Sunday, April 19, 2009

Maguire Tries to Explain His Presence at Red Rag Meeting

I don't know if any of you have been listening to BROADCASTING HOUSE on Radio 4, but they have just had Kevin Maguire on in his 'new' role as spokesman for the Labour Party. Strange, I always thought he was supposed to be an independent journalist. If I were Mr Maguire I'd be keeping a very low profile today, not fanning the flames of this scandal in which he is now deeply implicated.

Listen HERE (13 mins in).

PS Readers tell me that Mr Maguire also appeared on the BBC Breakfast paper review. When questioned as part of the top story said he attended the meeting but couldn't remember whether RedRag was mentioned, but knew about it anyway but of course anything published on it had to be legal. Javelin says Maguire says he was at two meetings about websites and ONE of them didn't discuss smears. "Given he is trying to clear his name and not lie then it necessarily follows that he did discuss smears in the other meeting," says Javelin.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Guido's site is down - hope the bastards haven't got to him.

Ctesibius said...

Was he the only 'journalist' to have this relationship with McBride, Ball and the rest? I wonder whether there will be any similar sudden 'memories' apparent on the Andrew Marr show this morning?

Mazza1230 said...

Guess what Mr McGuire....WE don't believe you.

"If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas"

Anonymous said...

This is unravelling faster than a Flash brown re-launch.

Meanwhile in the background the election timetable clock is ticking.

Cynic said...

Fancy that...the BBC bring someone on to comment on the papers who is part of the story and a 'Labour adviser'

Well..the advice ain't working too well so far

Prodicus said...

Ye...es. 'BBC invites Maguire on' shock. Sigh. I should have had a bet on that one, except no bookie would have taken it.

Ctesibius said...

Is it my watch or are the BBC delaying the start of the Andrew Marr how?

Trend Shed said...

So now neither Draper or Maguire can remember what was discussed about Red Rag.......

.....Alzeihmers, tedious meetings, or a cover up..... which could it be????

Anonymous said...

yes, but he has clearly been sent on a mission to flag up the stories from a certain 'Project Blackbird' to try and create a smokescreen and go for the 'plague on all your houses' impact on voters minds..

The only real defence now that they have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar is to aim to make the punters think 'Well they're all as bad as each other...' and thus seek to neutralise the party political advantage of the recent revelations..

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

Guido's site is down - hope the bastards haven't got to him."

ditto

try a proxy... et voila!

moorlandhunter said...

What a surprise the BBC calling out a Tory hating Labour hack to comment on such a bad day for Labour?
I bet the BBC is desperate to help plug the dyke with its pudgy left wing finger to try stem the flow of sleaze flowing out from Labour?

Barbazenzero said...

Re Guido's site is down, it's available outside the UK with 673 comments at the time of writing.

If NuLab want to get Guido, they'll get ISPs to blacklist his IP address.

JohnofEnfield said...

To use an analogy from nuclear physics - this government has "gone critical". I cannot see anyway back for Brown. The G20 AND the Budget are being swamped by "smeargate". The BBC is trying to distract our attention with the police handling of the G20 riots - the R4 8:05 coverage of the newspapers COMPLETELY ignored the ST article on Balls & they have taken a long time to cover the attendance at the "Red Rag" meeting by Ray Collins. Lots of other hares running as well. Guido's site, after promising more revelations, has collapsed under the weight of interest.
Balls surely cannot now come back from this. Brown is an ace away from being forced to step down - this will FORCE a General Election where New Labour stands an EXCELLENT chance of coming THIRD.

Where is parliament in all of this?

Trashed, ignored, insulted - I am sure that MPs are going to wreak their revenge when they return.

Truly fantastic times - a real revolution is taking place.

Plato said...

I can't understand what Maguire is thinking of poppingup all over the place.

It feels reminiscent of Dolly doing the same over Hannan.

Mazza1230 said...

@Brownedov
"Re Guido's site is down, it's available outside the UK with 673 comments at the time of writing."

Presumably someone who's blog is registered ouytside the UK could publish the info....?

Plato said...

Am I also in a parallel universe - no mention of Ed Balls on any BBC outlet.

He's a CABINET Minister and accused of being behind a shadow rat-F8cking operation to kill off political rivals FFS???

jon dee said...

The BBC owe their taxpayers a much better news service than they are currently providing.

Amidst a major government scandal it provides Kevin Maguire as a spokesman, when he is alleged to be one of the main plotters in the affair itself.

This is blatant news manipulation and insults the paying audience. It is also very poor journalism.

Tom said...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00jqxk4/Broadcasting_House_19_04_2009/ - thirteen minutes in.

Plato said...

I see that urgent news management is underway - Jacqui opens Hillsborough files 10yrs early.

*yawn*

logdon said...

I listened in disgust before switching off to concentrate on non bent sources of information. Has the BBC now renounced any pretention that it is not the propaganda wing of Labour? McGuire given a free ride as he spun his lopsided tale. This is reaching meltdown.

Spongebob said...

While the BBC news at midday led on the Police at the G20 demos (ignoring the new smeargate allegations) , MacGuire's cheeky chappie act turned up on Sky to say how MPs expenses were a bigger issue to the public, it was a shame for Gordon after his G20 success and the Tories had all kinds of problems, it just didn't get reported. He's the journalistic equivalent of Derek Draper.