30/03/2012 Newswatch

Raymond Snoddy. This week, why did the BBC broadcast so many weeks of

last week's Budget ahead of the Welcome to NewsWatch. Why we have

all been busy working out if we are winners or losers from a street's

Budget, George Osborne has been talking to the Treasury Select

Committee -- last week's budget. We asked why everyone seemed to know

so much about what was in the Budget before he delivered it.

Every single budget I have seen in the 20 or so years I have seen --

been in politics, there has been speculation beforehand, sometimes

budgets have leaked and sometimes the speculation has been well

informed. What I can confirm is that no Treasury official or

Treasury minister, no Treasury special adviser briefed before the

Budget any specific information on tax rates or tax allowances.

featured last week and you are's objections to hearing about the

budget's contents in advance of the day itself and it is a tendency

others have complained about. He It in this -- it is an issue Nick

Robinson addressed in a report shown the night before the Budget.

Gone are the days chancellors do the deed until a prime minister

what they were planning. Now every line has to be agreed by the so-

called quad which runs the coalition. Negotiations which have

at a to lead -- a habit of leaking out. Her local stock even he has

probably heard that the government is about to cut the 50 pence top

rate of tax. So does the fault lie with politicians or with

journalists? And how much of a problem is it? I am joined by

Norman Smith, chief political correspondent on the news channel.

Norman Smith, whatever happened to budget purdah? In the far distant

past the Chancellor could get fired for leaks. The truth is purdah has

been dying a slow DEFRA decades now and gradually, incrementally, the

amount of information that is passed out by one way or another to

journalists ahead of the Budget has been increasing until we reach the

stage this year we're frankly there was only one really headline Budget

measure which hadn't been briefed in advance which was the so-called

Granny Tax and the reason for that in part is the changing nature of

the way politics is covered now by the media. It is so intensive,

particularly with the new forms of media, I am thinking particularly

of Twitter, the internet and so on, that there is more persuasive

pressure on politicians now to disclose, to give some insight, to

give some titbit of information and that builds up a team at his

momentum where more substantive -- and that builds up more momentum

where more so stunted allegations become apparent. That is one thing

that has happened. Is the other thing coalition government? Have

you got the phenomenon of the Lib Dems leaking against the

Conservatives? It is absolutely the case and the other key reason was

because we are in a political environment with a coalition

government which is bluntly meant a public negotiation or horse trade

between the political parties over what they want out of the budget,

their red lines, then no going areas and their positioning so they

can trope and -- so they can trumpet to people look, this is

what we have achieved. Within the Chancellor's team they take the

view privately that the Liberal Democrats were guilty of leaking

information to the media as a way of buttressing their position

against accusations that they had sold out over the match and tax or

whatever that they briefed n advance certain games such as on

the raising of the tax threshold to insulate themselves against that

accusation after the Budget. there a danger that journalists

from being caught up in political games, the sort of differential

leaking as you said, the so-called granny tax was not least because it

was not something they were particularly wanting to draw

attention to. Are you caught up in these games between Lib Dems are

leaking against the Conservatives, etc? Yes, that is part and parcel

of the political cut-and-thrust, the more so now because it is a

coalition error. From my perspective it seems to me

increasingly the view that all political announcements, all

initiatives, are three briefed in advance. In fact when the Queen

came to Westminster the other day it was frankly a shock because the

Palace absolutely did not give us anything in advance, which for

political journalists come hang on a second, we have to tell audiences

what you are going to say and we did not get that from the palace

because the Palace comes from a previous media era and in a funny

way when a politician makes a speech very often it gets

comparatively little courage and all the coverage is its front

loaded because at the time he makes it, editors are thinking I have

heard that, there is nothing new, so it is a weird world but it is

increasingly the case that everything, including budgets, is

extensively briefed in advance. viewers complained that the BBC

should not be indulging in speculation, should just report the

facts but if you are right you were not indulging in speculation, you

were reporting the facts, the leaks are mainly true? Yes, I would not

entirely dismissed the speculation side of it in the sense that had

been speculation, I would rephrase it as informed analysis if you

wanted to be slightly pompous about it but I think there is a place for

trying to provide some thoughts from people who are within the

Westminster village, who perhaps have a sense of where story is

going or how it is likely to develop without necessarily having

all the concrete facts lined up in a neat row. Betting you can join up

dots. When people say League setting the temptation is to

imagine someone from the Treasury rings you up and say the Treasury

is going to do this, this is not how it happens. It tends to be more

oblique conversations where I would not get very far if I said to a

government figure is the Chancellor going to cut a top rate of tax?

That would be simply, I can't tell you. You rarely get clear,

categorical facts, of this is what is going to happen, but you can

piece together the bits-and-pieces to form an idea of what is likely

to happen. Norman Smith, thank you. For some more of your comments and

what you have been watching this week on BBC News, or in the case of

the NHS Bill, what you have not been watching, the Health Bill

gained Royal Assent on Tuesday after a tortuous passage through

Parliament and a row over the government's refusal to publish an

internal risk assessment. Professor Peter Jane Evans from Oxford

University felt this deserved more A rather more active objection to

BBC output was made this week by representatives of the Mormon

Church, who visited the corporation to hand to deliver a letter of

complaint. It centred on Tuesday's This World documentary on BBC Two

in which John Sweeney investigated the religious beliefs of Mitt

Romney and asked whether the United States is ready for a more one

President? I can't in good conscience vote for him, I can't do

it. Mitt Romney is a Mormon and they believe that Jesus came to

America. Are the more one bashers just religious bigots? I go on the

road to find out. Some NewsWatch viewers were equally unhappy with

the programme. One view was said it was poorly researched and

One of the bigger and angrier postbags we had last year followed

August's riots across English cities. Many viewers felt the

extent of the coverage on BBC B -- BBC News had fanned the flames.

Among them, John Bell. I thought that it had become very

irresponsible. We were just being flooded with picture after picture

of the riots and to my mind it almost became an invitation, you

know, look what is going on out here, guys, come and joiners or

there will be another one tomorrow night. This week saw the

publication of an independent report into the roots of last

summer's event. Over the course or five extraordinary day's last

August England learnt how order and chaos are close neighbours. Them

rioting, looting and arson spreading like Bush fires across

the country, the politicians initially blaming criminality, pure

and simple. But then commissioning a report to look at the deeper

social causes and lessons to be learned. One of the panel's

findings chime with the concerns of our viewers at the time. It said

the spread of violence was helped by televised images of police

watching people looked at will. And that many felt the 24 hour news

coverage on the BBC and Sky exaggerated the extent of rioting

where they lived, helping to make the riots self-fulfilling prophecy.

Finally, another own complaint -- old complaint has come back to

haunt BBC News. In January we showed how the news channel had

mistakenly captioned Labour leader Ed Miliband at his brother, David.

Well, at last week's Prime Minister's Question Time the same

thing happened again. Ed Miliband. Mr Speaker, following the Prime is

to's recent trip to Washington we now know that the timetable for the