The George Osborne story (update)

I have been too irritated by the BBC's coverage of Corfu-gate today to comment until now. The BBC have crossed a line over their coverage of this story; they chose to minimise their coverage of the claims about Peter Mandelson and then pushed the George Osborne story to the top of the news agenda. The reasoning is obvious and it stinks to high heaven.

Some people are taking comfort in the fact that the most popular comments made by those people commenting on the Have Your Say question about this matter "Did Mr Osborne show a lack of judgement? Should he face an inquiry? ...?", show that people are seeing through the spin, I do not. I believe that most people assume that the BBC has to be unbiased and therefore trust what the BBC reports, those who comment are a very small percentage of BBC viewers.

The Conservative Party have to accept that Gordon Brown's calling for bipartisan policy making is a sham, he has no interest in being bi-partisan just in reducing opposition and trying to tie the opposition into his new policies. With Peter Mandelson and Derek Draper back in harness the attacks on the Conservative Party both overt and covert will increase in number and ferocity and will be backed up by a willingly compliant BBC.

The Conservative party have a choice; either carry on as they are and hope that the general public see through the drip, drip, drip of the attacks on the probity and competence of the Conservative Party and its leaders or go on the attack. And when I say attack I mean attacking hard Gordon Brown's appalling record of ruining this country's economy, attacking over and over again the sleaze that has been at the heart of this Labour government almost from day one and attacking the BBC for its bias. The Conservative leadership have to understand that the BBC hate the Tories almost as much as Gordon Brown does and that the BBC will work almost as hard to destroy them as Gordon's chums will. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson are planning a three month or so campaign of mud-throwing to be followed by a snap General Election if the polls look to be moving in their favour.

The decontamination of the Conservative brand was acceptable to the BBC because it meant that the Conservative party accepted the BBC line that the brand was contaminated. It also meant that David Cameron had to appear soft and liberal and cuddly to please the BBC's agenda. Unfortunately the time for Conservative cuddliness has passed, David Cameron, George Osborne, William Hague etc. must show some steeliness and willingness to get their fists dirty and slug this one out. David Davis must be made Party Chairman and let loose on the Labour record.

The news agenda is once again being set by the Labour party and the BBC, the Conservative party must retake control of this agenda.

The Labour party and the BBC are not unbeatable but to beat them the fight must start in earnest and it must start this week.