成人快手

You with your blackberry reporting Tony's raspberry to Gordon, just because he's after the plum Job. What wth Charles C still being a bitter lemon and Milburn mullberrying whether to stick in his wooden spoon you would think this was a fresh fruit salad, but still seems a limey pickle to me.

Nick, your conduct during and after the Olmert/Blair news conference has been an embarrassment to your profession. You had an opportunity to press the leaders about their Middle East policies (an issue which has huge significance for the rest of the world), yet you wasted it with yet another tired question about the spat with Gordon Brown.

And now you have the nerve to interpret Blair鈥檚 understandably terse response as damning Brown with faint praise. Clearly it鈥檚 not just the politicians who are guilty of spin. I wonder, if Blair had delivered a glowing tribute instead, you would have made a 鈥淏rutus is an honorable man鈥� reference while mentally congratulating yourself on your literary knowledge. I bet you hacks can鈥檛 wait for next spring when you can start wheeling out the old 鈥淚des of March鈥� clich茅s.

I wish I could say this was a one-off, but sadly your performance was a perfect example of the laziness and cynicism that blights modern journalism.

It strikes me that throughout this affair, Blair and Brown have been making more noise with their silence than they have with their words...

Yes John Galpin,

They'll all be feeling like they've slipped on a banana skin when the Tories beat them at the next election or have to get the Lib Dems to form a mixed fruit government. What a bunch of gooseberrys.

Nick, before you put the word disrespectful in quotes, may I remind you that your jumping to conclusions over why Chancellor Brown was smiling after the meeting with Prime Minister Blair suggests you have a hazy grip on the meaning of the world respect. If you recall Prime Minister Blair鈥檚 Asian tour, a few years ago, you鈥檒l note that Prime Minister Koizumi stepped in to remind the press of the reason for a particular presentation and that questions that went off the agenda were disrespectful. I will suggest to you, especially given the gravity of the situation in the Middle-East, the Prime Ministers current reminder to the British press is equally correct. Please, at least, try not to put your vanity before peoples lives.

I am not a Blair/Brown supporter but for sometime I have noticed that you in particular are starting to become rather self important and more important than the news you are supposed to be reporting.

Blair left Brtain to do a task...Your questions impeded the greater good for the Middle east. You could have waited till the return.

You reported that Blair has given minimal responses... and implied that he is hiding something..

Yet the fact is that is you who seem hell bent on putting a spin on everything..

You seem to be demonstrating a cynical manipulation of the news as p[art of some sort of self aggrandisemnet.

You appear to be promoting paranoia to make the news rather than report it.

You appear reluctant to report it as it is (and as it happens) without putting your own spin on it.

I thought you were meant to be impartial.

I do not need to be patronised by you. I can read between the lines myself.

Sorry, but I think you have not behaved as an honourable journalist during this last week.The traits you seem to hint at that are in both Blair's and Brown's character seem to be a better reflection of yourself and your own needs.

You should have stayed at home to report the Labour Party leadership issues and let someone more suited to the task of International affairs report on the issues facing the Middle east.

Can you just report it as it is please.

Thank You

Another complaint above - good!

I know I've left a few messages on here, so if you don't want to approve this one that's fine by me, but don't think for one minute people are posting just in order to "Have Your Say".

It's not good enough for me that you publish the critical messages so you can say "Look how open we are about criticism". I, for one, am actually expecting an explanation and justification for your conduct direct from you.

You are Political Editor of the 成人快手. You have a very public profile and get the opportunity to have the last word and put your interpretation on events, probably even more so than the figures you interview. In that highly privileged position you also need to be brought to book when you cock up so badly and we license-fee-paying viewers deserve an explanation. That should not just be put on this blog, but broadcast for all News24 viewers who had to tolerate your abuse of position (that's what I think it is) in the first place.

