The Conservative Chancellor Phillip Hammond catapulted himself head-first into a car-crash interview this morning on the BBC’s Today program. The Tory Chancellor got key spending figures mixed up and also somehow managed to understate the cost of the HS2 rail project by a whopping £20billion.
However, unlike when Labour’s Home Secretary Diane Abbott had a similar brain melt a few weeks ago over spending figures regarding Labour’s manifesto pledge to put 10,000 extra police officers on our streets, the BBC and the majority of the mainstream media (apart from The Mirror) have, for some reason, decided to completely ignore this colossal mistake from the Tory Chancellor Hammond.
Abbott’s mistake, which came after an entire morning of interviews on a policy that had already been fully costed, was jumped upon by a savage and frenzied mainstream media. The BBC led the charge in a desperate bid to portray Labour as being incompetent on public spending.
However, when the Tories make an even bigger mistake regarding public spending though, well, you know how the story goes by now. The BBC, along with the rest of the Tory press, have decided it’s simply not newsworthy.
Following the gaffe, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell challenged Hammond to a one on one live TV debate. Hammond has yet to accept the challenge (much like his fearless leader Theresa May refuses to debate Corbyn).
McDonnell also claimed that Hammond has fallen out with Theresa May over the gaffe and said that he will “not be around long anyway”.
McDonnell further bashed Hammond, saying:
He’s talking rubbish about our manifesto and our costings.
And:
If he’s confident about his figures he should come and debate them with me
After his initial mistake on the cost of HS2, Hammond then also mistakenly claimed that Labour had a £58billion hole in their costings – a conclusion he reached because he’s unable to separate current spending and capital spending (a common and recurring theme of Hammondomics.)
The Twittersphere exploded over Hammond’s cock-up — with many users noting the mainstream media’s very obvious choice to conveniently ignore the gaffe.
Diane Abbott messes up her figures – mocked everywhere
Chancellor Philip Hammond messes up his figures – move along, nothing to see here!— #JohnnyBhoy (@mrjohnnymac18) May 17, 2017
Diane Abbott gets figures wrong by a few million and all hell breaks loose.
Philip Hammond gets his figures wrong by £20bn … tumbleweeds.
— Jeromy Corbyn (@JeromyCorbyn) May 17, 2017
I don't see media outrage about CHANCELLOR Hammond not knowing the cost of HS2. But you can still read all about Abbott fluffing her lines.
— Rachael Swindon (@Rachael_Swindon) May 17, 2017
https://twitter.com/MattTurner4L/status/864868104505053189
Once again, the mainstream media, and in particular our supposedly impartial BBC, have demonstrated just how biased they are against Labour.
Once again Phillip Hammond has shown just how incompetent he actually is.
And once again the Tories are refusing to debate Labour and running away from a challenge.
May, does, indeed, appear to be slightly irked with Hammond’s gaffe. When asked whether Hammond would, indeed, be staying on at Number 11 she refused (as usual) to give an answer.
May said:
We are focused on June the 8th.
And:
We’ve worked together over the years for many years, longer than we could care to identify. That’s an age-related comment, nothing else, just in case you try and relate anything into that.
A sparkling endorsement of her colleague, I’m sure we can all agree.
Whether it be George Osborne messing up the economy or Phillip Hammond, it doesn’t make any difference. So long as the Tories are in charge you can guarantee the only people they will help are the already wealthy.
