Events | 2008.12.26
Hugh Muir's Diary
• It now becomes quite clear that people are angry about the BBC\'s treatment of "posh" Edward Stourton. There are tense discussions up and down the country, a parliamentary motion and a petition is being prepared for Downing Street. A Facebook site (Keep Ed Stourton on Today) has 400 members, including a message from one Huw Edwards (who he?). The Today pogrom, the internet critics call it. As we said, people are angry. But changing minds at the corporation will be difficult, and as proof of this we see at last the justification being proffered to listener Ben Beaumont by editor Ceri Thomas. "The best we can say, perhaps, is that we do not do these things lightly and that we act in what we think are the best long-term interests of the programme," he tells a listener. "We are very sorry, of course, that Ed should have heard this news in the way that he did, and we have offered him our apologies for the way the announcement was handled. We had arrangements in place to meet Ed less than 24 hours later to discuss our plans but, regrettably, someone involved in the process chose to leak the news to the Daily Mail." The BBC could always announce his reinstatement in the same way, of course. They could leak it through a column, a diary column perhaps. No one would mind.
• But if they do not, we can tell them that terrible things will happen. Are you angry, we asked yesterday. "Yes, I\'m angry," emailed Diary stalwart Dodie. Can we fix it? Yes we can.
• Nothing specific yet, but we have some ideas submitted by Lindis Percy, the grandmother and veteran peace campaigner who evaded attempts by the police and the Ministry of Defence to serve her with an asbo. She promises to raise the issue at the US airforce facility at RAF Menwith Hill. "They do outrageous things - unaccountable and secretive - bit like the BBC managers, come to think of it," she tells us. She may reprise her stunt of sitting in the cockpit of a C-10 US transport plane "I went to sleep for a while in front of US \'security\' personnel having a break in front of me," she recalls. "Lots of imaginative ways to protest," says Lindis, and they all sound splendid. Today could cover it.
• Bang up the bankers, said Red Dave Cameron, and they knew that he meant business. "The fact the prime minister has not been urging our authorities to pursue financial wrongdoing like in America is, in my view, a failure of moral leadership," he said. And that\'s a valid point. But one could argue that it was also a valid point two weeks ago, when MP Dai Davies tabled an early-day motion pointing out that "unlike in the United States, no bankers in the United Kingdom have been investigated for possible criminal actions in the selling of sub-prime mortgages". He said the Crown Prosecution Service and the Financial Services Authority "should co-operate in investigating the possible complicity of senior employees of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley banks in the trade and sale of toxic financial products". Seemed a good idea. But on that occasion no Conservative signed up to it; the only non-Labour signatory was Bob Spink MP, the man from Ukip. Still, Cameron and the crew are on board at last. Be grateful. Be happy.
• Be thankful, we say, and that particularly applies to those able to secure a drink last night at the Tories\' Christmas party. Last year the event was held at Carbon, "a stylish late-night bar and club blessed with all the glamour you\'d expect from a West End venue" - but that was before the crunch. So this year it was down to the City Inn, a hotel in central London where there was money behind the bar but also restrictions on the amount people could consume. Binge-drinking? Some hope.
• Finally, following the shameful shoe attack on George W Bush, we learn exclusively from Downing Street of new security arrangements to protect our Gordon. "From now on we\'re going to have flip-flop-only press conferences," a well-placed but nervous official tells us. Heels are out, as are loafers. And as for Birkenstocks ...
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/17/1