There are a lot of headless chickens running round at the moment. Charles Clarke for one, who's been ridiculed by everyone, but just about everyone with a keyboard or access to a microphone. If you really want to give a voice to this hysteria, that's up to you. If you, more correctly, want to report it as the hysteria that it is, that would be better. But every blog entry and news report you put out, like you have been recently, does us all a dis-service. If TB resigned tomorrow it would still be months before any party-election too place. No-one's predicting any earlier than February anyway. Why are you going to DefCon1 in every report from now? It'll be talked about in the weather reports and sports programmes at the rate we're going.

Get a grip and some perspective. That's what I expect from the Political Editor of the 成人快手. Write your justification, broadcast it and put a link to it here. I'm still waiting.

With respect to the second comment: hear, hear! The discourse between Blair and Brown and hordes of their would-be spokespersons, has received a level of critical analysis and close examination unparalleled by any other media story. Would that the ideology underlying Blair, Bush et al's Middle Eastern policy received such rigorous critique.

One might hope that in the whole of the 成人快手, somewhere there would be some analysis of the form and determining factors of Mr Blair's intended "progress" in the Middle East. Perhaps some mention of the fact that Britain is trying to diminish the influence of the democratically elected Hamas in favour of Abbas' diminished Fatah party, or some mention of why Olmert is suddenly conceding to talk rather than conducting military operations in Palestine after his embarrassing failures in Lebanon. In an ideal world the 成人快手 and the rest of the media might in fact be conducting a searching evaluation of the economic interests, strategic alliances and covert racial tensions that have constructed our vision of the Middle East, but alas not.

Rather we get more speculative reports about who said what in the Number 10 soap opera, and a vaguely optimistic reference to the fact that people are "talking" in the Middle East. One might hope that the press might present some serious critiques of what is being said in the Middle East, but instead of critical exploration of the discourse concerning the Middle East, but instead all we get is the government's own rhetoric repeated back to us, as though issues such as the 'road map' and Bush-Blair vision of the Middle East were self-evidently correct.

Nick,
the most interesting part of your post was your technology discussion outlined in the PS.

Shut up blithering on about the PM and CoE soap opera and get on reporting what truly matters.

Or get off the 成人快手 and go and join the editorial team at the 'Daily Sport' where this kind of commentary might find more fans.

I would respectfully like to remind Mr Hardwidge (comment 5) that some of the reasons that the ME is in such disarray are down to Tony Blair and therefore questions about his future are totally relevant and it is Blair's vanity that should be called into question - don't shoot the messenger!

He announced he'd be gone within a year. We all think we know who his successor is going to be. And now he's going, it's almost as if all that personal criticism about underhand dealing and sneaky tactics has been forgotten. It's only fair to remember how long he's been in the top job, and what he's achieved while he's been there.

A splendid record, really. Well done, Michael Schumacher.

Blair's 'tour' of the Middle East is more about attemting to build a personal legacy than anything else. As he has lost power and control at home, he might as well try his hand abroad. Nick's questioning nailed this squarely, and was entirely appropriate.

Just to remind everybody:

Blair is now in the Mid East coz George Bush says he can. All the immediate decisions on Lebannon were made weeks ago.
Blair and the UK is completely irrelevant to any future solution in the area. The US decides what it wants with its Israeli client state. Anybody else doesn't matter.

Just visit the US and see the coverage of the impact what everyone's views in the rest of the world. Short answer: none

Blair uses these trips both to get positive media coverage of his supposed influence on the world, which you at the 成人快手 etc all follow without question and to stroke his personal vanity. How nice to see lines of troops welcoming you at the airport.

I agree with Mark's comments and have already complained formally about this news report and your conduct at the news conference. By comparison to the many thousands of our Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters who are dying the issues around Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are non-issues.

