mirror, mirror on the wall…

Sometimes it’s not good for your health – or other people’s – to listen to the radio while driving.

This morning my blood pressure was suffering as I listened to Labour MP, John McFall (who is sometimes treated as if he is some sort of apolitical commentator rather than a party politician), slamming the management of the Dunfermline Building Society for their “reckless” decisions and “folly”. 

Speaking on Good Morning Scotland, Mr McFall also had a needless dig at Alex Salmond, failing to disguise the political capital the Labour Party has been trying to make out of the difficulties faced by Scottish financial institutions.

Of course the Dunfermline has clearly made some poor decisions. But this was all in the context of Gordon Brown’s abolition of boom and bust. Mr Brown, and no doubt Mr McFall, told us constantly that the UK economy was in great shape, record employment, low inflation, with a lot of it due to the financial deregulation engineered by the great leader.

Not only that but Mr Brown had abolished the economic cycle and was rubbishing anyone who suggested that the credit bill was unsustainable.

On top of that the Dunfermline had to compete against Northern Rock and others who were gorging themselves on the lax regime created by Mr Brown’s financial brilliance.

In those circumstances, is it all that surprising that the Dunfermline got involved in commercial property and other areas of business it might regret?

So, Mr McFall might stop to consider who was truly reckless and guilty of folly here – was it the Dunfermline or was it the Labour Party (member – John McFall) who created this massive credit bubble in the first place?

GMS or Today?

Such is the inferiority complex of so many journalists in Scotland that they will treat Good Morning Scotland as if it is some Alan Partridge type community radio station up against the mighty Radio 4 Today.

This says more about their self-loathing than the quality of the respective programmes: if it’s Scottish it must be crap.

That’s not to say that GMS is not without its faults. As a former producer of the programme I was probably personally responsible for quite a few of those.  Since I left, an obsession has developed with conducting pointless “lives” on stories that simply don’t merit inclusion in a national news programme. Last week, there was what seemed like an endless series of interviews  about a school whose pupils were entering a competition to make salads for M and S.   Why?

But when Radio Scotland’s news output really breaks down is when it relies on editorial lines formulated in London. Today was a classic case in point. The news bulletins were running strongly on the line that there was massive snow disruption in England but Scotland had “escaped the worst.” That must have been interesting news to those stuck on the M8 or M77 trying to cope with horrendous driving conditions.  I suspect that this was a cue essentially cut and pasted from London with a Scottish paragraph added in. It seemed a combination of journalistic laziness (not bothering to re-write the top line) and an example of the Scottish cringe – it must be more important if it’s happening in England.

On the whole though, GMS is still the only programme worth listening to if you are actually interested in what is happening in Scotland. Today will have the occasional Jock-slots but you know, and they know , this is out of duty and because they have been told to get out of the M25 by the BBC Trust.

The occasions when GMS is in a genuinely no-win situation is when there is a major UK story or a story for which a UK Cabinet minister is the best interviewee. The story has to be covered but the producers know they are going to get a second division guest. This was the case today when Today interviewed Lord Mandelson about “British jobs for British workers” and GMS wheeled out Brian Wilson. 

Incidentally both John Humphrys and Jim Naughtie are clearly high-quality journalists and broadcasters.  But there is a real element of parody to their performances now. Naughtie’s “message to the nation” style reports on President Obama’s inauguration just seemed at times like a series of lectures, albeit stylishly delivered.

Humphrys’ assaults on politicians now just seem ritualistic. Today he tried to press the Business Secretary on what it must feel like for someone on Tyneside (ie short-hand for working-class, struggling) who fears having their job “nicked” (his words) by someone from, I think, Poland. I understand that he’s only asking questions, but to use that kind of language – the idea that “our” jobs are being stolen by the foreigners is just distasteful.

Oh and by the way – both programmes are doing really well according to the latest RAJARS – so what do I know?