Tag Archives: media

No, Newsnight, it’s not ok to talk about us when we aren’t there to defend ourselves

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 21st September 2016 - 8:57 pm

We had some absolutely cracking press coverage this Conference.

In her speech yesterday, Sal Brinton read out a newspaper editorial which said lots of nice things about us:

This Sunday, one paper’s editorial headline was ‘Lib Dems’ revival is a blow to sorry Labour’,

and it then went on to say:

‘fair play to the Lib Dems.

under Leader Tim Farron the party has risen from the ashes of electoral oblivion to reposition itself as the only effective opposition…

The Lib Dems have not only capitalised on the fallout from the EU Referendum but also the disintegration of the Labour Party…

They are speaking up for ordinary voters on issues that really matter, such as the NHS and education.’

The Observer on Polly Toynbee’s day off?

The Independent?

No, this, my friends, is the Sunday Express!

I’m delighted that Tim is at last getting the recognition that he deserves, and I suspect that phrase ‘the only effective opposition’ might appear in a few leaflets and tabloids over the next few months.

Tim got loads of coverage, from Buzzfeed to the Guardian to the Standard in the run-up to Conference, and there has been positive coverage of his speech yesterday, too. George Eaton in the New Statesman says:

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bbc and fair coverage | 24 Comments

How media reports can fuel hate crime

By Ross Shipman | Fri 5th August 2016 - 4:03 pm

First of all, i would like to say my thoughts go out to the family and friends of Darlene Horton, the woman who lost her life and those who were injured in the horrific knife attack in Russell Square on Wednesday night.

BBC News reports:

A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman was killed and five injured in a knife attack in Russell Square, central London.

A 19-year-old man was arrested at 22:39 after a Taser was discharged by an officer. The Met said mental health was a “significant factor” in events.

Metropolitan Police Service say Mental Health played a significant part in this incident. Nowhere do they say that it was terror related, yet the editors at The Sun never fail to amaze us with the headline – “RUSSELL SQUARE BLOODBATH Woman in her 60s knifed to death and five injured in possible terror attack in central London as man, 19, is tasered”

The story should read – Man murders one and wounds others in Russell Square Knife attack.

I am all for free press when reported correctly, but after the vote for Brexit, the country needs to heal and come together, The Sun continue to spread hate and divisive headlines which injects more panic and fear into our society.

The Liberal Democrats need to tackle this and make a stand against this right wing media coverage, which some people I know are starting to believe. I see them quoting stuff from the sun as though it is fact and it is deeply worrying.

This creates further hate and only exacerbates hate crime in the long run. When can the Sun be held accountable for these outrageous headlines they keep printing?

Posted in News | 21 Comments

Liberal Democrats are being excluded from referendum debate – don’t put up with this

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 15th June 2016 - 11:55 am

We Liberal Democrats are used to not getting our fair share of media attention. Since last year’s general election, that has got even worse. However, we still aren’t getting anything like the coverage we should have based on our size.

Research carried out by the University of Loughborough during the EU referendum campaign shows that we are only being included in 1% of both press and broadcast media. Mind you, the official opposition doesn’t fare that much better, although that has definitely changed in the last few days.

If you were thinking that there was a gross over-representation of right wing men, the study confirms your instincts.

The debate is highly presidential in character, focussing on key individuals. The top six individuals are all right-of-centre and are all men. Despite concern expressed by left-of-centre and female politicians about media coverage it’s still largely a ‘Tory story’ and a male dominated, ‘blue-on-blue’ tale at that.

So who are the main media performers?

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bbc, featured, liberal democrats, loughborough university and ofcom | 21 Comments

Three ways our democracy is being undermined

By Toby MacDonnell | Fri 27th May 2016 - 4:15 pm

The articles that have appeared after the BBC’s referendum debate in Glasgow have given a lot of prominence to that one man who blamed the state of political discourse for his confusion as to how to vote.

This was too interesting not to comment on.

The audience was divided into leavers, remainers, and undecideds.

Leave and Remain both have their own ‘Project Fear’. Leavers tout a cultural crisis in the form of mass migration. Remainers raise the spectre of economic catastrophe.

Fear Projects, whereever they come from, are a concerted attempt to sway the public with threats dangerous enough to repeat frequently in scarce media time.