You did have an opportunity to question Britain's role in the middle-east and in the recent Lebanese and Israeli bombing as well as the issues around the west bank. Instead, you chose a rediculous question about whether the prime minister's feelings were hurt or whether he believed Gordon Brown. You have brought the 成人快手 into disrepute in my view.

to Mark, commenter number two. Learn some manners. If you don't like Nick's reporting go and read someone else's blog. If he hadn't asked the question about the leadership, he would have been pilloried through the entire journalistic community for playing Blair's game. Does it not strike you as odd that Blair has come to Israel this weekend? It's at least partly a ploy to play the stateman while the children bicker - so for Nick not to have asked about the leadership would have been a gross error of judgement.

Nick,
Who allowed Blair to arrive in the Middle East and take credit for a staged 'mini success' which will let him claim he brokered the agreement to talk between Israeli and Palestinian leaders???
He is hated in the Arab world and tolerated in Israel. Could Bush be letting Tony have this little face saving slop? The two sides had to talk eventually anyway.

I admit that I haven't watched the Olmert/Blair press conference, but if, as Mark says, you used it to ask a question about Brown, SHAME ON YOU! Of course the succession is important, but it has been analysed to death over the past week, and surely the thousands of innocent lives which are at stake in the Middle East are infinitely more significant than the political machinations of the Labour party.

If journalists would put the ME crisis at the top of the political agenda instead of the latest analysis of the TB/GB relationship, perhaps politicians would be able to devote more time and energy to resolving those issues and less to the minutiae of their next phrase or facial expression.

Nick
I watched your report on the 成人快手 news and I think you may have misheard the PM. I am almost certain that he did not say that He accepts "his assurance" but I accept the assurances given"
There is a world of differences between the two statements. The second implies that the assurances could have been given by someone else. If this is the case then who gave the assurances? If it is someone else, then why have Brown and Blair not directly communicated over such a potentially devastating issue for the Labour party?
If Blair and Brown have not spoken to each other since this story broke then this could suggest that Blair believes that Brown is indeed involved.
If I misheard the PM's statement I apologise, but if I am right I feel it could be very significant. This issue needs to be explored and the PM needs to be further pressed on his statement.
Regards
Liam Hayes

Well what a strange situation we are in now- what I can see from all of this most clearly is how Gordon Browns likelyhood of becoming PM by coronation and not contest is becoming slimmer and slimmer- all this is damaging to Blair but in the end Blair is going in less than a year and it is doing more damage to Brown- and all the while cabinet ministers are getting stronger and stronger

Well there is no rest for the wicked Nick- working on a Sunday and still finding time to satisfy our newslog appetites with your blackberry- you must enjoy your work!!!!!!!!

Just a word in defence of Nick.
This futile, meaningless visit to Israel is just a stunt gents. If A. Blair had serious intent on the Palestine question, he would have demonstrated some interest and balance long ago.
The jornos (not just Nick BTW), were helping Blair re-engage with reality.

As for our fruity government, it certainly smells like an over-ripe durian.

Order of events people! Hamas won a democratic election. Isreal didn't like it -nor GWB/tb combo. A war began. No one made much of an effort to stop it -read GWB/tb combo. Isreal realised its mistake and a ceasefire began.

My analysis:
Now TB is out there to try and get the democracy that he wants not what they want. You don't see the other world leaders so interested because they realise that a solution cannot be imposed. The GWB/tb combo believed that a short limited campaign would force everyone to the table and that it would have the added benefit of weakening the Hamas position. Simple I know, but the truth always is.

Who pays for this lack of reason, well; you, me, the Palestinians, the Isreali's, the list goes on and on. There are some names that are not on the list... you know who they are.

I can't be at the Olmert/Blair press conference. So I aspect you on my behalf to ask questions about the Middle East Peace efforts and what the EU/British are doing to get a solution. If not there would be no need to pay your flight/bus and blackberry. You could fax your question in next time.

