Not Malcolm’s best blogging week, obviously.
But, as he’s said before: it’s the little things.
Quite frankly, the story of the week so far — The Sun frothing over Brown’s hand-written note, is just setting the limbo bar for low politics. Until the next one. And — be assured — this one’s only a practice go. Oh, yes, they can go lower.
And then there’s this, on “Lord” Ashcroft’s politicshome:
Was Mandelson right to fight back against the Sun?
There tends to be a view among MPs, journalists and other political insiders that Mandelson’s strategy of taking on the Sun is an effective move
Note: nothing about the morality, merely an assessment of whether or not a political point was scored.
Even that is not the nub of the matter, as far as Malcolm is concerned. This is:
Large majorities of left-leaning and Liberal Democrat panellists back Mandelson’s aggressive approach. Right-leaning panellists are narrowly opposed, while non-aligned panellists (who include many leading media figures) are split exactly).
Malcolm read that at least twice. Either way it seemed to de-code into the same depressing thought: media-professionals reckon that the need for getting even is a higher priority for the Murdoch outlets than any regard for issues on their merits.