On the face of it my generation ought to be the most engaged generation there has ever been. Social media has turned every one of us into campaigners and journalists: we auto-report our lives and volunteer our opinions publicly. We are also happy to parrot or share anything we agree with.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged debate and politics | 4 Comments

Yet another headline writer trivialises violence against women

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 19th May 2016 - 2:58 pm

I’m very conscious of the way the media trivialises men’s violence against women. Often a false narrative is constructed to somehow give the impression that the abuser had some sort of excuse for their behaviour.

A story in today’s Metro, or more specifically its headline is a good example of terrible practice.

Let’s look at what the man in question actually did to his girlfriend:

Anwaar was open to fits of rage. In one incident she fell unconscious when he throttled her after smashing up her iPhone, slapping and kicking her.

He also attacked her in front of her sons and on two or three occasions slapped her around the back of the head.

Prosecutor Nicola Quinney said Anwaar had held a knife to Miss Doherty’s throat, asking her if she wanted him to kill her, and saying he wasn’t scared of a life sentence. During the attack, Miss Doherty’s son Ethan, three, was hiding under the bed.

So that’s a pretty serious series of violent incidents that fully deserved a decent jail term.

Posted in News | Also tagged violence against women | 13 Comments

Nothing of public interest in lurid headlines about SNP MPs

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 18th May 2016 - 11:38 am

Pick up any newspaper today, particularly the Scottish ones, and you’ll find a whole load of froth about two SNP MPs who have apparently had relationships, not at the same time, with the same woman. Both MPs have separated from their wives, most recently Deputy Leader Stewart Hosie from Scottish Health Minister Shona Robison at the weekend.

Those events will be particularly traumatic for the people involved and most especially for their children. I can’t however, see why it is any of our business. If either of them had shown hypocrisy and sought to curb others’ personal freedom, then perhaps calling them out for that would be relevant. Where is the public interest in this?

Much of the reporting is sensationalised and, more importantly, misogynistic on all sorts of levels. The woman concerned is cast as the “home wrecker” and extensive scrutiny is made of her blogs she has written which are simply not relevant. Nor is it appropriate to compare with the SNP MPs who have had to resign the whip and sit as independents. They have had to do because of various allegations of financial misconduct which are being investigated, not their personal lives

We really don’t need to know all of this stuff, and I wish editors would think about the effects of their articles on everyone affected. It’s hard enough for kids to come to terms with parents’ separation without their schoolmates hearing all sorts of lurid, unverifiable speculation. Maybe people who buy these papers and enjoy reading these stories should ask themselves how they would feel if it was their child going through it. We need to remember that behind each wild headline are lots of people having a really hard time. Our demand for such coverage makes their lives worse and it’s not necessary.

Posted in News | Also tagged angus macneil, snp and stewart hosie | 25 Comments

Nicola Sturgeon faces similar press trashing to Clegg in 2010 – but with added misogyny

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 4th April 2015 - 10:39 am

View image | gettyimages.com

I might have some fairly fundamental disagreements with Nicola Sturgeon on the best future for Scotland, but I have a great deal of time for her as a human being and as a politician. She is a much cleverer tactician than Alex Salmond ever was. I am perfectly happy to argue with people on their political outlook, but I’m not struck on the sort of nasty personal mudslinging that we see at PMQs, or in Labour’s deeply misleading personal attack on Nick Clegg last year and I sure as hell am not going to make up my mind how to vote based on how someone eats a bacon sandwich. Nor, I suspect, are the rest of the population.

It appears that after her very good performance in Thursday’s Leaders’ Debate that Nicola Sturgeon is, highly predictably, being done over by the right wing press in much the same way that Nick Clegg was in 2010. Remember Nick Barlow’s wonderful way of dealing with that – the #nickcleggsfault meme on Twitter where Clegg was blamed from everything to the weather to the cat being sick?

Of course, Nicola is getting much different treatment to a man. Her clothes come in to it. The Daily Fail describes her as a “glamorous power-dressing imperatrix.” Wow. A woman goes out wearing smart clothes. How remarkable. Of course, if she rocked up for FMQs in Parliament in her jeans, they’d have something to say about that, too. On appearance, women really can’t win.

