Rob, Rambling - A lot of things interest me...

I’m just watching last night’s Daily Show, and yet again I’m in awe of the way this programme tears apart the hypocrisies present in the media nowadays.

Jon Stewart destroys Fox News’ midday host Megyn Kelly and her one-sided portrayal of what is supposedly “fair and balanced” news. It was stunning how unfairly the “news” is actually broadcast. Is it really “fair and balanced” to only pick four random members of the public who all (coincidentally!) were against the healthcare bill?

Is it fuck.

There’s a great little montage of talking heads who all use the phrase “cram down the throats” of the American public, in terms of the healthcare bill, and then Stewart just rips apart Fox’s reliance on polls which support its position, whilst handily ignoring those that disagree.

Kelly is particularly in favour, it seems, of quoting poll numbers at those who disagree with her/Fox News. Well, until the final clip, which shows her in October 2008, discussing the latest polls which put Obama well ahead of McCain. Her opinion? To paraphrase, “we shouldn’t trust polls and pollsters anyway.”

The hypocrisy is just mind-blowing, and I don’t see how anyone can not notice it.

Now, there’s nothing I love more than some absolutely rank hypocrisy from those who we elect to govern us. One of the news stories that caught my eye today involved Birmingham City Council making 2,000 workers redundant in an effort to balance the books.

This is despite saying in October last year that only 800 jobs would be lost, and that these would be through natural wastage, not redundancies. Of course, the latest news is that voluntary redundancies will be a big part of the 2,000 jobs to go.

It got me thinking about whether those at the top of Birmingham council are planning to undergo similar financial hardships this year, as a sign of solidarity with their underlings.

A little investigation later, and it turns out that council leader Mike Whitby and his fellow councillors aren’t exactly in step with their comrades.

Last June, Whitby and three other senior councillors awarded themselves an extra £15,000 for attending a few more meetings each year. Previously, attendance at these meetings came with no extra salary.

A mere two weeks ago, Whitby joined the board of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, which I’m pretty certain isn’t an unpaid role.

I hate to link to the Taxpayers’ Alliance, despite their well-placed apostrophe, but in June they looked at Chief Executive Stephen Hughes’ pay packet: a whopping £200,000+ per year. This is as a result of an 18.2% pay rise over two years, way, way above the inflation rate. Not exactly a minuscule salary, is it?

To cap it all, the council’s auditors have refused to sign off on the 2008/9 accounts, citing a number of shortfalls in the budget. Most notably, the council claims that their property assets amount to £6.6 billion, whereas the auditors value them at £5.5 billion.

This has lead to a “black hole” in the council’s finances of around £60 million, resulting in the job cuts.

There’s been no statement from either of these senior councillors that they will take any pay cuts or forgo bonuses because of the perilous state of Birmingham’s finances. No doubt they’ll quietly award themselves various bonuses for meeting targets…

The girlfriend’s interviewing William Hague (Shadow Foreign Secretary and ex-leader of the Tory party) this evening, and is struggling to come up with any questions for him. Ideally, they’ll be related to the area of South London which she covers, but I’ve also pointed her in the direction of David Cameron’s promise/unpromise of a referendum on the EU Lisbon Treaty.

Other subjects include knife crime (it’s a bad part of London), and more general immigration issues. I can’t really think of much else, and it’s only a 15-minute interview anyway, to be honest.

Any other ideas?