Welcome to my blog. I am a former local journalist who now works in PR and a Conservative and community activist in Woking and Horsell. This blog will keep updated on local issues as well as my interests and quirky news stories.
The week got off to a bang this morning with the Boy George going around every media outlet and explaining his bright new policy about limiting High Street banks’ bonuses to £2,000.
What a silly idea. Well, actually, it’s quite a good idea but it was hardly going to be popular with the bank workers who unsuprisingly prefer cash to shares and it completely misses the point that it is the investment banks rather than the High Street ones that had a destructive bonus culture.
More importantly, the BBC has allowed Liam Byrne and Vince Cable more airtime to criticise the idea on subsequent bulletins than they allowed Osborne time to explain it initially. That’s the BBC for you, as we’ve seen in other areas over the past few days – about as balanced as Mohammed Al Fayed and often a good deal less intelligent. Osborne (who is sounding more credible than he was six months ago even if today’s idea was shaky) and DC have to learn to say nothing when they’ve nothing worth saying.
But the biggest ear-opener for me was “The Treasury” slamming the idea. I though the “The Treasury” was a government department staffed by politically neutral civil servants whose job it was to help the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the First Lord of the Treasury deliver government fiscal policy? I thought that political statements were there to be made by useful people like Mr Byrne. Or is the BBC misreporting this?
Whatever the reason, I think trolls in the Treasury would be almost as bad as bats in the belfry.
