Friday, October 12, 2007

Brown's Spin Merchants Caught Out Over PMQs Edit

You may remember that during PMQs on Wednesday that Harriet Harman is caught shaking her head when David Cameron says "can we ever believe a word the Prime Minister says?". Here's the BBC footage. It's a few seconds into the video. And here's the Sky footage which shows the same.

However, if you watch the version on the Number Ten website it has clearly been edited - or rather, Harriet Harman has been edited out. Click HERE and then click on October 10 WMV.

All broadcasters get the same feed. It can ONLY have been edited afterwards by the Number Ten Communications team. What a disgrace. They are public servants paid for by the taxpayer. They are not paid to save Harriet Harman's or the Prime Minister's embarrassment.

And people wonder why I refuse to promote Number Ten petitions. If this doesn't show that Brown's lot are spinning in exactly the way Blai's oppos used to, then I don't know what does.

Note: Thanks to Anatole on PoliticalBetting.com for spotting this.

UPDATE: A commenter reckons this is because on the No 10 website the videos are in 4:3 whereas the BBC & Sky use 16:9. That is entirely possible I suppose, but if you look at the Cameron wideshot it seems similar to the No 10 site, whereas when it goes to Brown the close-up is far more marked than you would expect.

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is such crap, Iain.

It only takes a cursory glance at the two clips to notice that the Sky/BBC videos are in 16/9 ('widescreen') resolution, whilst the Downing Street videos are in 4/3 (square). That's the only reason that you can't see Harman in the frame. If you watch previous weeks' recordings on the Downing Street website you will see that this is always the case.

It's so obvious that Harman is shaking her head at Cameron's question, anyway - you can clearly see her mouthing 'rubbish'.

Grow up a bit.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. And on the larger screen provided by the No 10 website: watch the hands of the MPs behind the PM. Displacement activity or what?

Anonymous said...

Agree with previous blogger, get a grip Iain.

Probably rattled by the fact that today's Ipsos-Mori poll has a 6% Lab lead amongst all voters (the 3% Tory lead is only amongst those certain to vote):
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/2007/s071010.shtml

The real voting figs are probably somewhere in between. YouGov doesnt filter their polls for certain to vote so the next YouGov poll should be interesting...

Anonymous said...

Iain - you may need to put hands up on this one. What did you write in the Telegraph today?!

Anonymous said...

It appears to have been pulled already.
My player is telling me that the file is unavailable, even though the file name comes up on the player.

Hope someone made a copy of it before posting....

Anonymous said...

Given Brown's track record and notorious thin skin it really isn't beyond the realms of possibility that he was petty enough to insist that the Harman footage was doctored now was it ? He needs to grow up and find some bottle.

Anonymous said...

Gordon's fragile ego strikes again?

Anonymous said...

What next a Gordon Brown Director's Cut of this week's PMQ's where he isn't humiliated and doesn't lose the plot? Ha ha!

Anonymous said...

What a petty and fussy little man Gordon Brown is. Second rate.

Anonymous said...

Central Office obviously at a loose end this evening.

Anonymous said...

And, for the record, reaction shots - which have only recently been allowed in Parliamentary coverage - are filmed in close up. Normal speaking is wide angle. Hence the difference that Iain points out in his 'update'.
Again, check out the previous videos, you silly billys.

So that's that. Retraction ahoy.

Anonymous said...

Given the number of times Dale is caught out I find it surprising that people still take him seriously.

Anonymous said...

I see the aptly named king cnut [9.49 PM] is trying to hold back the encroaching tide of scorn which now threatens to envelop our beloved Prime Minister.

Chris Paul said...

The Sky version of the Marr interview was framed in a completely different way also. You lot are in danger of getting too picky and too clever. Count to ten. Deep breath. Read Blaney's instructions. Observe them.

Anonymous said...

I see the Labour trolls are back.
Welcome back chaps. No doubt, you've been nursed in field hospitals during these trying times, hoping forlornly for a ticket back to Blighty.
Well, you're back on the front, so what have you got, apart from aprehension?
Has General Brown promised it will be all over by Christmas?

Ted Foan said...

bebopper (11.21pm) - Nice one!

Anonymous said...

nice one Bebooper!



Hostile Levity - Looking forward to the Gordon's Director's cut of PMQ's where he manages to retain some dignity! Snigger.....

Anonymous said...

Poor Gordon, mocks and taunts ringing in his ears, no wonder he's becoming so sensitive! Maybe women we'll like him better now he's to be pitied?

Anonymous said...

vison void

You'd need someone with the skill of David Lean to achieve that (snigger)

Anonymous said...

Senor Spielbergo presents Gordon Brown a tragi-comedy in He Lied screen.

Ted Foan said...

There was definitely a cut, Iain. I have carried out a "forensic examination" of your claims and come to the conclusion (within two minutes) the the PM's site has been tampered with.

It took me about as long as Brown and Darling's "forensic examination" of the Conservatives' IHT proposals before they included them in the PBR/CSR announcement last Tuesday.

It's called "instant rebuttal" and I think we can expect more of this in the days to come. (The Mandleson grid is still be used by the non-spinning Brown government after all.)

Anonymous said...

I see Chris(backstabber)Paul is back in town! Ten years of NuLabour and hundreds are being killed in dirty NHS hospitals? MRSA/C difficle is out of control and getting worse! There is NO excuse for filthy hospitals while the NULAB supporting executives ponce about with massive salaries waiting their turn to get on the honours list!
A few less gravytrain/nonjobs would pay for lots of cleaners wouldnt it? Which would you prefer, a diversity enforcement official on 50 grand or TEN cleaners? NuLabour has turned our hospitals into filthy death traps filled with lazy and ignorant managers on massive salaries!

Unsworth said...

Actually it makes little difference what the technicalities are. The fact is that we're now in the position where such an allegation is entirely credible. Indeed, Photoshop has become a political tool.

What does that say about the past decade of spin and deliberate deception? Stalin would have been greatly impressed. Blair has been airbrushed out within days and NuLab seem to believe that we've all got the memory capacity of fruit flies.

David Lindsay said...

If one can edit out Harriet Harman, then one should. Wouldn't you, if you could?

Anonymous said...

IfI were aLabour supportert I'd edit out Gordon Brown rather than Harriet David

Anonymous said...

The Left has never been about truth - it is about getting power.

Anonymous said...

BBC Parliament and the internal feed on the parliamentary estate differ; the producer of the latter is much quicker on the mark, so most of the researchers I know prefer this service.

Anyway, the fact these two services differ slightly suggests the whole premise of Iain's post: "All broadcasters get the same feed. It can ONLY have been edited afterwards..." is wrong.

Anonymous said...

anonymous at 5.15. You may have a point you may not, but it seems really bizarre that the main broadcaster have the same feed but Downing St have something else.
Given that New labour ..over so many years.... have been the spinmeister generals, it it any surprise that the reasoning behind it is questioned....

Gavin Whenman said...

Nobody else thinking that the communications team at Number 10 should be political (i.e. non-civil servants, just as Alistair Campbell was).

Anonymous said...

I am not sure what the anonymous posting above on the subject of differing feeds is trying to suggest. I do not believe that there will be different *feeds* coming out of Parliament - given its audience that would be monstrously inefficient. In any case even if there were different feeds, the feeds used by the BBC, Sky News and the Downing Street website are clearly, looking at camera angles and so on, the same one. Which brings us back to original premise, namely that someone at Downing Street has gone around looking for something to take the edge off Wednesday's pasting. Which is, ultimately pathetic.