For the second morning in a row I have watched a leading Tory politician being given a hard time by a BBC television journalist. Yesterday it was Marr questioning Boris Johnson. This morning it was Rishi Sunak, who as I write this has just concluded an interview with on BBC breakfast television.
Both interviews were car crashes. Neither politician was obviously expecting to be held to account by the BBC. Both were. Johnson failed on supply chains, jobs and met his nemesis on pigs - where his responses were infantile.
Sunak simply could not handle a line of questioning from an excellent BBC journalist (whose name I do not know as I am not a regular breakfast television watcher) who would not let him off questions on universal credit, tax rises hitting the poorest disproportionately, unemployment and government naivete on that issue and the failure to deliver new jobs.
Both were visibly rattled by the line of questioning they suffered. From starting all smiling and confident both were forced onto the defensive, and into irrationality. Current stock lines ('we will not pull the lever of migration appears to be the latest) failed miserably to cut through. Neither could either explain or justify the government's position.
Unsurprisingly I welcome this. For far too long the BBC has accepted ministers' answers without seeking to explore what they mean. Neither interviewer here was willing to do that. They went back to the question. They called out nonsense when they heard it. Both asked for answers and left Johnson and Sunak dangling when they would not provide them.
This is good news. Firstly that's because democracy depends on ministers being held to account. Second, it is time ministers realised that they cannot talk nonsense and get away with it. Third, it shows that the BBC has had enough and has realised that being compliant is no longer the way to keep its licence and that it might as well fight to keep its form of television journalism alive, which I welcome.
Fourth, I think this says that the country has had enough. There is a palpable sense that the Tories are failing. My conversations with those who I do not expect to be critics are suggesting that. The sense that Sunak and Johnson cannot pass off the current situation with a 'don't blame us, this is the market transitioning to a new equilibrium' claim is very real. People neither understand that (which is justifiable, since it is nonsense) or think it passes muster - because they do think the government is responsible for keeping the economy going.
The sense of weariness with Johnson may be increasing rapidly. I note Max Hastings having a go at home in the FT, telling him it is time to go. But his chosen successor, Rishi Subnak, has just done very badly. What he managed to look like was a man who did not care. He claimed £12 billion could 0nly be raised in tax by increasing the taxes due by the lowest paid whilst leaving the taxes paid by the wealthiest untouched.
And that is simply not true. I could find most if not all of the £12 billion he wanted by simply cutting the tax relief due on the pension contributions of the wealthiest in the UK from 40% to 20% and not one extra penny would have been due by those on low pay as a result. So what he was really saying was that he could not find £12 billion whilst leaving the wealthy with their funds intact, which is something very different.
I think the BBC sense this and they are right to do so. Johnson and Sunak are in trouble. They are not only defending the indefensible. They are being called out for doing so. And that is good news.
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I didn’t see the BBC television interview, but on Radio 4 Rishi Sunak was given the familiar easy time for a favoured conservative politician. Nick Robinson had a list of questions which he let Sunak answer without interruption or scrutiny. The final two questions on tax transparency might be of interest to you. In his answers Sunak claimed that the UK had been rated one of the best countries in the world for tackling tax injustice???
That claim is complete nonsense….
Unusually I happened to catch the TV interview (not my usual morning fare) and then heard the radio one. The TV journalist was Nina Warhurst, and she just tried to get Sunak to answer the actual questions she asked, whereas Nick Robinson just let him blather on as usual.
She was excellent and held him to account
A great time for Kier Starmer to get a hold of the Labour Party and structure it to get it elected. Reduce all the identity politics and marginalise the far left cranks and the Party will look, in the eyes of the electorate anyway, fit to govern and at last a viable alternative to tory rule. Let’s get behind Sir Kier or all the incessant moaning about Johnson etc will just run for much longer.
As a Labour Party member I can’t agree. Following the changes at Conference the BBC probably think the chances of getting a Left Wing leader have been removed so the threat to the status quo have diminished. They can now start challenging Johnson and his cabinet. I hope this is the case, but I doubt it. I, like others, have stopped watching BBC News, their only credible news programme is Hardtalk ( those being interviewed are allowed to put their case whilst also being scrutinised).
Starmer is now more vulnerable following a disastrous Conference. This article explains.
https://skwawkbox.org/2021/10/04/guest-article-starmer-is-less-secure-since-conference-and-must-be-removed-as-soon-as-possible/
How about finding the money they say is needed by resourcing and supporting HMRC properly to close the admitted tax gap of around £35bn ?
Correct
I won’t bore you (again) about what I think about the BBC.
I just hope that you are right about the wider implications for our lying PM and his richy-boy Chancellor.
So do I
I think I am being asked to change my mind about the BBC
I will keep collecting evidence
The MSM does not change its spots.
