The BBC maximising a good story for the Labour narrative

What a contrast, the headline on the BBC news website is

"Backing for spending cuts delay -
More than 60 economists sign two open letters backing the chancellor's decision to delay spending cuts until 2011."

and to ensure you get the message the next link is entitled "Cuts may cripple key services". Read the article and you will see that the article starts thus:

"More than 60 senior economists have signed two open letters that back the chancellor's decision to delay government spending cuts until 2011.

The letters in the Financial Times say that any measures to trim the budget deficit this year could risk dragging the country back into recession.

They are a riposte to the 20 economists who on Sunday, backed the Conservatives' call for cuts this year.

Those economists said cuts were needed in 2010 to reassure the markets. "

So it's 60 to 20 and a choice between avoiding "dragging the country back into recession" and "reassur(ing) the markets"

Read today's piece and compare it with Sunday's, I think you will find the contrast in emphasis interesting.

Here's how the two pieces end (my emphasis):
Sunday:

"Both Labour and the Conservatives have yet to provide full details on how they plan to cut public expenditure.

Last summer, Mr Osborne declined to rule out increasing VAT.

On Sunday, shadow business secretary Ken Clarke said a Conservative government would not rule out raising taxes in order to shrink the UK's deficit.

In December's pre-Budget report, Labour announced belt-tightening measures including a 1% cap on public sector pay rises and an increase in National Insurance from 2011. "

Today:

"a spokesman for Mr Darling said that the latest letters showed that shadow chancellor George Osborne had "jumped on the wrong bandwagon".

"His judgment is wrong and his approach would risk derailing the recovery," the spokesman said. "

I think we can see where the BBC stand on the matter under discussion.


What is also interesting is the prominence given to the articles; today's is the lead story and headline news, whilst on Sunday as I wrote at the time:

"However by mid-afternoon today the story was the last piece on the BBC 5Live news and on the website it appears as a minor link from the front page under Business News with the deliberately dull headline "Economists push for deficit cut".

I am prepared to believe that the current lead story will be similarly knocked down the news hierachy by this afternoon, but I wouldn't put any money on it...