Guido had a cursory scroll of the BBC News website earlier and had a look at their article titled: “UK borrowing costs at highest for a year after Budget.” That headline is nowhere to be seen now…
The article was given a new headline by 10 a.m. today on online displays: “Investors reaction to Budget ‘very different’ to Truss, says Reeves’ colleague.” The entire top of the piece had market analysis replaced with supportive quotes from ‘colleague’ Darren Jones. Who happens to be Chief Secretary to the Treasury…
Gone is testimony from actual analysts:
“Yields have been driven higher after the chancellor announced a sharp rise in government borrowing… Kathleen Brooks, an analyst at trading firm XTB, said the movement indicated that the Budget ‘has not been well received’ by markets. ‘This is another sign that the chancellor overestimated the market’s desire to absorb more sovereign debt issuance from the UK,’ she said.”
That was replaced by multiple quotes from Jones claiming a spike in gilt yields was fine and normal:
“He said investors always reacted to Budgets because they present a whole load of new information. ‘We’ve all got a bit of anxiety from what happened when Liz Truss was in government.'”
The article’s headline doesn’t reference Jones, so it just reads “Investors’ reaction to Budget ‘very different’ to Truss.” So it looks to a layman like an impartial observer’s view…
Note the article isn’t a live piece. BBC readers can’t see previous updates – just the brand new Labour-positive version. Wouldn’t be the first time the BBC has caved in to the slightest pressure from the Number 10 press office…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”