The Telegraph’s splash is a bit different. Last night, when I read their account that she’d told the French ambassador that she’d prefer David Cameron to be Prime Minister, it didn’t seem right to me. Apart from anything else, the Nicola Sturgeon I know has more sense than to be so indiscreet. The paper bases its story on a memo written by a UK Government official who wasn’t even at the meeting in question and who actually doubts its veracity. It’s all very third hand and clearly questionable.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged daily mail, featured, general election 2015, nick clegg, nicola sturgeon, sexism and telegraph | 87 Comments

Today’s headlines show just how much work is still to do on mental health stigma

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 27th March 2015 - 4:57 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

All of us have been moved by the Germanwings plane crash, feeling for those who have lost loved ones or colleagues. The circumstances of the crash, caused by what seems to be a deliberate act by the co-pilot, has provoked much comment in the press, much of it deeply irresponsible. Headlines have screamed about Andreas Lubitz’s mental health demanding to know why he was allowed to fly.

Lurid headlines, written by sub-editors who clearly have no clue about mental health, do not help to either tackle the stigma faced by people with mental ill health or encourage those who suffer to seek help. The more open we can be about mental health, the more we understand. That leads to a more comfortable and sympathetic world for those who are suffering.

It’s worth reading this statement from Mind, which acts the media to report the issue responsibly:

The terrible loss of life in the Germanwings plane crash is tragic, and we send our deepest sympathies to the families. Whilst the full facts are still emerging, there has been widespread media reporting speculating about the link with the pilot’s history of depression, which has been overly simplistic.

Clearly assessment of all pilots’ physical and mental health is entirely appropriate – but assumptions about risk shouldn’t be made across the board for people with depression, or any other illness. There will be pilots with experience of depression who have flown safely for decades, and assessments should be made on a case by case basis.

Today’s headlines risk adding to the stigma surrounding mental health problems, which millions of people experience each year, and we would encourage the media to report this issue responsibly.

Posted in News | Also tagged mental health | 9 Comments

Opinion: The power of the media for good or ill

By Stephen Phillips | Wed 17th December 2014 - 3:00 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

The existence of a free press is one of the hard-won aspects of our society, that makes it what it is. Added to this is the existence of a free broadcasting system and the internet, some of which features other countries are lucky enough to share.

Of course, there are problems associated with a free media, including the issue that it is largely profit-driven and can therefore occasionally overstep the mark of what many ‘ordinary’ people consider to be acceptable behaviour. Delving too deeply into the private lives of those who are not in a position to defend themselves is one example of what can go wrong. On the other hand, revealing the depths of corruption in various public bodies is something for which we should thank them.

It is therefore with a degree of diffidence that I wonder whether some of the 24 hour a day coverage we see is actually a bad thing. Take for example, recent events in Sydney, Australia.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged terrorism | 3 Comments

Baroness Floella Benjamin writes…Tax break for children’s programmes is great news

By Floella Benjamin | Thu 4th December 2014 - 3:05 pm

I am overjoyed with the wonderful news that the Chancellor has extended tax breaks to children’s television productions. This is something I have campaigned on for years as Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children’s Media and the Arts. I have asked questions and spoken on this issue in the House of Lords, supported by Pact (Producers Alliance for Cinema & Television) and the Children’s Media Foundation.

I always say, ‘Childhood lasts a lifetime’ and we can all remember our favourite children’s television programme, they hold fond memories, which are part of our formative years.

But even though children’s programmes are much loved, they are often undervalued and those who contribute to this sector of the creative industries are rarely credited.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged Autumn Statement 2012, children's programmes, featured and television | 3 Comments

Lib Dem “senior strategists”, what are you thinking?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 18th November 2014 - 10:09 am

I know that in the run-up to an election, not every story that newspapers print, especially those newspapers which are hostile to us which is, let’s face it, all of them, is grounded in accuracy.

You would think that we would help ourselves, though. Who on earth has said in the hearing of the Telegraph that the party fears that Danny Alexander will lose his Inverness seat?

Danny Alexander will lose his seat at the next general election unless there is a radical turnaround in fortunes, a senior Liberal Democrat strategist has privately warned.

The source believes the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s closeness to the austerity cuts and George Osborne will create an “anti-Danny” backlash among constituents that could topple him.

It raises the prospect of one of the four most influential figures in the Coalition being kicked out of politics in less than six months.

