evidence of Osborne’s actual statement, that he did make the link…her title for the report says exactly how she wants to play this…a cynical political gamble by Osborne……just as Balls claims in fact….
Analysis: George Osborne’s Philpott gamble
‘Chancellor George Osborne chose his words carefully when he was asked about Mick Philpott on an official visit to Derby.
But it was clear the Tories’ chief election strategist was happy to link the shocking case of a man convicted of killing six of his children with the need for far-reaching changes to the welfare system.’
A very clever and slippery sentence from Walker.
Note her use of ‘Torie’s chief election strategist’…why use that instead of’ ‘Chancellor‘ in which capacity he was speaking……because she wants to imply that his comments are merely an highly cynical ‘election ploy’.
Walker doesn’t directly say Osborne specifically named the welfare system as the cause of the deaths…but she makes sure that is the message you get from her words throwing in some emotive language to spice it up and manipulate your perceptions….‘happy to link…….shocking case….killing of children….need for far reaching changes to welfare system’.
Pretty clear what she intends you to think.
As Walker actually points out later in the report Labour are on the wrong side of this argument….it is in fact Balls who is using the death of these children as the most cynical and opportunist way of scoring some political points against Osborne.
Balls says:
“Chancellors have to think very carefully before they comment on the issues of the day. How they do so says a lot about the character of their chancellorship.’
The trouble is, even with the misplaced support of the BBC, Labour won’t win this one….the Public do want to see welfare reformed and they think cases like Philpott’s, where he led a lifestyle that most of them couldn’t afford, and yet were in fact paying for, are a prime example of what has gone wrong with the welfare system.
I think it says an awful lot about the character of Ed Balls that he makes poltical capital out of dead children whilst at the same time trying to prevent the necessary and urgent reform of the welfare system.
This report from Carole Walker says a lot about BBC reporting…either she doesn’t understand what Osborne said or she cynically ignored the intended meaning and went for a heading and interpretation that would paint Osborne in the worst light possible..that of a politician gambling with children’s lives for political gain.
She finishes off her report with this statement:’
‘The real test will come when voters come to terms with the changes on the daily lives – rather than hearing of the bizarre life and appalling crimes of one particular claimant.’
So once again linking welfare reform with Philpott’s crime and Osborne’s statement and policies.
Walker says Philpott’s life was ‘bizarre’…by that she presumably means unique and unusual…a lifestyle that is by no means everyday…and therefore shouldn’t be used to invoke changes to the welfare system.
I think Walker and the BBC are just out of touch with reality. I would wager that most people reading this could name at least one family, if not many more, who have a similar lifestyle, not necessarily with a live in lover as well as the wife…but the multiple children being used to provide an income….along with numerous other examples of excessive state funded generosity…after all how many families can afford to keep three horses? It seems not to be a problem for some unemployed families when the State is paying.
The welfare system is enormously generous for some things whilst being incredibly tightfisted over others…..the balance is wrong and needs to be sorted out to provide a fairer, more equal distribution of the pot…..Strange that the BBC and Labour, both fans of equality and fairness, seem unable to agree that this is needed.
Carole Walker is a professional journalist, she knows exactly the effect her words will have and she no doubt chose them carefully and fully considered what the reader might take from them.
Therefore you have to think that her report knowingly attacked Osborne and deliberately attempts to make it appear he links the children’s deaths with welfare reform.
Conclusion…on the face of it you would say that she is doing Labour’s job for them.