Abbas is Israel's 'poodle'; perhaps Hamas his Brownites.
For Blair this is a 'Roadmap' photo opportunity also for Bush ahead of the 'Mid Terms' and any 'Iranian Initiative'.
Nick- why not try on camera to forcefully asking Blair (Q:_) (1) 'when he will meet with Hamas the democratically elected Goverment of Palestine and (2) what he believes will provide for an equitable solution, which may be more interesting... & will the answer to(1) be "When Lord Levy tells me ..." & (2) "silly question"
A further question might be: what happens if Israel doesn't offer a clean, equitable (split) 'Two-State' agreement because its behaviour (settlements on the West Bank etc)suggests it has no intention to do so.

Britain will be sorry when Blair is gone.

I think Blair's remarks re. Brown are of much more significance than his role in Middle East and other foreign affairs.
Since his futile efforts to get UN and EU support for the Iraq invasion and his spate of African and Climatic publicity hunts, noone is interested in his ego trips any more, but clues to his real departure are eagerly awaited.

Nick, you seem to me to be nothing more than a Brownite seeking to score points over Blair wherever your miserable job takes you.

Nick, You're a sad character. What's happening in the Middle East is a million times more important than the media-inflated shenanigans going on re 10 Downing Street's future incumbent. Why didn't you press the PM about showing a little more solidarity with the Palestinians, rather than following Bush and favouring the Israelis blindly? By contrast, Blair conducted himself with dignity. Remember, you are there to represent the 成人快手 and the people of Britain, not run with the media pack and mouth their platitudes.

When Nick Robinson is sent to the Middle East to report on what Tony Blair hopes to contribute to solving the problems there, one might hope that he would address that question. He can always write about Blair-Brown politics from his office in London. Unless of course Mr Blair's visit is more about UK politics than helping solve the problems of the region.

I agree that an opportunity was missed to put Blair on the spot over his disgraceful foreign policy - and yes, foreign policy is of relevance and interest to people at home when it is their sons and daughters who are facing the bullets.

Come on Nick, you can do better than this! I agree with Mark (Post No. 2)-couldn't you have been a little tougher on Blair and questioned his disasterous Middle East policies?

Nobody believes for one minute that Olmert and Abbas agreed to meet because of Tony Blair's political acumen and negotiations. Mr Blair's team manipulated the timing of the visit in order to create a good PR opportunity by announcing the meeting. Nice try Tony - now go home and put your own house in order, either by sorting out the damage you and your party have inflicted on the UK or, more preferably, by packing your bags and leaving 10 Downing Street.

Hear, hear Mark,

Your questioning is frankly self indulgent. There are far more pressing questions regarding a truely tragic situation in the Middle East. As I see it there are 50 stars on the Stars and Stripes, Israel is effectively the 51st (very dangerous as it should be part of the Middle East not the US). Worse still Blair has now made the UK the 52nd Star. In that case he is no more important to a Middle East solution than is the governor of Arkansas. He has trivialised the UK on the World stage. The only reason he is there is, presumably, to save Condi Rice's airmiles.

Blair isn't in the Middle East for anything but himself. He has no credibility with one half of the warring factions. He had to wait his turn to go as Bush instructed him to and the only reason he is there is to try and portray himself as a statesman. He refused to call for a ceasefire not because he didn't want to "grandstand" but because he fell in line with the US/Isreali view that they would be able to eliminate Hezbollah in a month and then have a ceasefire from a position of strength. I think it was valid to ask him about developments in the domestic situation as just because he's abroad doesn't mean he can leave domestic issues at home (if it did we'd never see him back in the country). As for Blair visiting the families of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers. When have we seen him visit the families our own forces who have been beset by tragedy?

Contrary to the views expressed by some here, I think questioning a serving PM on important domestic issues is valid anywhere at any time. Tony Blair has, since he stepped into office, spent far too much of his time wandering the globe instead of attending to the vital issues here at home which need his urgent attention, matters for which he was elected (and is paid) by the people of the UK. A great part of his problem has been his delusion that he is a great international statesman who can single-handedly solve the world's problems,(he can't even solve the many we have here at home) and if he could avoid the legitimate probing questions on awkward subjects simply by stepping on a 'plane, then he would be even less accountable to the British electorate than he already feels that he is. Keep up the good work, Nick!

