Just watch this-Gordon Brown is turned into avatar

Great spot-Malcolm Coles

Marr-the verdict

On question time last night,the Andrew Marr interview came up and Ben Bradshaw for the Labour party said that it demonstrated "part of the trivialisation and degradation of our political discourse".

Strong words from the culture secretary.

I have to say that I am torn between the rights of the electorate to know if their leaders are suffering medically with the intrusion of privacy for the Brown family.

One must also question Marr's motivations behind a question that had its roots in right wing blogging's rumour mill.

Marr has gone down in my estimation,I have to say.

I think that this piece from the Economist's Bagehot may sum up the issues

I THINK Andrew Marr was wrong to ask Gordon Brown about the rumours concerning his use of anti-depressants.

Yes, the prime minister's health is a matter of legitimate public concern. And Mr Marr would have been right to raise the subject had there been serious grounds to believe the rumours were true—a briefing from a Number 10 official, say, or some mysteriously cancelled prime ministerial engagements. But the basis for the question seems to have been bloggers' speculation. Now Mr Marr has asked it, it will never go away. I think it was a mistake, and maybe a worrying sign of a new kind of lowest-common-denominator journalism.

Dacre tops the list of invites to Chequers

A selection of the media boffins invited to Chequers by Gordon Brown as released by Downing Street this afternoon

Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre, News International executive Les Hinton, former Independent editor Simon Kelner, chair of Guardian Media Group Paul Myners, Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere, Pearson chief executive Marjorie Scardino, Sun editor Rebekah Wade, columnist Celia Walden, Mirror editor Richard Wallace,

Courtesy of BBC online

Amongst his other guests,Richard Branson,Alan Sugar,Stuart Rose,Terence Conran,George Martin and the Duke of York

Dacre-Has he given up on Gordon Brown?

Conservative Home asks whether Mail editor Paul Dacre,seen as the most influential newspaper editor in the Guardian's 100 earlier this week has given up on Gordon Brown.

Take a look at the paper's leading article this morning for more proof

From the very beginning, this paper has supported David Cameron. We are the first to concede, however, that we've had more than the occasional doubt about his substance and conviction.
That is why we feel an obligation to record what a remarkably good few weeks he has had.

Certainly this time last year,as with many of the electorate,the paper was rather sympatheic to the Prime Minister combined with some anxiety over David Cameron.

Its leaders over the last three days,firstly rounding on the Home Secretary,then on the Cahncellor and finally today's looks like the paper has noe firmly planted its flag at the door of the Old Etonian.Who next Murdoch or maybe even Rushbridger?

What the media sections are saying

The Independent reports on the new look Daily sport where

the notorious title is taking on 'The Sun', says Tim Walker of his vision for turning the paper's fortunes around

.

Its editor ,Barry McIlheney ,saying

"Most papers decide they have to cover everything that happens," says McIlheney. "But it simplifies life to say, 'We don't: we just want loads of pretty girls, tons of sport, and to make people laugh

Gareth McLean asks in the Guardian whether drama is safe at the BBC

A run of award-winning shows and high ratings have trumped rival broadcasters - but writers are increasingly concerned about the performance of the corporation's top executives

Gordon Brown gets quite a bit of coverage.In the same paper Peter Wilby asks How did Gordon become the Wizard of Oz? concluding

The press hasn't yet found the language in which to attack Brown. Once it has one, he is finished. Until then, he has a hope, though perhaps a faint one, of recovery

.

Whilst Stephen Glover in the Indy notes

Much ink has been spilt in the Press this past week about Gordon Brown's tribulations, but I have seen no reference to an extraordinary fact I mentioned in my last column. This is that nine days ago the Prime Minister attended the wedding in Glasgow of Murdoch MacLennan, chief executive of the Telegraph Media Group.

Finally with his book Can uou trust the media out this week,Adrian Monck asks in the Guardian

Why do media organisations want to wallow in trust like hippos in mud? They want to roll in it until they're covered from head to toe. When it dries up, thanks to dodgy editing on a royal documentary promo or phoney phone competitions, such as on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, right, the mud cracks and it's a "crisis".

The Prime Minister with nothing to say

There was one good thing about Tony Blair,wherever he went,he would always generate media coverage.

As Gordon Brown's soujourn to China and India comes to an end,the same cannot be said of him.The trip has seen a number of political journalists using the opportunity to blog,Nick Robinson and Adam Boulton amongst those and the trip got of to a great start as they were ablre to blog first hand on the Heathrow crash.

