Trafigura Newsnight film that Carter Ruck has tried to ban

When Ian Dale asks you to do something, you do it, don't you? If you give a "Carter Ruck" you do!

"Brown outflanks Merkel and Sarkozy" - oh! and Cameron too!

Why does the BBC keep saying that "it is an undoubted coup" for Gordon Brown to be visiting President Obama on 3rd March? Are they just following the spin put out by No 10 to try to relaunch Brown's fading electoral chances?

Apart from the fact that the BBC fails to mention that Obama has already visited Canada and is due to host a visit from the Japanese PM on Tuesday, it is the use of such fawning language that most offends me. "Undoubted coup", my a*se! All they had to say is that Brown is due to visit Obama to discuss the agenda for the forthcoming meeting of the G20. Instead of that, we had Lance Price, an ex-Labour spin-doctor telling us at length that this visit will show Brown is a world statesman, unlike David Cameron who has no ideas and would do nothing.

The coverage of the announcement that Lord Ashcroft's donations are to be investigated by the Electoral Commission was treated in a similarly biased fashion, although I should say that John Mann, the MP who originally made the complaint, was asked if he was motivated by Ashcroft's effectiveness in raising Conservative support in marginal constituencies. His response was along the lines of "Ashcroft is a tax dodger" and "it's unfair"! Ah, diddums!

Why I couldn't work for the BBC

Good for Carol Thatcher! She's refused to apologise for making an allegedly racist remark according to a report by the Press Association.

What was her offence? Apparently she called a tennis player a "golliwog". Shock! Horror! The sensibilities of a few BBC-types on the The One Show have been offended and now she has been banned from working on the programme. Oh, well, it's their loss.

When I was in New Zealand last year, we bought a black-faced rag doll called, guess what? Yes, it was a golliwog!

Is the BBC an organ of Brown's state?

Just seen Newsnight interview of Alan Duncan by Emily Matis (she really is rubbish) where she tried to suggest Phil Hammond was disagreeing with Osborne.

But the article on the BBC website was less equivocal: in fact, if you read it, Hammond is saying exactly what Osborne has said. We must not make unfunded spending or tax cut promises.

Of course, Stephanie ("I don't need a tax break") Flanders on Newsnight was trying to find chinks in Osborne's figures but not very convincingly. If she isn't actually part of Labour's spin machine she should be.

So far, the BBC is in its usual form. All is well in the Brown kingdom and when he pulls out all the troops from Iraq next week because many fewer people are being blown up then his coronation will follow very shortly.

How low can low politics go? Watch the BBC!