Nought out of ten for the News at Ten

Amazingly bad news judgement by the BBC1 News at Ten last night when it devoted only 10 seconds — and a mere voiceover at that — to the latest development in the shambles that is Peter Hain’s funding arrangements (aka Labour’s dodgy donations — the sideshow). I’m inclined to believe this was cock up rather than the usual BBC leftie bias, though it would be interesting to know on what basis they downgraded the story to near oblivion. Newscaster Huw Edwards, who likes robust journalism, must have been furious. BBC2’s Newsnight showed far better judgement by going to town with it as the lead story and at last giving proper coverage to the crisis surrounding Labour’s Scottish Leader, Wendy Alexander, who’s job as they say north of the border is now “hingin by a shoogly peg” (ask F. Nelson for a translation). But Newsnight is watched by less than a million, the News by almost 6m.