Nobel goes O-barmy!

Saturday Night Live's version was slightly different

When I was at school, we learned tha tthe Nobel prizes were among the greatest expression of human achievement in the areas they were awarded. We did case studies on Albert Enstein (physics, 1921), Marie Curie (physics 1903) and Archbishop Desmond Tutu (peace, 1984) and were told how dreadful it was that Mahatma Gandhi was never awarded a peace prize.

I suppose that the prizes have always been reactions to world events and therefore it is inevitably that particularly the peace prize will be political. In 1998, the committee seriously considered awarded the prize jointly to Martin McGuiness and David Trimble – before being convinced that this idea would be so repulsive to the unionist community that Trimble would certainly be pressured into refusal.

With hindsight, John Hume – the eventual joint recipient – probably had done less to further the peace process than McGuiness but that’s the realpolitik for you; once you command IRA battalions, you sort of give up your ambitions to be internationally recognised for peacemaking. And at least Hume had done something.

I’m not a big fan of Barack Obama but nor do I despise him. There are many good things about the man – his intelligence and charisma, for one, and also the fact he provides a figurehead and role model not just for black America but for black people across the globe. It was a vital milestone in American history that the descendants of those who came to the continent as slaves should enter the White House as president. That Obama achieved this 25 years before anyone thought it would happen is an immeasurable testament to him.

But that, so far, is his single biggest achievement. I struggle to find anywhere in his programme so far – keeping open Guantanamo, increasing activity in Iraq and Afghanistan, laying off the Israelis as well as any Republican and going hell for leather to push through provocative healthcare reforms – the essence of Gandhi, Tutu or any other of the peace laureates. That’s not to say it might not happen.

The award of the peace prize to Obama then looks like a political one designed to inject new life and status into an administration that, barely 200 days old, looks pretty tired and indecisive and was mocked last weekend on Saturday Night Live for doing two things – Jack and Squat. I thought Al Gore’s award in 2007 was pretty strange – this one looks somewhat more calculated.

There are plenty of areas in the world where war rages, not of all which record the United States as a passive bystander. It is surely the role of an independent Nobel committee to award into these ignored, undereported conflicts rather than seek regard by association with Obama in the same way as our tawdry Prime Minister.

Luvvies, Labour’s Lost

Flawed but not floored - can he turn it around

It’s a bit early to define a narrative from the Labour Conference in Brighton just yet but so far the most interesting thing coming out of the proceedings there is the attitude of the BBC.

First, we have a surprisingly combative interview from the normally obliging Andrew Marr, who went so far as to raise with the PM the issue of his alleged medication. Predictably, Brown dodged the question and instead went for the sympathy vote over his eyesight, something that David Blunkett – a far more robust and substantial man – would never have done. Whatever the answer, it caught me (and quite a few of the Tory Twitterati that I follow) out – one wonders whether this is the last Marr/Brown interview.

It obviously irked Marr to ask the question as much as it did Brown to have to answer it. The BBC man’s pleading that it was a “fair” question was followed up by some serious feigned interest in Brown’s sob story. Obviously I’m sorry he has a sight impairment – but it was noticeable how much detail he was prepared to give up on this in contrast with the actual question about prescription drugs.

Then we had this from Laura Kuenssberg (@BBCLauraK) – she really is a gem on top of a compost heap. Not only was she prepared to tell viewers the actual mood of the conference on Brown’s arrival (ie pretty dreadful) but also to lob some real questions at him about his law-breaking ministers and then reflect that the party activists (the BBC usual calls them crowds as if to ignore their handpicked pedigree) were making so much noise that he couldn’t hear her. And she hinted, quite correctly, that this was probably deliberate.

But look at the story headline – “Labour ‘should expose the Tories’”. Clearly the online staff have gone seriously off message – or on message with PM. It doesn’t reflect the downbeat message from LauraK and about Labour – or indeed much about Labour at all. It’s just a pop at the Conservatives.

Previous to this, of course, was this beauty – again courtesy of online staff – suggesting that Brown and Barack Obama are, after all, the closest of chums and that Obama doesn’t see Brown as a washed-up political liability or “depressing to be around“, as one of his staff leaked to the press. According to the BBC, this official line “quelled rumours” of an Obama snub. No it didn’t – and who are they to report that as fact? Any moderately sensible person watching the polls will realise that the last thing Obama needs with his problems at home is to become embroiled in some tawdry scheme by a foreign political party to prop up their ailing government with lent popularity.

Obama isn’t my cup of tea but he’s certainly not a fool. And only a fool would consider anything other than refusing any more public airtime with Gordon than was absolutely necessary. Any suggestion to the contrary is completely counter-inituitive and total propaganda, which the Beeb is only too happy to repeat.

Going back to the polls, not even Obama could have found a way to spin a poll that suggests you are heading out of office positively. I can’t now find the link on the BBC website – maybe they’ve seen sense and pulled it – but this poll, which states 41% of people think Brown is almost certainly going to lose is bad, bad news. Instead, the BBC concentrated on the 48% of people who though Labour still had a “slim chance” of winning in 2010, along with the 11% who think he will win.

It’s a silly question – you can’t ever rule out that a party has a “slim chance” of winning. I’m not surprised so many people ticked that box rather than commit themselves but it doesn’t reflect reality. The BBC is supposed to be here to present facts not spin to us that 59% of people think Gordon is still in with a chance next year – of course he is, he’s taking part in the election. They are more aware than ever that politics is self-fulfilling and by buying into this silly poll (I though they didn’t report routine polls anyway) they are just playing PM and the PM’s game for them. At our expense.

I don’t expect the BBC to give DC a free ride. I don’t expect them to push through government PR work. But there is a bipolarity within the corporation at the moment between the political pragmatists that realise the New Labour years are 95% drawing to a close and the politically-motivated staff who desperately want to play a hand in upsetting the odds with sly journalism. It’s got no place in the BBC and they have no place on the public payroll.

The BBC is a service, not a political tool. I’m afraid quite a number of its staff work there for the wrong reasons – they should stand for election instead.