Whoever wrote this article knows nothing about the proud, liberal tradition in the Highlands which is deeply offended by the SNP Government’s indiscriminate use of unregulated stop and search and armed police patrolling their peaceful communities. Danny has been vociferous in standing up to them, and on their concentration of resources in the central belt rather than on providing a fit for purpose trunk road to the north.

Posted in News | Also tagged Danny Alexander and party strategy | 70 Comments

Nick and Miriam join Lorraine to talk about inspiring women and school meals – and grate cheese

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 6th November 2014 - 11:48 am

Nick Clegg got cheesy yesterday morning on ITV’s Lorraine show. He was helping their chef make ragu for going on bonfire baked potatoes and was entrusted with chopping onion, carrot and celery and grating cheese which he seemed to carry out with reasonable competence. My mind boggled a bit when he asked which bit of the grater he should use. It was for going on top of a baked potato. It didm’t really matter.

Anyway, he took the opportunity to talk about the successful introduction of his school meals policy. This was not a serious political interview. It was never going to be, but it is quite nice to see well-informed discussion of the issues in an informal way. I think Nick should be doing much more of these things. You can watch him here.

Posted in News | Also tagged itv, lorraine kelly, miriam gonzalez durantez and nick clegg | 25 Comments

Paddy: Clegg “has had 17 buckets of s**t dumped over his head by the right-wing press”

By The Voice | Sat 5th July 2014 - 8:10 am

That’s the rather striking quote from Paddy Ashdown in an interview with Iain Dale on LBC radio. Here’s how the Herald reported it:

Speaking to LBC radio’s Iain Dale, Lord Ashdown insisted the party’s dismal poll ratings would recover as the “true Nick Clegg” was revealed to voters.

“The right-wing press in this country detest the coalition – detest it,” he said.

“If they want to destroy the coalition, what they do is

…

Posted in News | Also tagged iain dale, lbc radio, nick clegg and paddy ashdown | 22 Comments

Opinion: An anti-Liberal Democrat press isn’t going to go any easier on any Liberal Democrat leader

By Nicholas Pentney | Sat 31st May 2014 - 4:39 pm

Liberal Democrats 4 Change have a point about one thing. They are right to say that the Liberal Democrats do not get a fair hearing. However, they are mistaken to think that a leadership change would alter anything in this regard.

It is instructive to recall the moment Clegg began to get a bad rap from voters. At what point was this? The answer is not as obvious as you may think, It didn’t start with Secret Courts, Bedroom Tax or Tuition …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged leadership and liberal democrats | 103 Comments

The biggest urban myth: the Tories have a birthright to the Shires

By Andy Boddington | Thu 31st October 2013 - 1:30 pm

Champions of the Countryside Alliance boast that it is the voice of rural Britain. I disagree. It is just one voice within rural Britain. It’s like saying that the Tories are the voice of the Home Counties and Labour is the voice of the Industrial North. That’s just lousy stereotypical language. There are many different voices within rural England.

I am forever angry that the London press, especially the right leaning press, routinely trots out stereotypes about life in our rural areas. They seem to believe that “Escape to the Country” is something authentic. It’s a reality show, no more.

One reason why rural areas get such a bad deal in public policy is that London journalists rely on urban myths about the countryside rather than trying to understand rural reality. This reality game is not without victims. The media’s glib characterisations of country life distort discussions of pressing issues like rural funding, schooling and a working landscape. And most of all, the need for jobs and decent housing in rural areas.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged rural | 4 Comments

The lessons we must learn for Nick Clegg’s next holiday

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 25th August 2013 - 11:24 am

Nick Clegg’s two spells of holiday this Summer have been characterised by the Home Office in particular getting above itself in his absence. Both the party and Nick’s Special Advisers should have learned from the furore over the “Go home” poster vans. The Home Office pulled a fast one by implementing this pilot without telling the Liberal Democrats. The response from the Party was the right one – that they were “disproportionate, distasteful and ineffective” and Vince Cable saying a few days later that they were stupid and offensive. The problem was that the response came out by …

Posted in News | Also tagged civil liberties, holidays, nick clegg, nick cohen and observer | 31 Comments

BBC bias? Yes, but not to the left researchers say

By Andy Boddington | Fri 23rd August 2013 - 12:03 pm

Writing at The Conversation, Cardiff University lecturer Mike Berry looks at whether the BBC is biased.

He concludes, despite the regular screams of left wing bias by the right wing press, that Tories get more airtime than Labour.