If the Narrative appears to change whilst the people constructing that Narrative (the senior producers are exactly the same) then one must be a Mark Twainian model of a sucker to believe that one is suddenly to get an even break!
I don’t ingest the BBC having suffered mighty mental poisoning for years from its News and indeed Drama and Entertainment propaganda.
If it seems to be doing something different it will be doing as directed by the Master planners.
Is there a Tory conference due, requiring media scapegoats to cover the slow motion train wreck we are subject to?
I know the talk radio and various BrexShitty social media messages over the last week were already shiling the claim that the Fuel crises was entirely caused by Remainer media!
Just let me the loo roll crises (it was Murdochs media I. Australia that started that fake story which was tgen reported initially by his media here let us not forget – a BrexShit media).
The narrative being the Lorry driver crises is only to do with not enough new tests that were cancelled because of Covid.
What about all these letters sent out by DVLA?
Not a sausage about abattoir workers or the Gas supply companies that inexplicably failed to hedge against rises in wholesale prices that led to a mass cull and return of their ‘switcheroo’ customers to the monopolies resulting in an obvious mass inflationary event – aimed at delivering the Narrative that Intetest rates MUST increase wmd Government Debt MUST be tackled by tax increases.
The BBC – a willing gimp of the Crowns Sadomasochistic treatment of its subjects.
I admit I am getting bored by this rhetoric
Please either calm it or face being deleted
I was disgusted by Adam Fleming, the political editor for Marr, near the end, when they were discussing the ONS data and Johnson’s claims. Fleming was so wishy washy – a perfect fob for Johnson’s lying. He didn’t clarify the situation at all.
I thought he was better than that – but not hard hitting enough, I agree
Glad to hear that BBC TV is finally making ministers face up to heir economic follies. However, Nick Robinson on the BBC Radio Today programme this morning as a previous commentator pointed out gave Sunak an easy ride. He did though challenge Sunak on the £6 billion cuts in Universal Credit to be replaced by £0.5 billion on “getting young people into work”. How this comparatively modest sum is going to be used for the education and training needed to get thousands of young people into higher level productive work on high wages was not gone into and Sunak was left off the hook yet again by an obsequious thank you from Robinson.
I went to the web to try and find it. What I saw a Daily Express video “BBC Backlash as viewers slam ‘appalling’ Rishi Sunak interview. Makes a change, I suppose from their favourite headline starter “FURY AT ” the European Union or whatever they don’t like.
The Journalist is Nina Warhurst. Good for her.
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1500467/BBC-backlash-Rishi-Sunak-interview-Nina-Warhurst
So, it was a good interview
Put her on the Today programme
Great post as always Richard, thank you.
Is there a ‘not’ missing in the last sentence of the 7th paragraph? Genuine question, apologies if I’m being obtuse!
I read it again and don’t think so…but that may be me missing something. What do you think it should say?
Possibly the other one means this?
because they do [NOT] think the government is responsible for keeping the economy going.
I think the opposite of that
“[Rishi Sunak] has just done very badly. What he managed to look like was a man who did not care.”
I guess there’s a good reason for that. 🙁
He may have foreseen the BBC’s Chris Mason basting him with vapid praise later:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58789654
After reading all this, I think I too might start to watch the BBC news coverage again. I had given them up, more in sorrow than anger. It seems to me one of the great tragedies of our times that the Tories have so successfully infiltrated and bullied them into submission (he that pays the piper etc.). So no doubt if the Beeb is now trying to be a bit more incisive, as we all hope it is, we can expect to see the boot going in again pretty hard and pretty soon.
Given the Tory’s private ownership of just about all the other MSM outlets, its so sad to see our own National broadcaster so disgracefully compromised as it now is.
On a related point can I also offer my support to Jack Bodell’s comment above. We have to hope that the BBC will give Starmer a fair run and I feel that all of us, who abhor the Tories, need to do likewise. After all, he is the Labour Leader that we (or at least some of us) elected and he has mapped out a path that he feels will make the Party electable again. This programme might not always give us, the Membership, the buzz that we might crave but surely we must eventually recognise that no useful purpose is served by perpetually undermining him, in the manner promoted by Skwawkbox and similar Social Media.
Followed by Johnson and Nick Robinson this morning. Johnson at his very worst in terms of bluster and making it up. Robinson clearly getting very fed up with it.
Maybe, just maybe, the media are getting fed up with them
The speeches at the Tory conference have been even more extreme, disconnected from reality and plain dishonest than usual. I’d give first prize to Frost for his ‘waking up from the EU nightmare, now for the renaissance’ nonsense.
Did you see Gary Gibbon tonight? He slaughtered him
Missed that – I’d rate Gary Gibbon as one of the better, less subservient interviewers.
Whenever Johnson is exposed to any kind of serious Q&A he screws up – why I guess they so rarely let him out. Sadly too many of the public at large have still not noticed.