On Sunday morning I sat through the Andrew Marr show as he gently guided our Prime Minister through another party political broadcast. This is quite obviously a stage managed procedure designed to show the PM in the best possible light even though Marr is a so-called political commentator hired by the BBC to put forward a balanced view of politics (yeah I know!). During this cringeworthy performance the PM launched into his well know routine of spitting out loads of statistics which favour his party over the Tories.
This tactic is clearly designed to blind the electorate with science. He gambles that nobody will check up on him but today a Daily Mail reader from St Neots caught him out. According to the PM, inflation in the nineties under John Major's government was running at 10 per cent. Fair enough I hear you say but how many of us rushed out to check the facts? Well one did and lo and behold our PM was telling porkies! From 1991 to 1996 inflation ran at 5.9 3.7 1.6 2.0 3.5 and 2.4. Now this is a pretty large distortion of the facts. I could understand it if he had rounded it up a bit but 10 per cent for gawd's sake!
What I really cannot understand is why the Shadow Chancellor was not on the lunch time news screaming blue murder that the PM was lying through his teeth. Why did they not challenge him? Don't they want to win the next election?
This type of glib statement which Marr allowed to go unchallenged must cease. It ranks alongside the much trumpeted Tony Blair proclamations like, British education is the best in the world, crime is falling and oh yeah the Iraqis have a weapon of mass destruction which can reach us in 45 minutes.
Tony Blair handed power over to Gordon Brown but nothing has changed.
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