"We're the optimists now" said Ed Miliband. I'm sure they are. They know they've a lot to do but they do know also that they have a vital and strong ally: the BBC. I'll be interested to see how the wall-to-wall fawning and insipid coverage of the Labour conference compares to the coming coverage of the Conservative event. Today I noted that they link to how Paxman "grilled" Ed Miliband...he didn't even warm him up; in fact he didn't even get him out of the protective wrapping (please remove before cooking). Reminded me of Andrew Marr's "grilling" of the three party leaders before the election: (credit to Craig) breaking down the interviews into its consistuents topics:
Cameron:
Cuts, deficit - 15m 26s (67%)
Priorities - 3m 20s (14.5%)
Hung parliament, campaign - 3 m 0s (13%)
Living Wage - 1m 18s (5.5%)
Nick Clegg:
Hung parliaments, Clegg personally - 11m 7s (49.7%)
Immigration - 7m 32s (33.7%)
Trident - 3m 42s (16.6%)
Cuts, deficit - 0m os (0%)
Gordon Brown:
Hung parliaments, campaign, the Queen - 12m 18s (48.5%)
Immigration - 5m 21s (21%)
Bankers - 3m 11s (12.5%)
Ash cloud - 2m 40s (10.5%)
Afghanistan - 1m 56s (7.5%)
Cuts, deficit - 0 m 0s (0%)
Note the text in bold, the most pressing topic of the election and how each leader was questioned; just a coincidence of course, as was the non-bias of the BBC's electioneering blog, a tally of which Craig kept for 30 days with the running total for the whole campaign: Labour - 742, Conservatives - 558, Lib Dems - 471. Remember this was before the election so no Coalition parties combined; clearly one party matters to the BBC. It's worth regular visits to Biased BBC blog.
Update: Classic...as if one cue. Looking at some of the blatantly partisan people who have signed doesn't add much gravitas to their 'plea'. Pollocks, "There is a simple fact that you appear to be overlooking: the other political conferences would have been targeted too but fell outside our scope because of the long-winded niceties of calling strikes." Of course they would.