We live in an increasingly sloppy world these days, especially when it comes to journalism.
The Sun has made much of the apparent mistakes in Gordon Brown's letter to the mother of a soldier killed in action, including getting her name wrong (he called her "Ms James" when her name is Mrs Janes).
Now a Sky News blog post has fun at the expense of The Sun, pointing out that:
"The Sun's Political Editor, Tom Newton Dunn, has just spent the entire Politics Show over on the Beeb calling Labour's Phil Woolas [a government minister] 'Andy'. Easy mistake to make no doubt, but not as easy as calling Jamie Janes Jamie James! Talk about the teapot calling the kettle black."
Sky News should be careful about kettles and teapots. It is true that the Sun's political editor called Phil Woolas "Andy", but it wasn't on the
Politics Show: it was on our very own
Daily Politics! What was that about teapots and kettles, Sky?
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
Andrew (Neil), Andy or Phil (Woolas) and Tom Newton Dunn on the DP (or Politics Show!)
So this is what it has come to: the Sun attacks Gordon Brown for getting a name wrong. The Sun's new political editor then gets the minister's name wrong, calling him "Andy" throughout his interview on the Daily Politics, then Sky has a laugh at his expense at its blog - but then gets the name of our programme wrong in the process.
Sloppy. Sloppy. Sloppy. Perhaps we all need to take a deep breath, calm down and concentrate on what's important, like the recession, unemployment and our predicament in Afghanistan.
Government ministers have been out and about this morning flogging the virtues of their plans for forcing RBS and Lloyds/HBOS to sell off some of their assets and increase competition for our money on the High Street. Let me mark your card with a sceptical pen.
First, this isn't really the government's plan at all. It is being forced on London by Brussels, which has insisted on a more competitive environment as the price for the multi-billion pound state aid pumped into both banks.
Second, if the High Street needs more competition, why was it that, only a year ago, the government encouraged Lloyds and HBOS to merge? Many commentators, consumer groups and bankers warned this would create a high-street behemoth and HBOS could have been bailed out by the taxpayer without a merger (as was RBS). But Gordon Brown was so keen to save HBOS that he intervened personally with the then Chairman of Lloyds to say competition rules would be waived to allow the marriage to take place. Lloyds' shareholders (which through our pensions probably means you and me) paid dearly for this shotgun wedding -- and now, only a year later, the giant is to be unravelled.
Third, be suspicious about claims that the proposed sell off will herald a new age of high-street competition. RBS has agreed to sell off its insurance arms (so a new master for Churchill) and to get rid of the few branches it still has in England which trade as RBS (NatWest in Scotland will go too). This will still leave RBS with over 2,700 branches throughout the country -- as well as its vast international operations.
Lloyds will also suffer only mild pruning. It's being told to get rid of its smaller building societies (which it intended to do anyway) and its TSB branches in Scotland. That will barely dent the 30% share of High Street deposits and loans it currently accounts for.
Bottom line: RBS and Lloyds will continue to dominate High Street retailing banking for the foreseeable future in this country -- and it will be a long time before any new competition will rival them.
Gordon Brown welcomes banks plan
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
Lord Stern, author of the 2006 Stern Report on the economics of dealing with global warming, tells The Times this morning that we should all become vegetarians because "meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gasses." His pronouncement has already provoked hundreds of online comments on the Times' website, many of which take the line (I paraphrase): Hold on, this guy's an economist not a scientist or a nutrionist, so by what authority does he tell us to become vegetarian?
LORD STERN ON TUESDAY's TODAY PROGRAMME
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions. If you're reading via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog to access this content.
It's a fair question and I detect a growing disconnect between the global warming establishment and public opinion as the December summit on global warming in Copenhagen approaches. Fear that a suitable far-reaching post-Kyoto deal might not be reached has encouraged some to become ever more apocryphal, some might even say hysterical.
We've had the Prime Minister effectively saying there are only 50 days left to save the world, then several campaigners saying the polar ice could have melted in 20 years, now an economist urging us to become vegetarians for the sake of the planet. They may all be right, of course, but I sense the general public isn't buying it and if anything is becoming more sceptical about global warming (recent polls show that is certainly the case in America).
Part of the problem is that, as those worried about global warming become more apocalyptic, so the supposed scientific consensus about the matter begins to fray at the edges. Then there is the problem that global temperatures have actually been falling since 1998: I appreciate there are reasons for that which don't completely undermine the global warming case but when people in countries like Britain don't see much change in their own climate they do question why they all have to become vegans. And there is the simple populist resistance to rock stars and rock politicians who lecture the rest of us on the evil of low cost flying while circling the globe in their private jets.
The media also needs to become tougher in questioning what the experts tell us -- for example, there is much coverage of claims that the Arctic is melting, very little mention that Antarctica, which counts for 90% of the world's ice, has been cooling for the past three decades. And we need to be very wary indeed of events that are clearly stunts: there was much unquestioning coverage of the recent underwater meeting of the Maldives cabinet, meant to highlight the danger to the islands of rising sea levels, caused by global warming.
Hardly anybody bothered to ask the question: are the seas around the Maldives actually rising? The answer, from the world's greatest authority on the subject, the Commission on Sea Level Change, would seem to be no.
It has visited the Maldives regularly in recent years. Its studies show that sea levels today are about 20 centimetres LOWER than they were in the years below 1970, that the current lower level is stable and there is no sign the islands are about to be submerged. Didn't hear any of that amid all the breathless coverage and beautiful pictures. When the cries from lobby groups, politicians and vested interests become ever more strident and the stunts ever more eye-catching, it is time for the media to become ever more rigorous.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~44~RS~)