Steve Reed last night spoke out on Labour’s discredited attack ad – claiming Rishi Sunak does not want to lock up convicted paedophiles – on the News Agents podcast. He confirmed that he and his team provided the figures used and saw it before it went out, though the actual ad was created by Labour’s central office. He also said that Sir Keir was aware it was going out. When probed on the merits of the campaign, Steve said:
“I think it’s wholly legitimate. I think it’s part of politics to hold leaders to account for what they’ve done. The leader of the Conservative Party is accountable for the behaviour of the Conservative government that’s been in power for 13 years. I think it’s important that we explain to voters – to the public – what the government is doing wrong”.
Guido isn’t so sure he would consider blaming a person who was, at the time, working in a California hedge fund, over someone responsible for the sentencing decisions in question is “wholly legitimate”…
Lewis Goodall then asked if former Director of Public Prosecutions Starmer was more responsible for the justice system than Sunak – Steve insisted Rishi was. Leftie Lewis’s bemusement says it all.
Steve’s defence of his ads comes as today’s papers report on Labour’s internal delight at their descent into “gutter politics” – to quote Lord Blunkett. The i runs with a Labour source praising the impact of the ads, whilst The Times quotes a senior Labour source calling the campaign a “triumph” as “we’ve spent a week not talking about boats, not talking about trans”. Just don’t ask Yvette…
As Gary Lineker’s off-side remark about the government’s immigration agenda brings BBC bias back into focus, the hosts of the News Agents podcast have had their say. Because who better to speak on impartiality than someone who was repeatedly found to have breached the rules.
Jon Sopel first chimed in that when he was abroad in America covering Trump “I was given huge amounts of latitude to call it as I saw it” – and BBC bosses backed him for it. No surprises there.
Lewis Goodall then shared his views, first claiming the Tories have succeeded in making sure “impartiality only goes in one direction”. He then spoke about Robbie Gibb, saying he made his life “very difficult”. Lewis complains that people would warn him that “Robbie’s watching you” because they “created this confection that somehow I was Labour supporting”. In the very next sentence, Lewis then admitted he was Labour-leaning.
Of course, Robbie would have been more than justified to keep an eye on Lewis. Whilst at Newsnight, he penned an anti-government front-page piece for the New Statesman – a flagrant breach of the BBC’s guidelines. He was considered a hostile opponent by Boris’ operation. At Sky, he was able to publish a long anti-Boris article and he used to work for the lefty think tank IPPR. Lewis was forever going over the top on Twitter and having to delete tweets when he remembered he was supposed to be impartial. Yet somehow it was the BBC that “created this confection”. Considering Lewis’ background, being indirectly told to take care with the editorial direction of his content hardly seems like the “crazy” approach to impartiality he was keen to describe.
LBC‘s Lewis Goodall has got his hands on a letter from DCMS secretary Michelle Donelan to the PM confirming that her recommendation is against privatising Channel 4 – directly contravening the plan of Nadine Dorries and the previous government. The letter states that after reviewing the business case:
“I have concluded that pursuing a sale at this point is not the right decision and there are better ways to secure C4C’s sustainability and that of the UK independent production sector.”
Responding to the leaked letter, a DCMS spokesperson tells Guido “We do not comment on speculation. The DCMS Secretary of State has been clear that we are looking again at the business case for the sale of Channel Four. We will announce more on our plans in due course.” All eyes on Nadine’s Twitter account…
Read the leaked letter from Goodall in full here.
UPDATE: As expected, Nadine Dorries’ response pulls no punches:
A policy at some time in the future to teach maths for longer with teachers we don’t yet even have to do so.
— Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) January 4, 2023
Where is the mandate- who voted for this?
Will now be almost impossible to face the electorate at a GE and expect voters to believe or trust our manifesto commitments.
Guido can reveal the BBC’s had another top broadcast face poached by Global. Newsnight’s resident lefty, Lewis Goodall, has been scooped up by the radio station as their new “Analysis & Investigations Editor”:
“Lewis will be joining Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel as the third host on Global’s major new podcast, which will launch this autumn. In addition to presenting the podcast, Lewis will also take on the role of Analysis & Investigations Editor, working alongside Antony Garvey’s team”.
Guido’s mole jokes, “this is just what LBC was crying out for, another leftist ex-BBC type to come in and steer the ship.’ Following in the wake of Maitlis, Sopel and Marr, Broadcasting House seems to have the air of rats leaving a sinking ship at the moment…
Something tells Guido that Lewis fancies himself as a crooner. You be the judge…
The BBC won plaudits from the left-wing media establishment yesterday after the Mail on Sunday dropped them in another Jess Brammar controversy. The paper’s award-winning showbiz editor, Katie Hind, came under sustained attack from the usual corners after claiming the BBC had repeatedly refused to answer her questions about whether a fair recruitment process had taken place. The BBC press team said they did answer this question, replying with their ‘statement’ in full:
For the record, this is the statement we sent you last night:
— BBC News Press Team (@BBCNewsPR) August 22, 2021
“The role has been advertised under fair and open recruitment and we will make an announcement at the appropriate time.”
Despite many Twitterati members thinking this showed the MoS to be in the wrong, Guido would simply point out it doesn’t prove anything regarding fair recruitment processes. It’s not uncommon for a job to be publicly advertised despite the new hire already having been decided on. It also doesn’t answer the paper’s questions on whether the corporation’s own rules about ethnic minority shortlist candidates for all appointments were followed…
To compound the row, the BBC’s resident Labour spokesperson Lewis Goodall waded in, claiming the paper’s simple questions about her suitability for the job were “unhinged, simply misogynist attacks”. Shortly after he was told by his bosses to delete the offending tweet, replacing it with a hissy fit tweet:
At the risk of being accused of misandry for criticising Goodall’s manifest political bias, the very political divisiveness of Brammar raises obvious questions. Does Goodall seriously believe his and the rest of Twitter’s media lefties’ open support for Brammar will lessen the questions about her political bias?
