Starmer’s hagiographer and close friend Tom Baldwin has published 1,300 words in the little-read New European ranting about how the government is getting a hard time from journalists. Has the government tried not being sh*t…
Apart from airing the usual criticisms of the Lobby system, Baldwin alleges that political journalists are gratuitously on the attack:
‘And now, as the government grapples with policy dilemmas that got scant coverage before it was elected, we seem stuck in a loop of “inside Westminster” reporting about the finances of this politician, the influence of that adviser, or often the journalists themselves. The days following November’s budget were filled with stories about leaks, rather than what it meant for living standards, and the BBC’s political editor’s portentous verdict that “after a careful examination of the facts on your behalf” the public was misled.’
Here Baldwin complains that hacks – the majority of whom publish exactly what they are told by the government – didn’t regurgitate Labour lines about living standards in the Budget, instead reporting on what is viewed as the most shambolic finance policy announcement process in modern political history. It had meaningful effects on economic output. Baldwin’s contribution to Budget reporting was to uncritically interview Reeves and let her complain about ‘mansplaining’…
The Labour outrider goes on:
“The Lobby’s scrutiny is intense but generally about political performance or sometimes standards of behaviour and personal probity. Such things matter in any democracy, but can you name the last minister who was forced to resign over a failing public service, the faltering economy or some preventable disaster abroad rather than some accident in the political village?”
What Baldwin ignores is that policy failure is below the threshold for resignation. If ministers resigned for failures in this government’s policies, there would be none left…
Baldwin’s high-flying career as a journalist was arguably more lethal for the trade’s reputation than any Lobby reporter’s is now. He is close to Downing Street Communications Director Tim Allan, who halved the number of briefings hacks would receive from Starmer’s spokesman. Baldwin mocks them for this. No surer sign that Labour is rattled…
