They Don't Like It Up 'Em
Iain Dale had a go at the Sunday Lobby yesterday for recycling a Brownite speech and spin package. The gentlemen of the Lobby were not slow to respond. Patrick Hennessy from the Sunday Telegraph and Ian Kirby from the News of the World have jumped into his comments to protest.
Having read the stories in the Sunday papers, it does seem that there was a speech in Glasgow on Saturday where Gordon tried to have it both ways - more bugging and surveillance with more accountability. Clearly a briefing of the Sunday Lobby by somone on Gordon's spin team followed.
Hennessy and Kirby imply there was no condition of the briefing that they should keep it from being put to David Davis, Nick Clegg or even John Reid. Nevertheless Iain is right, it does seem odd not to ask "what do you say to this?" when according to the Sunday Times "a source close to Brown" is spinning that he plans "to build a nonpartisan consensus on the best balance between obtaining convictions of people plotting terrorist acts and preserving our sources of intelligence for the future." One would have thought a good journalist would have asked Clegg or Davis did they see much chance of a nonpartisan consensus on 90-days-without-trial? Just a thought...
Having read the stories in the Sunday papers, it does seem that there was a speech in Glasgow on Saturday where Gordon tried to have it both ways - more bugging and surveillance with more accountability. Clearly a briefing of the Sunday Lobby by somone on Gordon's spin team followed.
Hennessy and Kirby imply there was no condition of the briefing that they should keep it from being put to David Davis, Nick Clegg or even John Reid. Nevertheless Iain is right, it does seem odd not to ask "what do you say to this?" when according to the Sunday Times "a source close to Brown" is spinning that he plans "to build a nonpartisan consensus on the best balance between obtaining convictions of people plotting terrorist acts and preserving our sources of intelligence for the future." One would have thought a good journalist would have asked Clegg or Davis did they see much chance of a nonpartisan consensus on 90-days-without-trial? Just a thought...
25 comments:
Gordo plays hard to get, so they are like dogs jumping for a treat. Each wants to be the master's favourite pooch and get the tastiest morsels. Just basic canine obedience training!
Expect more of the same from the Tories now Coulson has been appointed and Eustice demoted!
You cant spell CONSENSUS without the CON and thats what it is. In my list of hated words that comes near the top!
Anonymous said...
"Expect more of the same from the Tories now Coulson has been appointed and Eustice demoted!"
Labour trolls are getting more stupid (if that is possible!)
This if GOVERNMENT bullshit you moron. LABOUR government in-case you hadn't noticed, or wanted to pretend otherwise.
Merely proving that Brown is a Grade A W***er, as if we expected anything else, and that the MSM are in no way to trusted. They have all become NuLab toadies. The Telegraph's recent pre-occupation with Cameron bashing, is further proof of this. Makes you wonder what promises and/or threats Brown has been making regarding the Barclay Bros. other business interests?
Democracy is getting so badly f***ed over in this country, it's not true!
Completely agree Geezer! But its also wise media management and now the Tories have replaced a Strawberry Farmer with a seasoned former tabloid Editor after the recent communications cock ups they will have to respond in kind and will!
Guido
It makes the case for the legal challenges movement discussed the other day. Bliar has corrupted the processes so badly the courts are the last resort. The media and civil service are totally politicised so the courts are the only place the truth can emerge.
Bliar basically said in todays PMQ's that he is going to hand more powers to the EU so then the criminal law will be made in brussels as well. Time is running out
I see all the piss poor political hacks are slithering out into the open, on the comments section of Ian Dales diary. Go on, have a look and make a polite comment. Maybe some of them will read it, feel ashamed and start reporting news properly, rather than regurgiting the days 'newspeak' from Whitehall.
Or maybe they won't - VERMIN.
Clarke says he wants to cut MPs. I've got a knife, when do we start?
Guido (11.46AM)said..."where Gordon tried to have it both ways" -
Does his wife know?
Interesting to see Hennessy and others whinging like toddlers with their nappies full.
They can't take it when their cosy ways are exposed. The fact that the Sunday papers have all been lapping up the Gordon line is sad, whether it's "anti-terror" or eco-towns. Brown's office is so efficient, there's no need for wonks to buy more than one paper. Take your pick: Observer, Times, Telegraph, Indy; they all seem to run identical stories issued by Brown's camp.