However the Mail's Ben Brogan is not happy with Gordon:

We are on the plane about to take off from New Delhi. The PM held a press conference with his opposite number but said nothing remotely reportable. This in itself is one of the great failings of his premiership at the moment: his reliance on a small supply of stock phrases about key issues is wearisome in the extreme and means he is not being reported. Questions are neither listened to nor answered

Express Watch

The Express leaves us in doubt about what it feels about the Lisbon treaty and its feelings for Gordon Brown

GRINNING Gordon Brown sold Britain out to Europe last night by agreeing to a massive expansion of Brussels power.
Despite having promised the British people a referendum, the Prime Minister put his signature to a new EU treaty without seeking the consent of the public.

The trials of following Gordon

What is the point of taking the Prime Minister half-way around the world if you don't allow enough time for the pictures of him meeting the troops in Iraq to be sent to London to run on Sky News, ITN and the BBC?

Indeed what is the point.

Have a read of the blog at Sky news on the trails and tribulations of being a corresponent embedded with the Prime Minister

Incompetence,incredible,unbelievable

Once again the papers make grim reading for Gordon Brown this morning,with words sucha s scandal,crisis,sleaze all dominant.

In for particular critisism is deputy leader Harriet Harman who according to the Times

was under growing pressure in the sleaze row engulfing Labour last night as she was forced to pay back £5,000 given to her by a property developer who has secretly bankrolled her party to the tune of £600,000.

and

was in further difficulties after she refused repeatedly to say if she had in fact solicited the money from the intermediary, Janet Kidd, rather than having had it offered to her. The Times has learnt from other donors to Ms Harman’s campaign that her team actively sought funding from them because they were on a list of people giving to Labour.

The front page of the Mail asks

HOW MUCH WORSE IT WILL GET citing

• Prime Minister admits donations broke the law
• He orders £600,000 to be repaid to secret donor
• His No.2 Harriet Harman is left clinging to her job

And the paper's opinion columns are not generous

Tainted cash says the Sun

Harman was apparently so desperate for cash to pay off her campaign debts that she threw caution to the wind.
The funding fiasco is going to cost cash-strapped Labour £650,000 in repaid donations.
It may yet cost Harriet Harman her job.

So much for Labour's pledge of honesty says the Mail

Isn't it hard to avoid the conclusion that Labour is corrupt to the core?

A control freak leader is beginning to look as if he's not in charge says the Times

Does the Labour Party take us all for fools? asks the Telegraph

incredibly, this was happening at the very time the Metropolitan Police were crawling all over the Labour Party, pursuing their ultimately fruitless investigation into the cash for honours scandal.

The Guardian asks

What bit of doing things by the rules does the Labour party not understand? Party funding has not exactly been out of the political news these last few years. Every elected politician and every party official knows that the subject has become super-sensitive. Parliament tightened up the law very significantly in 2000. Part IV of that new law set out detailed rules about who can make donations to political parties and how parties must deal with them. These include a ban, in section 54 of the 2000 Act, on the concealment of a donor's identity, and a requirement, in section 56, for parties to take all reasonable steps to check out their donors. Lest there should be any doubt, the Electoral Commission has issued regular advice and guidance to the parties on the subject.

A similar theme in the Independent

Is it not extraordinary that, after Mr Blair got into so much trouble, a senior Labour official appears to have tolerated other ways in which a donor could retain his anonymity? Not surprisingly, the resignation of the party's general secretary has prompted questions about whether others also knew what was happening

Only the Mirror stands up for Gord

We have just one message for Gordon Brown - stay strong.

A wave of unrelated, if cumulatively damaging events beyond the Prime Minister's control, are testing his mettle.
But we should never forget the dreadful Labour funding row is not his fault - in fact, he rejected a donation to his leadership campaign fund.

Bad news day

Gordon Brown's six o clock phone calls must have had a certain amount of urgency this morning as the papers attack the government on all sides.

Notleast the home secretary as the Mail produces secret documents which

revealed that the Home Secretary was warned four months ago that thousands of illegal immigrants had been cleared to work in sensitive Whitehall security jobs.
But she accepted advice from her officials for a news blackout on the affair, secret memos have confirmed.

Its leader adding

for more than four months, she kept Parliament and public in the dark about this latest blunder by her department, branded "unfit for purpose" by her predecessor.
Incredibly, she kept silent even after she was told in August that no fewer than 5,000 illegal immigrants were involved - including 11 working at Scotland Yard and one who was employed to guard Gordon Brown's car.

