MetaCatholic

Two BBC issues related to Blair’s departure. As Iain Dale, a Conservative blogger, notes, they seem to have lost all sense of proportion in cutting away from Tony Blair’s final Prime Minister’s Questions to start showing a game of tennis (and allow time for the obligatory trailers of forthcoming programmes). The tennis, of course, was washed out almost as soon as it started.

You have to wonder how the BBC can hope to maintain a reputation as a serious public service broadcaster when it shows such a fine sense of priorities.

Then there is the very strange case of Nick Robinson. He notes the fact that Cherie Blair, on getting into the car for the Blairs’ final journey away from No 10, says to the gathered press, “Goodbye. I don’t think we’ll miss you.” He omits the half-smile with which she says it, but is kind enough to provide a link to the video footage.

A harmless, and decidedly understandable statement, whether wise or unwise. But not for Nick for whom this is

Gob-smackingly spine-chillingly hair-raisingly extraordinary … Now that’s an end to suggestions that Tony Blair is leaving entirely at a time of his own choosing

What a parade of extreme adjectives for such a mundane observation! And how precisely does this morph into proof that Blair was pushed out? This is an attempt to create not simply a mountain out of a molehill, but more a planet out of pigeon-shit.

When this is presented by the leading political commentator of the country’s premier news organization on their public site, you know why politicians try to spin the news. If they don’t, the media will. Spinning may be a dreadfully unfortunate development, and a serious downgrading of political life, but for the poor hapless politician faced with this kind of “public-service” spin by “the world’s most trusted” news organization, political spin-doctoring becomes nothing more than an act of self-defence. Shame on the media that make it so necessary an evil, and not just on the politicians who do it.