Nick Watt was clearly short on content for yesterday’s Newsnight as he resorted to filling time by citing one anonymous Tory MP, who claimed that after Keir Starmer’s performance over the last couple of days there is a “path in which Keir Starmer would win” the next election in five year’s time – overturning an 80-seat majority in one swoop. Nick kept the name of this soothsayer MP private, presumably to prevent Guido doing another background check…
Emily Maitlis is raising eyebrows across Westminster for a tweet speculating as to whether any confusion over Boris’ statement last night is “part of a larger strategy of deniability”, suggesting that Number 10’s strategy may be “we will give you the chance to make your own choices. Please don’t blame us for what comes next.“ A pretty bold piece of speculation, especially given how at pains the Number 10 press operation has been today to clear up any semblance of confusion…
What I am struggling to understand is if all the confusion sown last night was unintended, or part of a larger strategy of deniability: ie “we will give you the chance to make your own choices. Please don’t blame us for what comes next. “
— emily m (@maitlis) May 11, 2020
BBC’s News and Current Affairs boss Francesca Unsworth emailed BBC journalists just last month imploring them to not exchange opinions on social media. Also worth remembering that most things in politics are more cock up than conspiracy…
Last night’s Newsnight featured public health physician Professor Gabriel Scally slamming the last decade of Tory rule, saying “The resilience has been stripped systematically out of the system… If you make the system as lean and emaciated as it is there will not be the public health staff there… you can’t magic them up out of nowhere”
While Christopher Snowdon has already dived into the problem with Professor Scally’s claims on NHS spending and his politics; Guido wondered why Gabriel Scally – whose role as Regional Director of Public Health saw him on over £200,000 a year of taxpayers’ money – might be so keen to attack the government rather than the NHS he’s done so well out of? It came as no surprise to Guido that Newsnight failed to highlight to viewers Professor Scally’s years of Labour donations, activism and affiliations.
I'm delighted that Keir Starmer is standing to be leader of the #Labour Party, and I'm with him. He is exactly the leader that Labour and the country needs. For the #NHS, climate change and to lead a high quality Labour frontbench against the Tories.https://t.co/PCQZ9GQPJK
— Dr Gabriel Scally (@GabrielScally) January 8, 2020
It’s all getting very weary now…
UPDATE: Guido asked the BBC if they recognised this incident as a breach of guidelines on informing their audiences of ‘Contributors’ Affiliations’. They have officially declined to comment…
After yesterday’s furore over Panorama, Guido sat down to watch Newsnight, anticipating having to Google whether the producers had once again gone to a communist activist for help finding nurses to interview. After much hype from Goodall on Twitter about his exclusive interview with frontline health staff, Guido was very disappointed to find out the two interviewees were kept anonymous. Canny move by the BBC to prevent further accusations of selection bias, avoid having to explain the questionable guest vetting in by preventing external scrutiny altogether…
A video has been doing the rounds this morning of last night’s Newsnight claim that the NHS requires family consent* to release death figures. Combined with the late release of Wednesday’s figures, and their smaller increase than Tuesday’s numbers, figures from across the political spectrum are now questioning whether the figures are being “fiddled” by the Government.
When presenting the new data, Nic Watt said:
“We need to be careful not to read too much into it because the Department of Health as we speak is changing the way that it is releasing and compiling these figures. Normally these figures would come out in the early afternoon. When I last looked they had still not come out.
The reason for that is that it turns out that these figures may not actually be the deaths that have taken place over the last 24 hours, because the Department of Health, the NHS needs to have the consent of the families of people who’ve died to release their figures.”
Which seems… odd. The death statistics being talked about are numbers not names – and by their nature anonymised.
A source at the Health Department tells Guido that the reason for the delay is that the numbers are simply higher than they were before. While numbers used to be released at 2pm every day, the NHS has found that more time is needed to compile larger numbers. The figures themselves come from hospitals, and are centralised at NHS England before they make their way to the Department and can be released…
Yesterday was a ‘crossover day’ between 2pm reporting and later reporting, meaning the figures were lower than normal. As a result, today’s numbers are likely to be higher. The Health Department says that contrary to the inference many took from Newsnight’s report, the way the data is collected hasn’t changed, just the timing. Time to put your tinfoil hats back in the cupboard, folks…
*They don’t. Public Health England (PHE) does not need the consent of families to publish national death statistics.
UPDATE Friday March, 27: The figures for the previous day were hitherto released at 5pm. To ensure data can be verified and published in a timely, consistent way, PHE are now moving to a new system for publication of deaths. The latest figures counted from the previous day (for a period from 5pm-5pm) are published at 2pm the following day.
Figures issued yesterday reflect the new reporting timeframe, and therefore were comprised of deaths over an extended period. Today’s published figures comprise the period from 5pm 25th March to 5pm 26th March. Going forward all future death announcements comprising the 5pm-5pm period.
At the Royal Television Society awards last night Emily Maitlis and Newsnight were deservedly double award winners with Scoop of the Year and Presenter of the Year for the game changing Prince Andrew interview. Congratulations.
In a move more redolent of a nursery school’s sports day the luvvies judges gave all the television political teams an award. This follows on from the Booker Prize judges splitting the prize money with all the shortlisted authors. What is the point of woke judges not making judgements?
