Short note on Lib Dem polcies

Listening to R5L this morning it strikes me just how unpopular Lib Dem polices on their immigration amnesty, the uncosted and unthought through Trident replacement ( which they allow people to think means no replacement ), the EU and Euro are.

I was also reassured to hear people reporting that they understood that the first debate was an X-Factor sort of thing, and therefore transient and unreliable.

Hopeful signs.

Has the MSM woken up to "Common Purpose" ?

There's a BBC 5 broadcast tonight on:

Secret society?

We shine a spotlight on a nationwide networking organisation with influence in high places.



“Common Purpose” has been described as a politically correct version of freemasonry.

Prominent supporters include the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Cressida Dick, BBC Business Editor Robert Peston and numerous top public sector officials.

We investigate whether there is any substance to the rumours about its hidden influence and agenda.

I have my doubts about how good such a programme can be given that a large number of BBC staff are Common Purpose graduates. But anything that raises the public awareness of the treat of such organisations is to be welcomes. Listen tonight at 8pm or on the BBC's iPlayer.

Common Purpose has plenty of lawyers as well as police officers, judges, politicians and even soldiers in its ranks , so it will be interesting to hear what the programme has to say about it.

Having listened to the piece I would have to describe the inquiry as less than serious. There we're lots of hints for the listener that the people who question Common Purpose are a bit wacko. ( Mentions of Lizards, conspiracy theorists and right wing at the appropriate moments ).

CP obviously felt they finally had to put someone up for interview, but again they were hardly forth coming.

The point was made about the large amount of public money and the secretive nature of CP's networking organisation. The CP rep also pointed out about people being open about their mistakes etc with each other, which had a sort of cultish edge to it.

The investigative reporter admitted at the end that he had been invited to speak at CP events in the past ( so hardly impartial ). A little attempt was made to state the degree to which the BBC itself is involved in CP - even though such information is easily available via the CP web site.

The article itself is a little over half way through the programme ( for one week available here ). As an exercise substitute Freemasons for CP whenever their name comes up and you wouldn't have quite the light hearted approach that John Maitlands tries to convey.

I'd be more interested ina Dispatches investigation. ( I suspect its too much to hope for that the BBC's Panorama would do a good job ).

The impression I left with is that of an attempt to lance a boil of a conspiracy theory by the report, rather than a serious attempt to get to any objective answers. A number of organisations that bother the government ( and hence the BNP ) make claims about CP, and the article seemed like an attempt to difuse the use of the CP issue, rather than to answer hard questions.

But all in all the more investigations there are into CP the happier I'll be. I'm not 100% convinced they are a sinister problem, but they are certainly a problem for a democratic society as is evidenced by the inability of the MSM to be able to investigate them effectively.

Yet again Radio 4's Today lets Labour off the hook

On waking up this morning I was listening to Radio 5 Live's interview of Alistair Darling. The question of national debt came up and Darling tried to blow smoke in the eyes of the interviewer by excluding Gordon Brown's various off balance sheet tricks from Debt ( and Northern Crock naturally ). R5L's man responded quickly by questioning this directly and citing other estimates in the press today which are considerably at variance with the Chancellors words.

Now Darling just refused to accept that, and may possible have said something he shouldn't have on PFI ( someone needs to check those words). But the question was asked.

Over at the Radio 4 Labour Supporters Club know as the Today programme ( where only Conservative politicians have their answers interrupted ) the same Chancellor, who must have just walked up or downstairs to the new studio, the same question but a completely supine response from Today's interviewer.

On being questioned on Debt Alistair Darling saw the danger of the follow on question and went for standard New Labour punishment of the interviewer mode. You know the one where the answer goes on long enough that you've forgotten what day of the week it is by the time he's finished, let alone what the question was. If interruption ( always so gentle and polite for Labour ministers ) then the "I think this is important" " you need to know" or such are used. And the answer is always finished with a change of subject to avoid that follow on question.

So the Today prog completely failed to ask about the staggering levels of debt in the economy that Labour have built up - because they are just no good at their jobs or its naked political bias. If they want to know how it should be done then they should tune into Radio 5 Live.

Update: For an example of alternative debt calcs see Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun who says:

He kept billions off the books by using costly and badly negotiated “Private Finance Initiatives” to build hospitals and schools.

That piled an extra £150BILLION on to State borrowing — taking the total to 45 per cent of national earnings.

And add on another £1,300billion in unfunded public sector borrowing — and £1,000billion in private borrowing for mortgages, credit cards and overdrafts.

That lot works out at around £2,500billion — or £40,000 of debt for every man, woman and child in Britain, now and for years to come.

No such challeneg on the Labour loving BBC Today prog.

Update: Guido reports (and summarises) the BBC's Robert Preston who takes the easy ride Brown was given by Marr (again) to task, and makes some key points on debt. See Guido here and Preston here. The BBC left wing machine will now move to punish Preston no doubt ...

Preston says:

As a biographer of Gordon Brown and a former FT political editor, I have kept a fairly close eye on our prime minister and on HM Treasury for many years. So, for me, there were a number of jaw dropping moments in his BBC interview yesterday with Andrew Marr.....