The Express then firmly boots the boot in as its front page tells us

IMMIGRATION officials who presided over a year of blunders have been awarded almost £2million in bonuses.
Staff were handed the extra awards for 2005-06, shortly before then Home Secretary John Reid described the department as “not fit for purpose”.

From immigrants to alcholol,with all the papers carrying the report that

The government should consider making alcohol more expensive and reassess its 24-hour drinking laws to curb serious health problems related to excessive drinking, according to a group of experts.

the Guardian explaining that

In a review of public health policy, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics concluded that, left to themselves, people do not choose to live healthy lives, and the state must intervene to control behaviour. Lord Krebs, principal of Jesus College, Oxford, who chaired the council's review, said the government had a duty to help people make healthy choices. "We think it's too simplistic to say that it's all down to individual choice, because individuals often suffer ill health or adopt unhealthy behaviours for reasons beyond their control."

24-hour drinking has increased violence and 'must be scrapped' says the Mail.

But it doesnt stop there

The Telegraph has

The fastest rise in food prices for 14 years

The surging costs will be passed on to consumers, who are experiencing the highest food bills for years and could end up paying almost £1,000 extra on their annual food bill than a year ago.
Families are already struggling to cope with the effects of the credit crunch. Petrol prices exceed £1 for a litre of unleaded fuel, while mortgage payments and credit card fees are also rising.

The front page of the Times that

Police are neglecting to tackle serious, violent crimes and focusing instead on more minor offences as they strive to meet government targets, the man charged with shaping the future of policing in England and Wales has admitted.

And the Guardian that

'Failing' school reforms put Labour under pressure

And of cause and guess which paper

Property slump 'is worst for two years' yes the Mail

Sun kicks the PM

The Sun in its editorial gives Gordon Brown,the preverbial kick up the backside.Perhaps Murdoch after all is going to side with Labour at the next election

GORDON Brown enjoyed a well-deserved honeymoon as Prime Minister.
For three golden months he didn’t put a foot wrong.
So why have things gone adrift?
Ever since his conference speech in September, Mr Brown has stumbled from one unforced error to the next.
He rashly STOKED expectations of a general election — then called it off.
He TRADED on his record for economic prudence — then blew it in his shambolic Autumn Budget.
He VOWED to honour Labour’s manifesto promise of an EU referendum — and then reneged.
Meanwhile, he has thrown overboard every controversial policy in order to distance himself from the Blair years.
Supercasinos? Scrapped. Round-the-clock drinking? No way. Recriminalise cannabis? Maybe. Home Information Packs? Yes. No. Maybe. Bin collection tax? Who knows?
And we haven’t mentioned the shambles over immigration. Or illiteracy. Or hospital superbugs.
There have been too many stunts — like the attempt to trump the Tories on inheritance tax.
The PM has seemed too concerned with wrong-footing the Opposition — and pretending he’s been elsewhere for the last 10 years.
But Labour’s latest gaffe — the tax raid on small businesses — happened on his watch. That cock-up, and the clumsy attempt to fix it, was unveiled by Chancellor Alistair Darling. But it was Mr Brown pulling the strings.
Labour had an 11-point lead — now they are trailing the Tories.
Mr Brown needs to act swiftly and decisively to stop the sense of drift.

Mail gets closer and closer

So more eveidence of the Mail's cosying up to Gordon Brown.

Paul Dacre has been appointed to oversea the review of the thirty year secrecy bill.

Guido makes the comment

Dacre's other public services; warning the public about gypsies, immigrants, alco-pops and such-like are deemed not good enough to earn him the ermine. Guido thinks editors should sup with politicians with a long spoon, getting in their tent and having a cozy breakfast in the morning with them is unwise

Straws in the wind (2)

An interesting piece in the Guardian's media section this morning.As our Prime Minister pondered whether to call an election

a certain Rupert Murdoch visited Chequers on the very weekend the PM took his decision. All of which raises the question: were Murdoch's upscale mini-break and Brown's apparently catastrophic loss of nerve linked?

James Silver couldn't get Mr Murdoch to comment but went for thr next best thing which is a certain Irwin M. Stelzer,consultant to News International.

According to Stelzer

"The Sun's campaign [for a referendum], which I think is fun and ingenious, is no secret, nor are [Sun associate editor] Trevor Kavanagh's heartfelt feelings about surrendering more sovereignty. So Brown has to know that one of the factors, maybe the factor, that the Sun will consider [when it comes to an endorsement] is his position on the referendum.

.

