Monday, May 10, 2010

Boulton v Campbell

46 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love Adam Boulton. He was so right and Campbell is a sneaky, slimy git along with Mandelson.

waymore said...

Boulton is exhausted and no bloody wonder after the shift he has put in. But tired people often manage to convey the truth, granted, as they see it. He loathes Campbell and all his lying distortions and his exasperation is a microcosm. for that of the country. Brown is no statesnan, he is an old Labour tribal, English loathing socialist, He is to be despised.

Jack Adlam said...

Boulton made a complete fool of himself. Campbell offered the bait and Boulton took it hook, line and sinker!

yann said...

About time someone in the TV media took on the unelected spinners. I wonder if anyone from the BBC will ever have the guts to do so!

miko said...

Iain

Please tell me how this evil man is ever allowed near a TV camera.

Things are now getting very serious - Brown comes out to spin his last but possibly most awful trick against the country,Clegg is looking more and more like the spoilt kid in the toyshop who cannot make his mind up between the big teddy bear and the train set.

All the while our soldiers are dying and the economy is melting - Cameron and Clegg must get agreement tonight or the country is over the edge.

Dobson said...

...go Adam...

John Demetriou said...

It was pretty unseemly and inappropriate on both sides. And not what one would expect of Boulton, a professional journo.

But at least there's passion and disagreement there.

You could do with showing a bit of that on here, Iain. Instead of just agreeing with your 'opponents' all the time.

golden_balls said...

i replied via the wrong post
apologies

I've never had such a smile on my face while i watched Boulton and Campbell go at it.

I can recall Nigel Lawson accusing Brian Redhead of bias and how dignified his response was.

Compare this with Boulton and you see how poor the current crop of Journalist's are.

I see Adam is trending on twitter for all the wrong reasons.

Burly now Boulton will Sky ever be taken seriously as independently minded after this election ?

Simon Gardner said...

Saw this live. I was wetting myself.

Adam Boulton needs to get some sleep.

Null said...

Epic!

aldo77 said...

Adam Boulton made a utter fool of himself, sure he has breached some ofcom regulation by letting his personal political opinions cloud his journalistic job. What an idiot and after the Kay Burly fiasco in the weekend, Sky look ridiculous.

Alex said...

How is 11 million votes and over 300 sets a failure? It may not be a majority but it is 11 million more votes and 305 more seats than A. Campbell has ever won.

Mostly Ordinary said...

I don't think it was Boulton v Campbell. Campbell hooked him and reeled him in the was no competition.

Think This said...

Give Boulton a pay rise.

Think This said...

Give Boulton a pay rise

Navy Red said...

If Adam had hit him there would have been 5 million viewers who would have swore blind they saw nuffin officer.

Jimmy said...

Fox News UK finally arrives.

neiljward said...

Boulton for PM

Unknown said...

i think murdoch employees in general are panicking. its all gone wrong.boultons analysis for the last few days has been completely wrong. con/lib deal the only one in town. wrong adam. who's going to break the bad news to rupert ? lol

Anonymous said...

Boulton was quite right. And those who think differently only show their - wait for it - 'bigotry'.

Campbell accused Boulton of wanting a tory win, a plain accusation of bias.

Campbell was trying to equate the loss of 100 labour seat to the gain of 100 tory seats, trying to imply the tories had failed. Just typical lying spin.

julianjacks said...

Campbell, Brown and the labour party represent all that is wrong with politics; they should be ashamed! They stand for power for the sake of power and nothing else. They dont give a crap about the elctorate, the british people, their will, wants or fears. Self interest is all they have on the agenda and its disgusting.

Unknown said...

Presumably CryBaby, Yann, Dobson and others would be equally encouraging of a journalist going at a Tory spinner like that.. in the interests of a balanced broadcast media, obviously.

John Babb said...

Boulton's performance was pathetic - he's the one who was agressive and kept on interupting. The way Sky news has treated Brown since Friday has been appalling - denigrating and certainly not impartial ( and nor was Boulton impartial in this discussion). Murdoch's clearly worried that the BBC are not going to get sorted out as they would have been with a Tory majority government.

Anonymous said...

Personally, I'd rather that the government and the media had an adversarial relationship than the alternative, which is being in each other's pocket in a lovely, cosy way which excludes the poor bloody electorate. Boulton clearly has 'issues' with Campbell dating back to Campbell's time at No. 10 - and Boulton is married to Anji Hunter, who was one of the people closest to Blair when Campbell - and Campbell's wife Fiona Millar - were at No. 10. So this really is a case where the personal is the political, and vice versa - a trauma-induced flashback to the dramas of a long-gone world of Blairite court politics. Personally, when it comes to this particular row I very much agree with Campbell, both because he was surely right on the constitutional points, and also because the Murdoch press is fast on the way to becoming a wholly malign influence. And also, as someone else said here, Boulton was silly to rise to Campbell's bait. But all the same, there's something rather poetic about the fact that, here in the final act of the Brown project, what's left of the Blairite project, even in this debased, reventant, beyond-the-grave form, is so much more effortlessly eye-catching. Weird times, indeed.

The Purpleline said...

Why oh why did Adam not just punch that fkr Campbell in the mush. I must be over aggressive or just short tempered, but I just would not be able to help myself from doing Campbell.

Hope I meet him one day and Mandelson I would get revenge for them destroying my country.

The Queen should tell Gordon no way you go straight away because we
know your offer to resign could be revoked or not accepted.

Michael CP said...

There's only so much depravity a person can stomach, journalist or not

Unknown said...

Adam was right. Campbell had been picking at him since election night and I'm sure there is prior history there.

Sure it was a bit of a shocker, but about time. These mouthpieces - especially the ones that lie (spin) need to be tackled. Campbell isn't even elected and yet he and Mandy are running around trying to form the next Government. That's the real shocker.

