Humphrys Put Out To Grass

An interesting misrepresentation of the truth has been filling the blog's of many political commentators in the UK today.

Both Nick Robinson of the BBC and Stephen Pollard of the Spectator defended Chancellor Alaistar Darling after he was criticised in an interview on the Today programme on
BBC Radio 4 by John Humphrys.

Darling was misquoted.

During a commons debate he had supposedley agreed with the comments made by a Labour MP that nationalising Northern Rock would, 'lead to a slow, lingering death for the jobs of the Northern Rock workers'. According to Robinson, it was Hansard (the official record of House of Commons business) that was responsible for the misquote.

Nick Robinson dismissed the mistake as just that, pointing to the fact that Alaistar Darling's team did not complain about the misquote (perhaps because they feel the less said about the whole issue the better).

Stephen Pollard on the other hand, used the fact that Humphrys had not checked the quote before using it to attack the Chancellor, as an opportunity to attack the widely respected veteran presenter, asking the question, 'When is Humphrys going to be put out to grass?

To me, it seemed that Robinson dealt with the issue in a more even manner, although I think it was correct of Pollard to point to Humphrys mistake, as someone in as high a position as he is shouldn't be making such mistakes (though it should be noted that other people made the same mistake).