The only person to have a worse day than Gordon yesterday was the BBC’s Nick Robinson. First he humiliated himself on the Daily Politics making an ill-judged attacked on the madness of nameless bloggers and tweeters for reporting rumours of another push against Gordon.  It was the political equivalent of Michael Fish’s “no hurricanes” broadcast.

Within half an hour he had to eat his words, Guido texted him for an apology, he was less gracious off air (see picture) than he was on air  where he invited mockery.

This morning he was lambasted by Jack Straw for his shoddy reporting; “a very substandard piece of journalism”, “I was named by Mr Nick Robinson of the BBC – he sent me an apology” – which is more than Guido got.  Guido (and more neutral academic observers) thought he deserved an apology too.

So Guido took him up on his invitation and the Guy News video of Robinson’s on-screen reversal has gone viral around BBC TV Centre…

Guido was reporting rumours that a cabinet minister was going to call for Brown to go last night.  Bad day for Nick Robinson, at midday he dismissed the rumours as “the madness we might get into with blogging and tweeting” on the Daily Politics.

With all his authority he definitively told viewers that there was no plot and nothing going on. The Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow had the first squeak of the story at quarter past, Guido had the letter just after half past and yet it takes another half an hour for the BBC’s Political Editor to break the fact that MPs might be texting each other:

The BBC’s News & Current Affairs operation costs taxpayers billions…

Last night’s panel debate on the internet and democracy was as expected a bit of a bunfight, Guido got to deliver about half his speech (intended full text here).   Sir Michael interrupted as soon as Guido gave him some stick (no one had interrupted him). Nick was more reasonable in BBCish way, he bemoaned his blog’s comments – something we have in common.  He was a bit sarky, characterising Guido as a self-absorbed, overgrown student political hack, which was odd given we first met and clashed when he was the dripping wet chairman of the Young Conservatives in the 80s.  He did try to shift the debate back to the big picture.

Grant Shapps was all starry eyed about the possibilities of the internet.  Peter Kellner didn’t like direct democracy.  Questions from the floor complained that we were all in broadcast mode not listening mode.  When the debate organisers (Delib) listened and read out some of the abusive #idebate Twitterings from the large screen feed, it kind of confirmed the panel’s prejudices against listening to crowd sources.  All in all Guido enjoyed himself, hopefully it was entertaining if not that informative for those there.

Guido had to dash, to pick up an alternative award, bumping into a very hurt Lembit at the ceremony.  Had a few pints with the entertaining Stephen Pound, stopping to chat at the bar briefly with the chief whip, Nick Brown, who claims he enjoys avidly reading this blog.  Hmmm…

Sadly Guido’s old adversary Derek Draper ducked out of giving us the benefit of his PR and blogging expertise at PR Week’s “new media” conference at the very last moment.  Guido had to improvise his speech since he was expecting to just have another ding-dong with Draper.  Most speakers seemed to be using Draper as a case study in how not to win friends and influence people online. At the conference Guido learnt that LabourHome’s Alex Hilton has gone all corporate and formed a “Digital PR Consultancy” with David Prescott.  So no more monkeying around from him.

Incidentally, the Henry Jackson Society have organised a talk for next Tuesday to which they sent out invitations on Monday.  All tickets went straight away, much to the surprise of the non-partisan society which usually holds dry talks about geo-political flash points like the Middle East.  Such is the demand for tickets the organisers have now moved the event to the biggest room available in Parliament, the Grand Committee room.

When you know that the speakers on the subject of  ‘the internet: saviour or corruptor of democracy?’ include Nick Robinson, Guido and Sir Michael White, you would be right to guess that this could make the Hamas – Likud peace negotiations look calm by comparison.  Unlike Nick, Guido won’t be pulling his punches…

So in search of the truth and information as to what is really going on the British public turns to the state broadcaster, the venerable BBC, the broadcaster the people are involuntarily forced to fund.  Who, we want to know, is behind the attempt to oust the Prime Minister by email?

John Humphrys : …who’s behind it? Our political editor Nick Robinson, do we know Nick?

Nick Robinson : We do know, I am not entirely sure I am going to tell you on the Today programme…

(Listen online here.)  You pay taxes so Nick Robinson can report on politics.  Sky News says Charles Clarke is behind it, no taxpayers were harmed in bringing you that information.  Incidentally, Clarke was seen chatting to Hazel Blears at Andrew Neil’s sixtieth birthday party on Sunday…

• The U.S. fiscal stimulus plan worth $150 billion went into play in February with bi-partisan support.
• The Chinese stimulus package is a $586 billion public works acceleration plan announced last week.
• The German Cabinet approved a stimulus package weeks ago, as did the French.
• Australia’s second stimulus package was announced last month – though they have the advantage of a massive budget surplus after a decade of Conservative economic policies.
• Spain’s fiscal stimulus package was announced in April.
• Conservative run Canada also has for years run a budget surplus and remains determined to balance the budget and cut taxes.
• Japan has been doing fiscal stimulus for two decades.

In fact of the G7 countries it appears that only Berlusconi and Brown have yet to announce a fiscal stimulus package. Of course Brown is way behind the curve on this, because he was until a few months ago delusionally claiming that our economy was strong and in better shape than the rest of the world including America. Brown’s last budget as chancellor was a fantasy in forecasting. Some leadership…