Vijay said...

Boulton's as bad as Kay Burley. Just another reason not to watch Sky News; it's rapidly becoming The Sun TV.

Alison said...

Adam Boulton more or less expressed the electorates frustration at this stitch up by Labour and Nick Clegg. About time someone did. Thank you thank you thank you Adam. Apparently last weeks election meant nothing at all. Wonderful to see Campbell no longer being allowed to stand up there and do his usual spin. Wish it had happened years ago when Nu Labour first started their deceptions.

Alison said...

How quickly can we organise a rally? Id be willing to do whatever it takes to ensure my vote last week counts as wold many many others. Is there anything being organised? I'm disgusted by the back room dealing and total disregard of last weeks election. And especially this coup today that ignores the electorate. Anything happening?

John said...

@ Jack - is the correct answer.

Boulton is a pompous tool and if he'd been working for the BBC or if he'd behaved like that towards a Tory spokesman (official or unofficial), the Daily Mail would go into overdrive in demanding his head on a plate.

Hilarious stuff.

Pavilionopinions said...

Don't rise to him, Adam!
There's tea on the deck.
You can't get all fiesty.
You sound like Glenn Beck.

Unknown said...

2005 General election
Labour Party polled 9,562,162 total votes or 35.3% of the popular vote

Result?
Blair won, Labour party rule for 5 years, and Brown stays in No 10 even now.

2010 General Election
Conservatives poll 10,683,787 total votes or 36.1% of the popular vote.

Result?
No power, indeed Campbell comes on and says they lost.

This is what Bolton was getting angry about.

I do not understand why you Iain or any of the Tories are not pushing this as something to be very, very angry about.

ITS AS IF NONE OF YOU REALLY WANT POWER

Bird said...

I watched BBC News coverage after Brown's speech and we had a succession of Labour politicians and journos to comment.
Even Nick (toenails) Robinson had to chip in with a critical remark or two, no doubt embarrassed by the bias of his employers.
Full marks to Sky and ITV (Well done Tom Bradby) for an alternative view.

DespairingLiberal said...

Adrian has it right - there is panic in News International and Boulton was nearly in tears. He probably had people from the Fox-Bunker yelling in his ear! Still, he was right to take umbrage and for a while I thought he was spot-on with calling Campbell on that very annoying thing he does of impugning motives.

Campbell's attitude in this piece is visible evidence that the NuLab apparatchiks were never going to go willingly.

It seems to me utterly inconceivable that Clegg could prop up this rump dictatorship and yet there seems to be too much distance between the LibDems and the Conservatives, at least in the minds of their memberships.

I've always thought Dave would eventually go to the Queen on a minority government basis with LibDem support only for the finance measures and it's looking increasingly like that's what's going to happen.

Unknown said...

Adam Boulton is a legend, and showed that odious little rat Campbell for the lying, spinning bully he is. I would have punched him.

golden_balls said...

Adam has just done the same to Bradshaw this guy needs a holiday.
Although Bradshaw was enjoying every moment.

Whatever your political views Journalists should be impartial. You can have your private views fair enough but Boulton has crossed the line what will sky do ?

Me said...

Well done Adam Boulton! Campbell is utter utter scum - him and Mandelson must be the most revolting, odious men ever to hold power in this country. Oh, hang on though - they're both unelected! How does that work?

nef said...

I respectfully draw the attention of some who have posted comments on your blog to the provisions of s127 Communications Act 2003 which makes it an offence to use a communications network to send messages that are inter alia grossly offensive, or of a menacing character.
The fate of  Paul Chambers, convicted of posting  a menacing joke on Twitter, attests to the vigilence with which The Authorities monitor Internet communication for our comfort and safety.
So everybody: be nice, have a nice day and mind how you go.   

Unknown said...

Why the hell did the director cut away from this argument?

Well said Adam Boulton.

Campbell, Whelan, Balls, Brown, McBride and Lord Mandy have injected more poison into our political system than anyone before them. And a significant amount of that poison was directed to their own side.

Unknown said...

I think the real issue here is what a ridiculous format Sky seemed to have developed, in which Boulton plays a kind of devil's advocate while ANOTHER Sky presenter "anchors" the debate. It means that Boulton takes an aggressively Tory line and then blows his top when he is picked up for being aggressively Tory. The exact same thing happened later in an interview with Ben Bradshaw. I'm sure Boulton might be a decent broadcaster, but this format suggests that Sky News is not fit for purpose.

wild said...

The Leftist on here really do not get it do they? The idea that Boulton might care about the political system in this country is a mystery to them. All they can comprehend is party advantage. It is just lies, and lies, and lies, justified by the end of self-serving political power.

Blackacre said...

Great fight, but Boulton as the journalist here was very unprofessional.

J, you are right about the figures - that is FPTP for you... The Tories cannot complain about that as they want to retain the system.

Georgi said...

Good to see Campbell in a tight spot. What is mind-boggling is that Brown & Co appear to be completely indifferent to the election result. Do they think the electorate is daft? They must do if they expect us to believe their spin that we collectively voted in favour of a pick and mix party deal. Rainbow alliance..? Mr Brown and indeed Mr Clegg need to realise that we are not stupid.

Graveland said...

You know a party is in its death throes when all they can muster is a tired old spin doctor who's only talent is to bend the truth through labours twisted spectrum and play on the passions of a clearly tired journalist (who has covered the election 24/7) If campbell is so mighty and gifted intellectually why doesn't he ever put his money where his mouth his and run for leader of the labour party? Or is he all too aware of the dangers of being mis represented?

Jimmy said...

"You know a party is in its death throes when all they can muster is a tired old spin doctor who's only talent is to bend the truth"

That's no way to talk about Adam Boulton