Credit where it’s due

Hats off to Ed Vaizey and his colleagues for their notable triumph in media management… It was potentially such a juicy story: Margaret Hodge, still flushed with success from her attacks on tax evasion by major media corporates, was about to sink her teeth into both the government (DCMS) and BT for ‘ripping off Britain’.  Her conclusion as Chair of the PAC and its investigation into the BDUK fiasco had been scathing: 

“The programme to extend superfast broadband to rural areas has been mismanaged by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The sole provider BT has been placed in a quasi-monopolistic position which it is exploiting by restricting access to cost and roll-out information. The consumer is failing to get the benefits of healthy competition and BT will end up owning assets created from £1.2 billion of public money” 

The story did not receive universal coverage; The Times, for example, restricted it to a small paragraph on page 4. But the BBC decided to bill it as a major news item and lined up Ms Hodge against Ed Vaizey for the headline 'Today' interview on Radio 4 with John Humphrys at 8.10.  Hodge duly launched her rehearsed attacks on BT and government, and the scene was set for a ritual execution.  But the response strategy by Vaizey (and BT), a nice mixture of blunt denial and data obfuscation, was perfectly judged to kill the story stone dead.  Humphrys floundered.  The DCMS minister was therefore able to rebuff this and later BBC questioning with his head held high: 

“Well, we don’t agree with the report at all.  We think the broadband programme is fantastic; it’s very good value for money and it’s going to deliver broadband to millions of people living in rural areas who wouldn’t otherwise t get it” 

Give that man a coconut.