The Skimmer

Ed Howker's weekend post about life in Rochdale – and The Spectator's study of welfare ghettos – has made the news today. There's a powerful spread in The Sun, with full and due attribution to the source. But the Daily Mail also ran the figures, incorrectly attributing them to the DWP. (We expressed DWP dole figures as a share of ONS population estimates. The resulting ratio only we produced.) We at The Spectator have no doubt that the Daily Mail reporter did actually visit Rochdale. It's just that her material looks as if it could have been copied from Ed's Coffee House post. Here are some coincidental overlaps: Coffee House source: "Everyone wants 'the sickness' [incapacity benefit]. Then you've really made it. You don't have to turn up for work or sign on.

Channel 4, the so-called public-service station that brings you Big Brother and other culturally uplifting events, has really scrapped the barrel. It has a record of bringing controversial alternatives to the screen to match the Queen's annual Christmas message on the BBC and ITV but this year it has taken leave of its senses.   On the day Christians commemorate as the birth of their Saviour -- a Jew called Jesus -- Channel 4 has chosen to broadcast an "alternative" Christmas message from an anti-Semite who thinks Israel and the Jews should be swept into the sea and who sponsors conferences designed to "prove" the Holocaust is a Jewish myth.   Yes, though it beggars belief, Channel 4 asked Iran's President Ahmadinejad to give this year's alternative Christmas message.

Is the Beeb's reputation in tatters after Manuelgate?  Sure looks like it, if Politics Home's latest PHI5000 Index is anything to go by.  I quote from their findings: The PoliticsHome Phi5000 Public Opinion Tracker, powered by YouGov, consists of a politically balanced panel of 5000 voters across the UK who are asked their opinion on a range of issues every working day. For over six months, PoliticsHome has tracked public perception of a variety of institutions on a daily basis. Since records began, the BBC has been the country's best loved institution, with an average net approval rating of 30. The BBC’s approval rating, however, has plummeted this week as the Ross/Brand affair has dominated the media.  In just four days, it has fallen a huge 24 points to only 6..

And so the sordid BrandRossgate (or should that be Manuelgate?) row steams on. The latest developments are the 12-week suspension of Jonathan Ross without pay and the resignation of the Radio 2 controller, Lesley Douglas, ending her 20 year career at the Beeb.  As rolling heads go, Douglas's is quite a significant one. But every resignation that isn't Ross's just focuses more and more attention on his continued employment. Despite his suspension, people will ask - and quite reasonably - why others are taking the fall for the brash talk show host. As always, it probably comes down to cash. Ross is the most expensive talent the BBC has, and one wonders whether he's too expensive to get rid of. Whoever arranged his exorbitant pay deal should be another candidate for the chop.

Do folks at The Guardian not speak to each other? We've always known the place had a pretty poisonous atmosphere, but don't they ever compare notes? This morning, left-wing harpie columnist Jackie Ashley writes this:  "Cameron has simply ditched his green agenda. On green taxes, persuading people to turn from cars and cheap air travel and even on issues like airport expansion and nuclear power, they have gone silent.

So Ofcom has fined the BBC £400,000 for multiple fiddles of its various fake phone-in competitions. That would make sense if Director-General Mark Thompson and his bloated boss class at the Beeb had to pay the fine from their over-paid salaries. Or if Ofcom had instructed them to hand over the incredible and unjustified bonuses they've just paid themselves (which would come to a lot more than £400,000). Or if those directly responsible for the malpractices were forced to cough up from their own pockets. But none of that is going to happen. Instead, it's the poor bloody licence-payer who'll have to stump up. But hold on! Wasn't it the licence-payer who was on the receiving end of all the BBC's sleights of hand in the first place? Surely it was the viewers who were cheated.