A View From Middle England - Conservative with a slight libertarian touch - For Christian charity and traditional belief - Free Enterprise NOT Covert Corporatism

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Vince Cable, Bordan Tkachuk, Stuart Baggs and the pesky press!

I've been doing a bit of web surfing. Setting people up appears to be the new game in town. Or at least this week's Christmas present for some. Personally I think that the giggling Telegraph reporter heard on the tape setting up Vince Cable just about shows up the present mentality in reporting.

The Telegraph got some juicy bits. They don't like the Coalition and they think LibDems in general are dodgy dealers. The fact that the Conservatives failed to win outright is lost on the Telegraph editors. They have "An Agenda". An agenda which impels them to be selective in as much as they cut out the bits they feel may torpedo the agenda. Then what happens to such devious behaviour? They in turn get a whistleblower divulging the fact that they held back on stuff about Murdoch. Cynical, or what?

We all know politics is tough going. But we don't need flibbertigibbets going round sneaking on private conversations. Stupid young woman. She won't get another "off the record" remark in her entire journalistic career. She's just kiboshed that. We'll now get far less of the free speech. In fact, it's almost gone in a flash. Just tight-lipped cocktail talk without the cocktails. Oh, and what will we hear from Ed Prissimiliband the first time one of his lot says anything indiscreet?

Now to Bordan Tkachuk (pictured). Who's he some may say. He's one of Lord Sugar's trusted associates. I'm a great fan of the Apprentice and I think Bordan is just right as a TV supporting act. In the interview stage episode Bordan grills Stuart "The Brand" Baggs by asserting that Baggs has something wrong on his CV. This is usual stuff in the show. It's designed to unsettled the candidate. When I watched this I took it for granted that Baggs had overstepped the mark. But I'm no computer expert. Gimlet-eyed (and eared) techies knew instantly that Bordan was wrong on points. Apparently he doesn't know his protocols from his providers. In this case, Stuart Baggs was bombarded by a "fact" that his brain couldn't comprehend or conclusively agree with or deny. He just sat back and accepted whatever was said.

Interestingly, Bordan had his own run in with the press some years back when he was misreported. It even went to court. The trouble with the media, both TV and press is that we are all a commodity to them. Vince Cable, Bordan Tkachuk, Stuart Baggs, et al. All been in, through and out of the ringer. Some try to come back and put others through it as a form of cathartic release.

All I know is that all three that I have mentioned here appear decent, yet fallible, humans, just like almost all of us. All that's happened is they just didn't have their wits about them 24/7 (as an Apprentice contestant might say). But who on earth does? Certainly not giggling Telegraph reporters.

I hope 2011 will see an end to "setting people up" and all this sneaky stuff. Transparency, yes! But this is not the way to get it.



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