Did Evan Davis blow his interview with Brown ? (or did Brown blow his chance ?)

The Mole has been quick to report criticism on Evan Davis interview this morning with Gordon Brown on radio 4's today program, here.

Personally I don't think Evan Davis will be too pleased with this interview. His biggest mistake was trying to jolly Brown along by saying he agreed with him and allowing Brown to summarise the interview by saying we have agreed in this discussion ( not even an interview ).

Also Evan Davis seemed to think that Brown should not be blamed for the debt bubble ( because we now know that what its is ) because he, Evan Davis, didn't spot it either. [ Notice the presumption that Gordon Brown didn't know about the debt bubble - I doubt that's true, and if it is the Treasury should be sacking most of its staff ]. There are plenty of people who warned, including on this blog. As Guido reported some economists even kept pestering the Treasury, but where fogged off.

But the political impact, in my opinion, isn't advantageous to Labour. The public are getting fed a series of horror stories about the Banks bottomless debts and their taking ownership of them, the developing Sterling crisis, the new pensions crisis, the recession and jobs and housing crisis.

Brown's yet another repeat of his Tractor Stats announcements that we've been getting for the last 6 months just confirms to the public that he is either a charlatan or not up to the job. I would expect support for the Conservatives to have gone up the longer people listened to the interview.

Some discussion on the interview is also available at Conservative home here, where Tim Montgomery describes Brown's performance as self evident nonsense - and that is the problem for Labour dwindling band of narrative believing apologists .

Personally I think Evan Davis just had a bad day. He did challenge Brown on his attempt to use the "Do Nothing" spin against the conservatives - pointing out the Tory policies that Brown was implementing, and also trying to skewer him at the end by comparing the state of the Economy Brown inherited with that he'll be leaving the next government. ( There are some colourful rum ours about what Brown said on taking office in 97 on discovering how great the UK economy at the time was . )

But Brown had a worse morning as he was handed enough rope to show just how empty and out of touch his handling of the crisis is.

Update: See also Burning our money where Wat Tyler was actually listening tot he details of what von Brun was saying.

Further: Somebody (possibly not a Labour supporter - but the post is tolerated ) on Labour Home thinks Gordon may not be playing with a full deck, see here. Welcome to the programme Labour homies - many of us have thought Brown's bonkers for some time ! Now what are you going to do about it ? Its also intresting how they have picked up on how negatively people react to Brown's complete failure to engage in the interview.

R4 gives Liam Byrne an easy ride - as always

Just listened to the fawning interview on R4's today programme. Liam Byrne was allowed to get away with not answering any questions - but just issuing the normal NuLabour spiel.

Either he didn't understand any of the questions - especially the one about ZanuLabour abolishing the careers service - in which case he no doubt blames Thatcher for messing up his education, or he was treating the audience like a bunch of idiots just ranting on about the Conservatiaves. ( By the way Liam lots of the guys who went to school with you will have gone into the post Big Bang city - made meritocratic by the Conservatives - and made a killing. The guy who live next door to me in Essex was head of foreign currency trading at a key bank and he didn't even get his maths 'O' level.)

Why are Radio 4's Today interviewing skills so low ? Why do they let NuLabour automotrons just droll out the spin and misreopresentation of their opponents whilst nver answering the question ?

If anyone from the BBC reads this - try comparing to the intevriew on R5L about half an hour earluier - its shows you can do it. On this interview the straight hypocrisy of New Labour ministers sending their children to fee paying Oxbridge coaching sessions, getting them plush intern jobs and buying private tutors for them and empoying them in their offices was put straight to the slippery Mr Byrne.

For my money R4's Today programme has far to many left wing sympathisers working for it. And now we also see why the political capability of R5L is to be terminated with its move to Manchester.

Today discovers economists

For the second day running radio 4's today programme has given up on the politicians and found itself some real economists to debate things.

On this occasion the lady from Goldman Sachs tried to explain why reducing interest rates was not going to work, and was in effect a tax on savers. She described the £12billion Brown has borrowed to pay for the VAT election bribe cut as wasted.

There was another economist to give an alternative view - I can't be sure but I think he was a Labour supporter.

But my point is this: No one is listening to the politicians any more. Most of them, like most of us, had no idea what libor was 6 months ago, and they don't know how the economy works - they just know how to make announcements to win votes.

So we have Gordon Brown bullying the banks to be reckless in their lending and at the same time telling savers that their interests are looked after be inflation coming down despite the fact that most of the governments actions now are inflationary ( the Bank of England base rate is -2.5% in real terms right now ).

So its a well done to the Today program, I hope we'll hear from more economic experts and less self serving politicians (esp Labour ).

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.....