Margaret Hodge gets caught

I listened to the most ludicrous piece of spin from Margaret Hodge (Employment and Welfare Reform Minister) on 5 Live Drive this evening.  In the space of just a few minutes she went on to say that 1 million people could come off of incapacity benefit, that there was nobody receiving it that shouldn’t be and that the only reason it was there in the first place was so the Conservatives could massage the unemployment figures (8 years ago!!).

Quite correctly, Peter Allen challenged this blatant piece of hypocrisy and the over-rated Minister completely failed to climb out of the hole into which she had spun herself.  She was rewarded with a snort of incredulity from said presenter.  You could argue that an interviewer shouldn’t be reacting like Peter Allen did.  But to be honest, there are occasions when natural reaction takes over – and who can blame anyone when they are presented with such a ludicrous position, (especially Peter Allen whose friendly but cynical nature seems to feed off such stupidity).

A link to 5 Live Drive’s show today is here (available for 1 week only).  To listen to Margaret Hodge’s entry to the Eurovision Spin Contest, go to about 1hr 14minutes into the programme.