Supposedly, one of the reasons the 2001 contingent wrote their letter was because they were concerned about Blair's response to the Israel/Lebanon/Palestine crises (and the effect it would have on their seats). Brown is also supposed to have been partly responsible for the 2001 contingent's actions. That's where the link between Blair, Brown, Palestine, Lebanon, and Israel comes from.

So whilst Nick's question may have appeared 'disrepectful' it was salient. Not only that it asked for an immediate and, hopefully, unprepared response to Brown's statement, Blair's unwillingness to answer 'that' question pretty much leads the audience to infer a great deal.

Blair's relationship with the rest of his government may not be of great importance internationally, it is important domestically. Blair's primary responsibility is to the British public - his government and party are split over him and while he's away the cats have plenty of room to play.

In my opinion any question that causes any member of the current government to be honest to the public is a good thing.

So if blair is not going to comment on home affairs ,while hes on his photo opp missions abroad , does that mean that his return ticket doesn't expire until May 2007 ? (his "glorious decade")
So much time to fill , needs an itinerary ....

Calling all despots ,
........ do you have a minor itching political problem , that you cannot shake .?....
..In need of a world media hug-fest to boost ones public image ....?

who yah gonna call ? .

.."BLAIR ROADSHOW"...!

Also avaialble for "charity work" bar mitzvahs , afterdinner speeches and building openings , fee subject to availability and mortgage repayments ...

I see thet the new labour spin machine has rolled out its tame letter writers again, anti-beeb pro TB rhetoric, like the prepared questions at pmqs the letters criticising Nick are all too predictable, apparently it's all done with computers! TB is irrelevant in the Mideast, showboating demeans the role of British PM but TB needs the oxygen of publicity to keep Murdoch happy. It's not Nick R who should be ashamed, TB is a showman not a statesman, Nick R is a reporter for the 成人快手 not for a Murdoch toilet roll.

Out of interest - to whom do we write to lodge a formal complaint about all the people jumping to do Alistair Campbell's old job for Blair?

If Blair had been asked about the ME (again) you'd have got the 'only viable solution' / 'proud of doing the right thing' / 'thousands more would have died if the ceasefire had come sooner' schtick all over again. You'll find the official line all over this site and the rest of the 成人快手's FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS' coverage.

As it was, the 'offending' question got a new answer to a running political story from the POLITICAL correspondent.

It comes to something when your *readers'* vanity becomes the story!

Look at these posts now bashing Nick Robinson for daring to criticise Maggie,sorry, TB.
And please nobody take offence and assume regarding my name. It IS my first name.
I find it remarkable that credence is actually being placed upon Blairs middle east visit when really its an excuse for him to bugger off whilst the labour party has torn itself apart.

Now tony is back and is being shredded by the "brothers" in Brighton:-)) [where i live] - bet he shoots off to the USA or india pretty soon in preparation for the probable "october surprise" later this year.

Mr. Gordon Brown is in high spirits these days. With the changing fortunes of the Prime-minister and simultaneously rising popularity of Brown, he is increasingly seeing himself as the next man in 10, Downing Street. His acts and his behaviour and the way he is interacting with the press leaves noone in doubt about what is presently going into his mind.
But, onething, Mr. Brown shall not forget is that he is only a Prime-minister hopeful and is not an occupant as yet. As we all know, politics is an uncertain game, much uncertain than cricket. No one can say with conviction what is going to happen tomorrow, let alone a month later.
Hence, the best thing for Mr. Brown is to patiently wait and watch and go on praying in his heart that let the chair be his.
Amitabh Thakur,
Lucknow,
India