Andy Burnham on “This Week”
TheEye was out last night with fellow blogger St Crispin (who was in Gibraltar for the week throwing himself out of a Hercules) and afterwards struggled to make it home in time to live-blog Question Time and This Week. Lost house-keys didn’t help. Still, disaster was averted and the live-blog went ahead smoothly (until Billy Blofeld suggested deporting the UKs criminals to Gib – it went downhill after that).
Making it all worthwhile was the evenhandedness of Andrew Neil afterwards on “This Week”. After spectacularly ripping Diane Abbott a new one last week, all eyes were on the Bewigged One and how he would approach interviewing the second Labour leadership contender, Andy ‘Who?’ Burnham. An easy ride in comparison or a grilling?
….”so, Andy Burnham, why does your campaign have all the hallmarks of a slow-motion car crash?”….
Marvellous stuff.
Hazel Blears a person of stature? WHAT?
ok… He’s a pratt, and he’ll crash, but I’m wondering why Andrew Neill has to be such an unpleasant boor.
Andrew Neill moved to get a job, so the factory worker on £7 an hour can do it! Get real Andy, please.
700,000 job losses in the public sector is scary. It will translate into at least 1.2 million with trickle down. Life is about to get hard.
From the Gibraltar Chronicle
“Gibraltar is a perfect place to conduct this type of training. The proximity of the airfield to the sea means that we have a shorter turnaround time than anywhere in UK.”
Using Google Earth I make it 15mtrs from the Western end of the tarmac to the sea, and a dizzy 30mtrs of beach at the Eastern end. Can’t think of many places closer that that! And definitely NOT the place to land half way down the runway, travelling too fast…..
I get the impression that Andrew Neil is trying very hard to balance the constant attempts by BBC and other interviewers to attack the leadership candidates from the left. You could argue that he’s overcompensating, but when he’s the only one offering a right-flank critique we’ve got no yardstick to compare him with.
It’s harsh to use the Neil/£7 argument because as with all of these things, extremes make for bad argument. You look for the proof of success or failure in the middle ranks. There are certainly harsh times ahead and making it easier for people to move by changing council house rules, for example, can’t do any harm.
Google Earth doesn’t quite translate into the reality on the ground.
When you are landing here at RAF Gibraltar the actual distance from tarmac to the sea is a couple of inches or, if you prefer, just not long enough to remember how the Lord’s Prayer starts.
And that space at the eastern end is being turned into a sunken road to take all of the traffic in and out of Gib. Marginally less exciting than the present solution where the main road crosses the middle of the runway and the police equivalent of an armed lollipop lady prevents planes landing on cars.
The distance from land to water is indeed short, but the journey seems to take forever when you are standing on the ramp of the Herc!
The distance from land to water is indeed short, but the journey seems to take forever when you are standing on the ramp of the Herc!
But how long does the trip down seem to take?