Small, clever country

At the end of last week the Assembly Government spin-machine was in action, reporting the First Minister's visit to a small, clever country (they mean Wales. Ed.). Perhaps he ought to visit the offices of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales to discuss the deficit in public funding of universities in Wales.

According to HEFCW, compared with England (a large, clever country) the deficit rose from £40million in 2005 to £61million in 2006. It is predicted to rise to £70million for 2007.

How to report the credit crunch...

Some light relief during the Assembly's recess about impending financial catastrophe:

A template for writing a TV news story about the credit crunch

1) “Huge falls in share indexes have left investors and traders in New York/London/Europe/Asia reeling...”

2) “...at one point in the day prices/shares in oil/gas/banks were as low/high as X pounds/dollars/euros...”

3) “...the Bank of England/Federal Reserve/European Central Bank has…”
i) “stepped in to inject X billion pounds/dollars/euros...”
ii) “assured everyone that this is normal” or
iii) “Cut interest rates by half/quarter/one percentage point”

4) “...but how much will this actually affect you?”

5) Enter analyst or business editor: “We don’t really know what the long term effect will be. You’ll definitely be paying more for food/heating/mortgages from now on though…”