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Sunday 30 October 2016

Carole Malone Nissan Moan Busted

Once again, the nominally Labour-supporting Mirror titles are having a dig at the current party leadership, perhaps because they would rather have a different Labour leader. But they are not in the position to tell the party who should lead it, Jeremy Corbyn has now won two leadership elections, and they are out of this particular loop. So there is only one thing left - get their pundits to whine about Jezza instead.
Carole Malone

And today’s low moaning sound emanating from the pages of the Sunday Mirror comes to us courtesy of the paper’s resident Glenda, Carole Malone, who tells readersJeremy Corbyn should jump for joy at news Nissan will keep jobs in Sunderland”, going on to say “When I heard that Nissan was staying in the North East I did a little jig in our living room. Because it doesn’t just mean 7,000 people will keep their jobs. It means the families of those 7,000 men and women can celebrate Christmas knowing their lives are not over”.

But then she turns on Jezza: “it makes my blood boil to see Jeremy Corbyn and his sidekick John McDonnell ignoring all that and bellyaching instead about what kind of deal the ­Government has given Nissan to stay … Instead of being interested in the thousands of saved jobs, Labour’s leader seems fixated on scoring political points and demanding details of any deal he THINKS might have been done - even though Nissan is flatly denying there is one”. Nissan is flatly denying nothing. But do go on.

If those 7,000 people had been thrown on the dole, along with thousands of supply workers, then it’s public money that would have been used to support them and their families on benefits for decades … Would Corbyn have preferred that?” There is more.

And if, as he says, other car makers here will want the same ‘assurances’ Nissan has had (the rumours are the Government has agreed to pay any increased tariffs levied on Nissan as a result of Brexit ) then why the hell not? Surely it’s better for us to invest in keeping car companies here than letting them go elsewhere and condemning thousands of people to life on handouts?” We appear to have a research fail here (again).

Consider this line from the Guardian’s report on Corbyn’s response: “Corbyn said he was pleased there would be continued investment in Sunderland”. One wonders what part of that Carole Malone does not understand. One also has to wonder why she is unable to see that the “reassurances” may either go against EU and WTO rules on subsidies, or hem the Government in when it gets down to post-Article 50 negotiations.

Carole Malone may find such detail inconvenient, but it is as much an influence on the future of the workers she claims to champion as the Nissan deal itself. Unquestioningly saying “Yeah, why shouldn’t they have some kind of special treatment and just shut up asking silly questions” might sound good when there is no-one else in the room, but this kind of thing matters. The competence of the Government matters.

That is why we have a Parliamentary opposition - to ask those questions. If those questions were not asked, and the whole deal fouled up somewhere down the line, Carole Malone would be screaming blue murder about it. The least she could do now is to engage brain before opening mouth. Not that we expect such things from her.

5 comments:

AndyC said...

So we are now having to pay god knows how much in bribes to keep companies here that wouldnt be thinking of leaving were it not for the asinine Leave vote.

Seymour Berxitosis said...

"... nominally Labour-supporting Mirror titles".
These days, with newspapers more heavily reliant on advertisers than ever before, it is hardly surprising to see little criticism of the Tories their funders.

ashie said...

Carole Malone seems all over the place when you see her on TV. She doesn't seem able to keep a thought in her head for longer than a few minutes. I think she would like to be a left(ish) Sarah Vine or one of those other women who opine for the Mail. But she's so scatty she comes across like an older Louise Mensch.

Fishman Dave said...

Many voted to leave because they didn't want to be dictated to by unelected EU officials. How much better it is to have HMG dictated to by unelected Asian businessmen.

And there'll be more, much much more, to come

rob said...

Cannot see that the tabloids with their eye on falling sales and worries about advertising revenus are in any way relying on actual facts getting in the way of their "opinion" pieces. After all Toby Young pontificates with even less regard to the truth and he gets a plum Government job for god's (whichever one turns you on) sake.

Who wants to buy a newsapaer when you can pick the bits you want off a website? They will become irrelevant even more so especially if and when the media companies like Sky and the BBC realise that and don't give them the credibilty they don't deserve.