Bully Balls

Labour are attempting to blame Ed Balls' poor performance in his response to George Osborne's Autumn Statement yesterday on his stammer and, what they want people to believe was, "nasty" mocking by the Tory front bench.

Not content with attempting to smear the Thatcher cabinet with the Paedo tag (something he's gone very quiet about since the McAlpine debacle), Tom Watson is now chucking stones from within his glass house at Osborne and co, accusing them of bullying poor defenceless Balls. Of course, he, his parties' Shadow Chancellor and his ex-boss, Gordon Brown would know nothing about that kind of behaviour.

But let's not forget a genuinely nasty moment in the House of Commons that happened not too long ago. The moment when Labour MPs mocked Tory MP, Paul Maynard who has cerebral palsy, for the way he spoke.


Mr Maynard spoke subsequently about the attitude of some Labour MPs who take offence at the fact he, a disabled man, should have the temerity to be a Conservative. In their warped minds, the disabled should only consider Labour for their political home. Failure to comply with their thought policy immediately renders you a traitor to your "kind". You've got to wonder at the hypocrisy of this kind of nasty, myopic prejudice.

So, perhaps the likes of Tom Watson and his Watsonettes on Twitter should consider their own side before making ludicrous accusation about others.

Leveson On Political Spin

All the focus following the publication of the Leveson report has been on the big issue of press regulation and whether or not we want our newspapers answerable to politicians (i.e. statutory "underpinning"). This is a big question and one that deserves extensive coverage and public debate.

But there are a myriad of other questions addressed by The Lord Justice, not least, Labour's serious accusations about the Tories relationship with News International and Cameron's handling of the BSkyB bid. Leveson's findings here also deserve attention but won't get it due to the gravity of the press regulation debate. However, Guido helpfully distils Leveson's judgements:

Labour claimed the Conservatives did ‘a deal’ with NI over BSkyB and other policy in exchange for their support.
But Lord Justice Leveson says ‘The evidence does not, of course, establish anything resembling a “deal”’.

Labour claimed Jeremy Hunt ‘was not judging the [BSkyB] bid he was backing it’.
But Lord Justice Leveson says ‘there is no credible evidence of actual bias on the part of Mr Hunt’.

Labour claimed ‘Cameron should never have given the decision to Hunt in the first place’.
But Lord Justice Leveson says Jeremy Hunt ‘was the obvious candidate to entrust with the decision because of his portfolio… The evidence does not begin to support a conclusion that the choice of Mr Hunt was the product of improper media pressure, still less an attempt to guarantee a particular outcome to the process’.

Labour claimed ‘Jeremy Hunt “was acting as a backchannel for the Murdochs”’
But Lord Justice Leveson says ‘Mr Hunt immediately put in place robust systems to ensure… fairness, impartiality and transparency’ and Jeremy Hunt’s ‘actions as a decision maker were frequently adverse to News Corp’s interests’.

Labour claimed the Prime Minister had discussions with James Murdoch about the BSkyB bid at a dinner on 23 December 2010.
But Lord Justice Leveson says the Prime Minister was ‘perfectly in order’.

God knows there's enough dodgy behaviour going on in public life without this kind of mendacious spinning. Perhaps the next public inquiry should be into the ethics of party political spinning* and the way parties attempt to smear each other at every turn. No wonder politicians are down there with journalists in people's regard.

* Somehow I suspect this is one inquiry Ed Miliband will not be calling for.

 

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