Interestingly he was not happy about the election strategy

"It was an appalling blunder,followed by a disingenuous disavowal which only made it worse.There's no doubt [Brown] would have gone to the country if the polls were going his way. His guys were running around the conference - I was there - talking about how they were going to put the final nail in the Tories' coffin. There was no indication that there was any feeling that the national interest was playing into this decision

So the most important media player is wavering in its support for Gordon Brown,that is of course if you believe he has the ear of the master

Straws in the wind

Guido is reporing that Paul Dacre had breakfast with Gordon Brown on Thursday morning and points out the coincidence that the Mail’s leader praised Alistair Darling’s tax and spending plans.

despite the magpie taunts, it would be utterly wrong to deny that some of Alistair Darling's measures deserve support. Yes, he stole the inheritance tax plans from the Tories and his scheme is nowhere near as generous as he would like us to believe.
But it will free countless Britons from a pernicious tax on aspiration, and marks a Rubicon moment for Labour, which has accepted the right of hard-working people to pass on wealth (on which they have already paid tax) to their children.

Meanwhile in this morning’s Guardian Polly Toynbee turns against Gordon Brown,the straw that broke the camels back being the party’s move on inheritence tax.

This was more than a horrible humiliation for the prime minister. This was the week that social democracy ebbed away in England. Those words had already slipped from Labour's lexicon, never spoken by its leaders in public, rarely spoken outside the privacy of Fabian meetings and Celtic parliaments.
And she continues
To give the children of the well-off a £1.4bn inheritance bonus while the children of the poor only got another 48p a week in tax credits is symbolically far worse than that notorious 75p for pensioners. The halfway mark to abolish child poverty by 2010 will be missed by miles. Holding down public sector pay rises to 2% for three years, only half next year's expected private sector increase, will increase inequality. To cut capital gains tax on buy-to-let property, antiques, paintings and jewellery is as shameless as it is dysfunctional.

Journos on the attack against Marr

Interesting article in this morning’s pages of the Press Gazette by David Rose and, Dominic Ponsford.

Gordon Brown has certainly upset the media by releasing the news of the non election to the Andrew Marr show only.I described Marr as perhaps being a poodle for Brown in an earlier post.

The Gazette suggests that

Gordon Brown has been advised to scrap proposals to scupper the Freedom of Information Act if he wants to win journalists back over after the bungled handling of his election announcement on Saturday.
The Society of Editors is planning to make a formal complaint to the Government in protest at the way Brown exclusively gave news that the November election was off to the BBC’s Andrew Marr.
Sky News has made an official complaint over Brown’s “unfair and highly irregular” handling of the election announcement and ITV has also voiced its strong disapproval.

The swingometers of the media

The Press commentators are looking at our new Pm's relations with the media.

Stephen Glover in the Indy tells us that

The two most important newspapers for Gordon Brown are
The Sun and the Daily Mail. They are by a wide margin the two highest-selling
daily titles, together accounting for nearly five-and-a-half million buyers, or
almost 15 million readers."

These are according to Stephen the swing papers and rather like a marginal constituency it is the readers of these that decide on the colour of the government.

And maybe this will work in Gordon's favour.

"Privately and publicly, Mr Murdoch has said some
pretty withering things about David Cameron. By contrast, he seems to get on
well personally with Gordon Brown and to respect him."

And

The Mail admires Mr Brown far more than it ever did his
predecessor. Its leader last Thursday praised his stewardship of the economy,
and was generally friendly. The paper is not inclined to blame Mr Brown by
association for the sins and omissions of Mr Blair. It is no secret that its
editor, Paul Dacre, admires the moral substance and seriousness of our new Prime
Minister as much as he deprecated what he saw as the triviality and moral
vacuity of Mr Blair. Nor does young David Cameron appear yet to be his favourite
pin-up boy.

Meanwhile in the Guardian,Peter Wilby looks at the "macho response to Harman's victory"

"The macho culture of newspapers dies hard, therefore.
Last week, it was on full display with Harriet Harman's election as Labour's
deputy leader. Unlike Tony Blair's departure and Gordon Brown's accession,
this
was genuine news and it was unexpected. Yet the Times preferred a
picture of
Brown with his wife Sarah for the front page. The Mirror printed
news of
"Harriet's shock win" beneath a giant Gordon-Sarah picture. Most
papers didn't
offer any analysis of the voting figures or explanation of how
Harman had won.
Most reported that Brown had immediately "snubbed" and
"sidelined" her by
denying her the deputy premiership."

