UK News
Insights from the UK and beyond
What is Alistair Darling up to?
Normally regarded as a safe pair of hands, Chancellor Alistair Darling raised hell on Tuesday night by confirming on live television what everyone in Westminster has believed for some time.
That was that there were people who worked for the prime minister who briefed against him after he told a magazine interviewer in 2008 that the country was facing the worst economic conditions in 60 years.
“The forces of hell were unleashed,” Darling said on Tuesday, referring to the media operation against him from both Number 10 and the opposition Conservatives.
Brown was forced out early on to the airwaves Wednesday morning to say that he had never instructed anyone to brief against the Chancellor.
Will you miss Teletext?
It will be the end of an era. Associated Newspapers has announced that it will shut the analogue Teletext TV service in January next year.
The shutdown was expected to take place in 2012 and the company has also said that it will even close several of its Freeview digital services. The service has been badly hit by a fall in audiences and revenue brought on by the economic downturn.
Unchristian comments about BBC’s new head of religion?
The BBC is coming in for flak about its religious coverage, much of it centring on its incoming head of religious broadcasting.
The publicly funded broadcaster has appointed Aaqil Ahmed from Channel 4, a move that has dismayed a Church of England member who is proposing to discuss the matter at the church’s General Synod, the church’s parliament.
Do you object to your money going to private broadcasters?
It has been suggested that the BBC could be forced to give up some of its income from the licence fee to help fund regional news on commercial broadcasters such as ITV which are struggling during the downturn.
The suggestion was included in a government-backed report called Digital Britain which is aimed at helping those broadcasters such as ITV which have been hit by the fall in advertising.
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The Wall