The BBC is not pro-EU, quite the reverse. But reportage “saw Europe almost exclusively through the prism of political infighting between Labour and the Conservatives so a rounded debate… was almost completely absent.” Voices arguing for the benefits of EU membership were, says Berry, very sparse.

Posted in News | Also tagged bbc | 15 Comments

Joan Edwards’ bequest: the dangers of 24/7 news and how we respond to it

By Mark Valladares | Wed 14th August 2013 - 2:20 pm

When asked about the impact of the French Revolution, Zhou Enlai was said to have suggested that it was “too early to tell”. Admittedly, he was apparently referring to the 1968 riots, rather than the original, but it was the response of someone who saw politics as a long game.

With 24/7 rolling news, it would seem that such a perspective is in danger of being lost forever. In just twenty-four hours, the Joan Edwards legacy story appears to have gone from curiosity to scandal and back.

Yesterday, news broke that a …

Posted in Op-eds | 121 Comments

Finally, the media pick up on Coalition split on offensive poster vans

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 26th July 2013 - 1:30 pm

There’s a big lesson to learn from the offensive poster van fiasco this week. Sometimes we Liberal Democrats, including me, can be quick to feel a dividing line between those inside the Whitehall Bubble and the rest of us. This week, we spoke with one voice. Liberal Democrats inside Government were every bit as livid as those of us outside at the presence of these vans on our streets. With their stark message “Go home or face arrest”, illustrated by handcuffs, they can only inflame tensions in communities.

We now know that the Tories have pulled a fast one on us. …

Posted in News | Also tagged catherine bearder, featured, home office, home office poster vans, immigration, meral hussein ece and tim farron | 23 Comments

How the papers viewed Nick Clegg’s comments on MPs’ pay

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 2nd July 2013 - 10:20 am

A snapshot of some of today’s headlines on Nick Clegg’s comments on MPs’ Pay is quite revealing. To refresh your memories, yesterday he told journalists at his new monthly press conference that he wouldn’t take the proposed rise himself, that he couldn’t control what other MPs so, but:

But I think all MPs, whatever status they hold, whatever position they hold, will know from their own constituents that there are millions of people in the United Kingdom at the moment who’ve had a remorseless squeeze on their living standards for some years now and that we’re asking millions of public sector

…

Posted in News | Also tagged daily mail, nick clegg and press coverage | 4 Comments

The Liberal Democrat perspective on welfare reform that needs to be heard

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 3rd April 2013 - 1:30 pm

On Monday, I wrote about the good things Liberal Democrats are doing in Government and also expressed concern that nobody was out there giving the Liberal Democrat perspective in a way that would resonate with and encourage members and activists. I know that some of them felt a bit exposed. They were out there on a day when we were under media pressure, and nobody was giving them any air cover. It’s a balance, of course. There have been times when we’ve complained that our ministers are out there defending things we feel uncomfortable with. These things can be …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged benefits, tax and welfare reform | 33 Comments

Keep the faith: Liberal Democrats are doing good things in Government, not that you’d know it from today’s headlines

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 1st April 2013 - 1:25 pm

Liberal Democrats have taken a pounding across the Labour supporting media over the past few days. Article after soundbite condemns the welfare reforms which come into effect from now. It’s been a clever, co-ordinated onslaught which seems aimed at demoralising Liberal Democrat members and activists rather than opposing the changes themselves. After all, I haven’t heard Ed Miliband promise to repeal any of them. And we have to remember that it was the Labour Government who introduced Local Housing Allowance – the Bedroom Tax of the private sector.

Where have the Liberal Democrat MPs and key figures been?

That Labour would use …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged guardian, internal communications, labour and welfare | 56 Comments

Nick Clegg writes… Press regulation: a liberal solution

By The Voice | Mon 18th March 2013 - 9:35 pm

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has written to party supporters tonight…

Having been in face to face negotiations till nearly midnight last night – followed by calls, texts and emails for many hours afterwards – I am delighted to have stood up this afternoon in the House of Commons to welcome the cross-party agreement on implementing the Leveson Report. It wasn’t easy but after a lot of hard work – led on our side by the tireless Jim Wallace, we have got there.

