Muck Spreading

This comment seems typical of the ones I've read today about the BBC's (and Robert Peston's in particular) response to the news that George Osbourne may have been more interested than he should have been in receiving donations for the Conservative Party from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

I am more than a little dismayed at the public's response. To me it seems important that all politicians are investigated for their probity, especially if they are seeking to become Chancellor of the Exchequor, as George Osbourne is. However, what dismays me most of all is the idea that the BBC is launching its own campaign to smear George Osbourne because they are naturally left-wing.

It seems to me that the BBC is quite right in pursuing the direction that they are. The BBC has shown that it is not adverse to making life difficult for the government. Many heavyweight Labour politicians have had to resign because of investigations by the press (Peter Mandelson twice); nor did the BBC show any favour towards the government over decisions to invade Iraq, much to its own cost.

And now, people are saying that the BBC is biased towards the government because it dares to suggest that George Osbourne has some very serious questions to answer.

It is important to recognise this as a sign that there may be something in these accusations after all. Rubbishing the reporter of a piece of news is a good way to suggest that the news has no substance without having to prove it. Hopefully the BBC will re-double its efforts to show one way or another whether George Osbourne has a serious case to answer.

Well, he does. At the very least, George Osbourne has shown a huge error of judgement. It is clear that he has seriously annoyed Nat Rothschild, who is not known as a supporter of New Labour and who, therefore, must have his own reasons for wanting to accuse George Osbourne. According to Robert Peston, it is because he feels that George Osbourne took advantage of his (Nat's) hospitality by encouraging newspaper reports that embarrass two other of Nat's friends, Oleg Deripaska and Peter Mandelson. In other words, George Osbourne has politicked amongst friends and has been rebuked in a very public forum.

Bizarrely, most people seem to blame Peter Mandelson for this. It seems that Peter can be blamed for everything.

It should be noted that George Osbourne is not immune from making unfounded accusations of his own.

Maybe George Osbourne has simply been naïve. The Tories maybe need to learn that they cannot continually throw mud at the government without two things happening: firstly, people will get fed up with the amount of mud that sticks to politicians - and not just Labour ones; and secondly, some of the mud will splatter themselves too. What's more, for those of us who are not affiliated with the right or the left, the Tories' constant barrage of some founded and some unfounded criticisms of Gordon Brown undermine the very good points that they do occasionally make, such as that the government borrowed too much when times were good; and that they allowed debt levels to get too high. (The one thing I do not believe is that the Tories would have been any different, since it was under Thatcherism that the seed of unregulated credit markets was sown, and further regulating markets is not a Tory policy).

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.