As I've also said on Iain's site - the first most elementary lesson you're taught even as the lowest sprogg on a local rag is to get a quote from the other side. At the very least it makes the story a bit more interesting and gives the punter a bit more information. There must have been a reason why this wasn't done and we can only draw our own conclusions. Let the assorted hacks tell us step by step what happened - as if.
Lazy gin-soaked hacks, behaving like lazy gin-soaked hacks! Can't imagine that too many people are surprised by this, given what we've seen over the last 10 years.
Thank God for the Blogasphere!
"Bliar basically said in todays PMQ's that he is going to hand more powers to the EU so then the criminal law will be made in brussels as well. "
If Blair is convicted will that invalidate anything he signs now ? Some hope.
Not getting giddy yet Guido?
What absolute bollocks in their own defence on Iain's site. Patrick Hennessy knows exactly how it all works and Ian Kirby is just miffed that no-one noticed he wrote it too. "We don't have an agenda to follow (like the dailies do), moans Hennessy. But they all did, didn't they? Pathetic.
Iain has a conspiracy theory involving menaces. I say, give the briefing out fairly late and rich with info and this has the same effect. Loved up not shut up.
Bulhee was the word verification btw ... then fnooo
dale isn't very good at his own spinning is he? he writes a piece to make brown look bad and ends up looking like a tit himself. i bet he's crapping his pants his telegraph pieces will be dropped.
i can see why 'team davis' was such a disaster now. can you believe this guy thought he was going to be chief of staff at No10 one day?
Ian Dale provided me with a good hours free entertainment with that post.
He articulated my queasy feeelings about the Telegraph's position on the Tories, the Mail has gone native, so who's left to articulate the right?
The Gvnt should have done with it, nationalise the lot of them and call it Pravda.
But perhaps Blair et all learned from the Sovs. Make us pay for it, then we'll believe it.
At least he didn't do it on Newsnight I suppose. But way wrong. There are dozens of speech reports like this in our papers and Iain is not in a position to advise senior editors on how they should do their jobs in their own medium.
Then who is in a position to advise editors how they should do their jobs? Socialist politicians who love ordering people what to do? Conservative ones that follow the line of "if he's doing it then I can do it too"? I suppose you would scream blue murder about editorial interference if the publisher dared to tell his/her editor how to do their job.
But you are quite correct. We shouldn't tell the Deadwood Press how to do anything. Instead we should let them observe their circulation slowly dry up as they try, and usually fail, to make the move online.
May I shed a little light on this please? 1: Brown's mob brief Sunday hacks. So what? It happens. All spin doctors brief all westminster hacks - sundays, dailies, broadcasters etc. etc. Get over it.
2: So what motivated failed Tory MP and still ambitious Dale's ejaculation on the subject? Answer: The Sunday Times was embarrassed the story was, er, not quite the exclusive it appeared to be and has tried to muddy the waters by claiming they had it exclusively before it was "briefed" all around. How embarrassing for their lamebrain lobby hacks. Just the usual nonsense from their dunderhead political editor David "crackers" Cracknell who persuaded a gullible Dale to run such guff.
After last Sunday's edition, I decided not to take ANY Telegraph for a while. What has induced Wheatcroft, Hennesey and Kite to kiss the Bogey Man's arse remains a mystery.
But just as they accuse Cameron of losing his core supporters, I'll be interested in seeing how many readers they lose in the near future.
George Bridges is right - the Davis campaign was a disaster.
Given the starting and finishing place - it has to be the worst political leadership campaign post war.
Whether Iain has to take responsibility as Chief of Staff I don't know. But the media handling was atrocious and unprofessional and low level. Politically the strategy was naive, untargeted and unintelligent. Even straightforward tasks such as speech writing were carried out by committee - always disastrous - so lack of organisation must have been an issue.
By all logic David Davis should be Tory leader now given his starting point at the beginning of his campaign.
All four papers have now refuted Iain's spurious claim... so that leaves which paper which Iain said told him his version...?
So either all four reporters are fibbing, allowing Iain to now provide the evidence to catch them all out and prove his point.
Or, he won't or can't provide the evidence and thus proves he's as bad as those he accuses.
So, which one will it be folks?
Sunday Times hasn't refuted the claim - so presumably "sundaytimesinsider" above is right about the source. Although Davis is known to be close to Leppard. Michael Howard in on the act today so must have been fed the same story as dale!
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