So if we do get a snap election in the autumn,some interesting times in the Press

What the Sunday's are saying

The Observer carries an interview with the champion of hard news stories Mika Brzezinski who famously this week tried to set fire to her script with its Paris Hilton lead.

"I had one woman send me an email and she told me was
weeping tears of joy that someone finally took a stand,"

Brzezinski said her actions were not planned before last
Thursday, but it was at that morning's news meeting that she had just felt that
she could not stand silent as the Hilton story was put on the top of the news
agenda. 'My co-host and I had problems with the story at 6am, when we had our
first morning meeting. I let my co-host Joe know and he told me to go with my
gut. I want to thank him for his support in that,'

In the same paper Peter Preston looks at the 16 pages that the Sun devoted to its interview this week with George Bush.Could it be ,he asks

that the Sun - devoting those 16 pages on a day when the
Labour-loyal Mirror was more interested in 'the liberation of Paris' (Hilton) -
caught a mood that others missed until they saw David Cameron urging his troops
to their feet in the Commons on Thursday?

"
The Independent says that the newspapers

" verdict on Gordon Brown's new Cabinet was mostly
favourable"

but

"John Kampfner, the editor of the New Statesman, was
underwhelmed: "Looking at the new Cabinet walking up Downing Street yesterday
afternoon, one might be forgiven for thinking that old faces in new jobs doesn't
quite add up to a revolution." And Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun detected "worrying
signs of a shift to the left - and towards Europe.."

The same paper asks "Can the man from ITV mend the pieces of commercial radio? "


"

Just six months after his divorce from ITV, brought about by
plunging share values and tumbling ratings, Charles Allen has emerged as a
potential saviour of Britain's commercial radio industry. The former ITV chief
executive's new role as chair of investment company Global Radio has sparked
hopes that a single strong player can emerge to chart the industry's path to the
digital future and challenge the dominance of the BBC. "

Finally James Robinson in the Observer looks at the implication on the British media if Rupert Murdoch is successful in his acquisition of the Wall Street journal speculating that

"the man who runs Murdoch's British papers, News International chairman Les
Hinton, could take charge of the Journal if the bid is successful, and that
Witherow, who has edited the Sunday Times for over a decade, could take Hinton's
job. That would prompt another round of musical chairs, with either Lewis, or
former Times business editor Patience Wheatcroft returning, although one former
executive says:

Today's media comment.

The feral beast debate continues,Steven Glover in the Indy,argues that far form being baited by the press,the Prime Minister has had a good innings

"

The biggest misconception, which even some of the speech's
critics have accepted, was that Tony Blair has been given a hard time by the
press. Arguably, he has been recently, at least by some titles. But for the most
of his time in Number 10 – from 1997 until the summer of 2003 – he enjoyed by
far the most favourable media treatment of any modern British Prime Minister.
His brilliant achievement, and that of Alastair Campbell, was to square both the
right-wing and the left-wing press."

Peter Wilby in the Guardian maintains that

"Most journalists hunt as a pack. This truth was
marvellously captured in Evelyn Waugh's Scoop, where the correspondents assigned
to the African republic of Ishmaelia depart from the capital in a motorised
convoy, leaving Boot, the nature columnist mistakenly sent by The Beast, to get
a world exclusive. Like most human beings, journalists are driven by fear more
than by ambition. "

Robert Worcester interviewed in the Indy was

not impressed by Mr Blair's performance at Reuters last
Tuesday, ........It's the height of hypocrisy from the man who employed Peter
Mandelson, the architect of spin and manipulation

But agreed with some of the sentiments and

feels that an overhaul of British media standards is
long overdue. "Most newspapers, in fact all news outlets these days, have an
attitude and they are aggressive about it," he says. "News is not sacrosanct
it's a commodity, journalism is not a calling it's just another job. Why has it
happened? Because editors don't keep their jobs long if they stand up for good
journalism and behind their journalists."

The Guardian looks forward to the Brown era,James Silver asking,Will Gordon stop the spin?

Brown's communications team is setting out to restore
the public's trust in New Labour by bringing the shutters down on the so-called
age of spin.

But will it be that different

"

At the moment the signs are extremely positive," says Sky
News's political editor Adam Boulton

But:

The suggestion that the age of spin is over is I'm afraid
just spin. Actually there will still be a lot of spin; it'll just go into a
different spin cycle with maybe a change of temperature

.

Gordon's attempt

Having given some airtime to the Tories,this is Gordon Brown's site as he launches his campaign for the Labour leadership,including a great google map that can tell you where he is on the campaign trail.