Blogs / Comment is free: David McKie

Spun dry? March 12, 2008 5:40 PM That this budget was, as one opposition critic complained on the BBC, "hardly very surprising" was hardly very surprising, since so much of Alistair Darling's …

A ticket to ride February 8, 2008 1:45 PM Buses are booming. According to the Confederation of Passenger Transport, which monitors such things, the number of bus journeys in 2006 (the figures for 2007 …

that it might not happen. Today, with the Defence Secretary quietly visiting Iraq and the budget dominating the news, the BBC was told that it probably wouldn't happen. Will the media be more sceptical of such claims next time? As David McKie said (below): newspapers print these speculative stories, partly because they believe there's a genuine chance it might happen, but partly because if the story proves to be wrong that's unlikely to be remembered for long.

that it might not happen. Today, with the Defence Secretary quietly visiting Iraq and the budget dominating the news, the BBC was told that it probably wouldn't happen. Will the media be more sceptical of such claims next time? As David McKie said (below): newspapers print these speculative stories, partly because they believe there's a genuine chance it might happen, but partly because if the story proves to be wrong that's unlikely to be remembered for long.

With the budget appearing to many people to be a bit of a yawn, David McKie on Comment is Free suggests that it's because so much of it has been spun in advance. There may here and there be innocent folk who will say: excuse me, but exactly what is the difference between the new honest, decent, straight dealing, manipulation-free political