The row over Taylor Swift’s concert freebies has been hilariously extended for another day. Labour was forced to defend lobbying the police for a motorcade for Swift while accepting freebie tickets from her record label…
The optics weren’t as bad as they could have been yesterday seeing as everyone clarified that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper hadn’t taken freebie tickets to the concert – of the two, only Sadiq Khan had. Sky News’ Sam Coates reported last night that Ed Balls had though – and brought his wife along…
Now it’s clear that both Khan and Cooper received free premium tickets and pressed security services to do Swift a favour. Cooper didn’t declare them at the time as they fell under the threshold, though she now has. Was probably worth fessing up to when the first story broke…
Jonathan Reynolds is up on Good Morning Britain soon to answer an interviewer’s questions. Guido can think of just the man for the job…
UPDATE: Nandy yesterday, of course, was briefed that Cooper “didn’t attend the concerts.” Top quality briefing that…
Ofcom has decided not to investigate the infamous Ed Balls softball interview with Yvette Cooper on Good Morning Britain, after ITV described it as “fair and impartial.” Not the most romantic description of the Coopers’ marriage…
Despite Ofcom receiving nearly 17,000 complaints—nearly double last year’s most complained-about show—the watchdog has decided not to even look into the husband/wife interview. Guido is surprised it decided against an investigation, considering its history of jumping at the opportunity to impose self-righteous rules on other outlets, namely GB News. Here’s a reminder of a few GB News shows that were found in breach of the rules in the past:
And Ofcom is “independent and impartial”…
Ofcom has received 16,812 complaints for the Good Morning Britain show aired August 5th which saw presenter Ed Balls giving his wife Yvette Cooper an easy ride, as well as a controversial interview with Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana. That’s nearly double last year’s most complained about show, which saw over 8,800 complaints for Dan Wootton’s GB News interview with Laurence Fox…
Like Guido, viewers were more than a little shocked to see the husband and wife exchange that didn’t exactly see Balls’ doing his usual “over the top” bit to the home secretary, let alone any hard-hitting questions. Ofcom are usually happy to wrap GB News and other right-leaning outlets on the knuckles. Will they do the same over Mr. and Mrs. Cooper?
Viewers this morning were left with eyebrows-raised as they saw Ed Balls of Good Morning Britain fame interviewing…his wife, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. Funnily enough, Balls refrained from his usual “talking over the top” bit, asking some soft questions to Cooper, one of which (about social media and rioters) opened with “We’ve talked about this a few times in the last few days”. Presumably Yvette would know the question already then….
While watching Mr. Yvette Cooper give the Home Secretary an easy ride this morning, Guido was reminded of when Balls interviewed James Cleverly when he was in post. He was much more keen to look tough than actually get any answers. Meanwhile, Cooper couldn’t find the time to go on GB News this morning. Guido can’t possibly imagine why…
UPDATE 7 August: Today Ofcom said the Monday programme attracted 8,201 complaints about Balls questioning Ms Cooper, and an exchange with Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana.
Ed Balls tried to bulldoze his way through an interview on Good Morning Britain today, though he ended up with a serving of humble pie instead. The former Shadow Chancellor took Security Minister Tom Tugendhat to task for apparent hypocrisy over increased defence spending – or rather the lack of it. Using Tom’s own written words against him, Mr Yvette Cooper hit out:
“The truth is, like an old rock star, back to your old tunes, you’ve now written an article saying 2.5% isn’t enough. I think what’s just striking is if you think it’s not enough, why are you putting up with the Chancellor of the Exchequer carrying on doing something that you say isn’t good enough?”
Tom snapped back at Ed’s attention to detail and also his own record:
“Ed, you read the article. If you read a couple of paragraphs down, you’ll see that’s on defence and intelligence.
And as you know, details matter. After all, you were in the Treasury, you were in the government that failed to spend £38 billion on defence.”
It’s not the first time the Security Minister has had to defend himself against boisterous Balls. Guido leaves it to co-conspirators to decide who won this round…
A good start for Ed this morning. He only went and kicked fellow presenter Susanna Reid in the head. What do they say about an eye for an eye?