The Leveson Inquiry was established after public revulsion at the phone hacking scandal. So, when Lord Justice Leveson published

…

Posted in News | Also tagged leveson inquiry and nick clegg | 22 Comments

It’s not just the Lib Dem leadership trying to ignore the ‘secret courts’ row: the news media is too

By Stephen Tall | Sun 10th March 2013 - 12:10 pm

I had an odd experience on Friday. I was doing a round of media interviews – 3 for TV, 3 for radio – previewing the Lib Dem conference. I’d been called by researchers in advance to ‘get my take’ on the key issues. Each time, I said there was a big issue on which the party leadership could expect to be defeated and which would see activists from across the broad spectrum of the Lib Dems united: opposition to secret courts. This received an “Uh-hum” response which I took for baffled boredom. And as expected, each interview in turn dwelt …

Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged 2013 brighton spring conference, chris huhne, chris rennard, featured, secret courts, shirley williams and vicky pryce | 7 Comments

As Leveson reports… Why I’m sticking up for ‘Press freedom with no buts’

By Stephen Tall | Sun 25th November 2012 - 8:30 am

Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal will report this week. His recommendations on the future of press regulation are the subject of intense speculation, with essentially three positions being staked-out:

What’s being proposed

‘Independent regulation backed up by statute’
Advocates, who include Evan Harris and the Hacked Off campaign group, argue that the only way to ensure the press does not abuse its position in the future is for it to be regulated. But, they insist, this should be independent both of government and the press, the two main …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged evan harris, featured, free speech network, hacked off, index on censorship, john kampfner, leveson inquiry, lord black, nick clegg, nick cohen and press complaints commission | 38 Comments

How not to do an interview: Grant Shapps demonstrates

By Mark Pack | Sun 7th October 2012 - 8:09 pm

1. Running away from Michael Crick rarely works.

2. Running away from Michael Crick whilst he has a camera crew in tow even more rarely works.

3. Running away from Michael Crick into the wrong room and then having to turn around and walk back past the camera even more rarely works.

4. Running away from Michael Crick into a wrong room for the second time takes the odds of success into the realms of the never never.

5. But if you are going to do that, remember not to turn round at the end and give a short answer sounding out of breath and without looking at camera or questioner. Because that always looks so convincing.

All of which means of course no-one would ever do 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Oh, hang on:

Posted in News | Also tagged grant shapps and michael crick | 5 Comments

The crisis of trust facing the news media

By Stephen Tall | Sun 22nd July 2012 - 8:45 am

The Hansard Society this week published part two of its annual Audit of Political Engagement, focusing on the media and politics. Three graphs in particular stood out for me…

63% of public say tabloids “look for any excuse” to tarnish politicians

… tabloid newspapers are consistently identified by two-thirds of the public as displaying negative traits in their coverage of politics and politicians. … Tabloids are three times more likely to be perceived to be negative in their approach to the coverage of politics than are the other

…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured, hansard society and Mark Pack | 4 Comments

LDVideo: Clegg – we don’t need Hunt inquiry. Hughes – we need Hunt inquiry

By Stephen Tall | Sat 28th April 2012 - 2:55 pm

Here’s Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg saying that the Leveson Inquiry is the best place for culture secretary Jeremy Hunt to give evidence about his role in the BSkyB takeover bid…

Posted in YouTube | Also tagged jeremy hunt, leveson inquiry, nick clegg, rupert murdoch and simon hughes | 13 Comments

Metro finally gets the point of Liberal Democrat tax policy

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 17th April 2012 - 3:53 pm

The front page of yesterday’s Metro made me laugh.

“The richest pay how much tax?” screamed their headline. “Multi millionaires hand over less than cleaners.”

Their outrage at the relatively low rates of tax paid by the super rich continued for three columns on the front page and a continuation on page 5.

I guess it’s good that they’re finally getting the message. But, might we have heard their millionaire and cleaner example somewhere before?

Let’s go back to January 2010 when I reported Nick Clegg’s appearance on the Andrew Marr show.

Also on tax, he talked about taking 4 million people out

…

Posted in News | Also tagged andrew marr, metro, nick clegg and tax | 3 Comments

“Hard to believe she’s just 16!” The headline that sums up the morality of the Daily Mail

By Stephen Tall | Sat 14th April 2012 - 6:45 pm

Next time that esteemed family newspaper the Daily Mail screams at the permissive society for its outrages against decent family values it will be worth recalling this article and its beyond-parody headline: