Led a little astray
Having been led a little astray by a quote in Hansard is a useful reminder to me that the official record of House of Commons business is not a verbatim record of what MPs actually say.
MPs and their staff are able to inspect the words which the Parliamentary transcribers faithfully record and then to suggest "improvements". It is the job of Hansard editors to clarify the meaning of what an honourable member said whilst ensuring that no changes to the meaning are allowed to slip through.
A colleague reminded me of an old verse that captured the spirit of Hansard well:
And so while the great ones depart to their dinner,
The secretary stays, growing thinner and thinner
Racking his brain to record and report
What he thinks that they think that they ought to have thought.
It's been claimed (though never to my knowledge verified) that before being accepted as a Hansard scribe, applicants used to be forced to listen to one of John Prescott's speeches and to write down what they think he was trying to say.
Clearly, in the case of Alistair Darling's quote, the Hansard scribe thought that the chancellor was agreeing with a backbencher attacking nationalisation and no-one in Darling's office objected. Perhaps because that was the impression he wanted to convey, albeit not what he actually said.
The online revolution may protect us in future since the uncleaned up version is now published on the day of debates on the before being replaced by the cleaned up official version the following morning.
I'm 
Comments
Nick
I'm going to be pedantic. Your little poem was written on Cabinet minutes by Lord Hankey, when he was Cabinet Sec and isn't actually about Hansard - though I agree is does reflect the ethos.
I listened to your interview with John Humphreys today. It sounded to be a carefully scripted dialogue to point out the error in Mr Humphrey's interview yesterday, without actually admitting that anybody got anything wrong. Your blog today reads similarly. The Today programme would more quickly regain its integrity through a plain admission and an apology.
Perhaps he reviewed his position after a period of consultation with the chancellor. er I mean PM.
Nick,
My concern is that there appears to be an attack dog mentality by the media, simply following the narrative of the opposition party rather than doing their own research.
Any objective analysis of the Shadow Chancellors speech would have unravelled the danger of doing that.
Flip-flopping describes his performance, at best.
As for Darling's office not correcting the 'impression'. The facts speak for themselves, he didn't need spin!
You have managed quite a feat - something has happened that has lifted Mr Darling in my estimation. Just a little, but it makes a change.
Hansard often makes changes - it takes out swearwords, fixes mis-speaking, changes things into parliamentary language where needed (like adding "Honorable Member") and even fixes facts if the Member misquotes a statistic.
Nick
Whether Darling agreed with the quote or not, the quote is probably quite accurate.
A bit like going to a meeting where the minutes are taken. Then when the official minutes come out you find you have apparently agreed to something that was never mentioned. All because the proposer didn't make clear what they meant and having looked at what was recorded, decided they made a mistake and wrote down what they really wanted.
Actual - proposer "We want a rise of 2.6%" everyone agrees.
This is recorded.
Written and adjusted record - proposer "We want a rise of 26%" everyone agrees.
This becomes the future reference for how they got a massive pay rise when everyone who listened to the debate heard them agree to a small pay rise.
Ultimately means you can say what you like on the floor because you can go and tidy up the official record later so that it states what you really wanted to say, and then deny all knowledge of what you actually stated in public.
Who needs spin when you write the official version yourself?
The core of what you're saying is that you correctly quoted an authoritative source, only to discover via your own means that such authoritative source was not entirely correct. Any remotely sane and unbiased person would hardly present that as a reason for you to be criticised or expect you to fall to your knees begging forgiveness! Quite the opposite, you should be congratulated for being open and honest. The fact is that at no point has the official Hansard record - ie the record you originally and quite correctly qouted from - been labelled as being incorrect by the Government, thereby confirming that it was correct in its meaning.
"Hansard got it wrong, and so did we - a bit". (R4 Today)
Personally I think it's unfair to blame Hansard, as even in the "corrected" transcript it seems perfectly clear to me that Darling was agreeing re the LibDems but carefully leaving the nationalisation option open.
But at least that was an admission of fault from you, even if it was grudging and even if your apology was kept to the blog rather than the radio. No apology at all from Humphreys, who was the one who was so rude to the Chancellor, needless to say.
Or we could move on to having audio video of the whole day in parliament available on a website? Then you are back at the basics, with all the analysis to be done by the reader/viewer. It sounds different depending where you hear it from, and History (Hansard), of course, is the version of the winning side.
Hansard is the official record - end of.
Allowing MP's to later decide whether what they actually said, or what hansard reported that they said is the correct interpretation is to give them even more duplicitious wiggle room than they already enjoy at the publics expense.
An batsman in a cricket match challenged an umpire for an LBW decision saying "that was never LBW"; the umpires response was "well if you doubt it, check the match report tomorrow - I think you will find that it was..."
I believe it was Yes Minister which once used a phrase which went something like:
"Minutes of meetings should reflect what those present would, on reflection, like to be remembered as having said."
Obviously Hansard tries to work on the same principle!
I suppose it's too much to expect an apology from John Humphreys isn't it?
He should say sorry, particularly as he wasted so much of his interview arguing with Darling about it.
The bbc going on all-out attack against the government based on a dodgy source? Again? Surely not?
I'm concerned, Nick - like a lot of other people, I'm sure, I was under the impression that Hansard recorded the goings-on in Parliament verbatim.
Now we discover its more a case of 'not for the minutes'....
Hansard should be replaced with video recordings of debates, indexed by speaker and debate and fully searchable for phrases and topics, available to all on the web. This is easily achievable with today's technology. The written word rarely convey's the tone and context of quotes anyway.
"It's been claimed (though never to my knowledge verified) that before being accepted as a Hansard scribe, applicants used to be forced to listen to one of John Prescott's speeches and to write down what they think he was trying to say."
An observation first made by Jeremy Paxman in "The Political Animal" in 2003, and you know it! Come on, Nick, credit where it's due.
Nick
Like others, I was misled by the Hansard version and would agree that, on the basis of the taped record, Darling did not indicate his specific agreement with the what Cousins said on the consequences of nationalisation. However, he certainly did not indicate his disagreement.
Given that the Cousins view of the consequences of nationalisation was so negative and so strongly stated and that nationalisation was an option being actively considered by Darling, surely he should have told Cousins that he disagreed with his analysis ?
By failing to do so, some might think that effectively he did agree, on the basis that 'silence gives consent".
At the very least, he ran an obvious risk of the giving the impression that he did agree. It may be, of course, that this was not so much a risk as the intention.
You seem to be getting a fair bit of flak today, Nick. I never realised that Alistair Darling was so popular!
(By which I mean, of course, that you ought to think that I mean that I think he, of course, isn't! Do I make myself clear?)
I think the myth of potential recruits having to transcribe John Prescott is justa myth.
On a Radio 4 programme on Hansard a few years ago one of the Hansard editors said that John Prescott was by no means the worst person they had to transcribe.
Because he had a certain rhythm to his speach and the meaning was generally clear (despite some mangled words)he was fairly easy to follow.!
If nothing else, today's revelations about how Hansard is constructed mean that never again can a Today interviewer quote that publication and claim to have the authorititive source. He will have to do what Nick Robinson has done and check the sound recording - and offer to play it (instead of reading) so we listeners judge for ourselves.
It's a pity that political debate in this country is nearly always nowadays reduced to pathetic nit picking and attempted point scoring rather than substantive discussion with Humphrys being one of the worst offenders.
Even if the quote had been correct this little story would have been guilty on both charges....
Im deeply unimpressed by this explanation. It fails to answer two important things
(1) Why did the 91Èȱ¬ put such weight on the original quote in the first place? Why was that the key story? The fact the quote was wrong simply exaggerates the absurdity of this
(2) Why, when Darling was clearly trying to say those were not his views, are you still persisting with the idea that he should have put the record straight. He clearly tried several times in the interview to say that isnt what he said, and he was interupted and ignored. At least NOW you should accept that he was right to do so?
Mainly though, I dont like the insinuation from your piece that perhaps the Government has simply corrected the hansard record to help darling out after the debate (as robert also implies). Is there any evidence this is what happened?
I think this is a bigger deal for the 91Èȱ¬'s coverage of northern rock than you guys are implying
A letter in today's Irish Times from one Fergal Trace, although about a different subject (the Irish Taoiseach and the Mahon Tribunal), captures the essence it would seem, once again through the oft-referenced Jim Hacker :-
...The quote [from The Complete Yes Minister] ran: "Hacker himself processed events in a number of ways, and the readers will have to make their own judgment as to whether any given statement represents (a) what happened (b) what he believed happened (c) what he would would like to have happened (d) what he wanted others to believe happened (e) what he wanted others to believe that he believed happened".
Has anyone else noticed that the FO original dossier about the lack of evidence for WMDs has finally been released ... the day that Dithering Darling announces the Nationalisation of Northern Rock - thus ensuring yet another bit of bad news gets buried and doesn't get the media attention it deserves
GB is just TB in a new coat
Two problems here:
a) political debate on the 91Èȱ¬ (& elsewhere) has been reduced to feeble nit-picking and point scoring.
b) changing one's mind, which is seen as an eminently sensible strategy in appropriate circumstances in most walks of life, seems now to be regarded by you meeja types as the ultimate sin in politics.
Do you and Mr Humphrys get bonuses for unearthing hints of U turns?!
I agree with KP.
Hansard is another example of how Parliament is mired in the 19th century.
A move to the 20th century would be welcome.
According to Erskine May, the Official Report, though not strictly verbatim, is substantially the verbatim report, with repetitions and redundancies omitted, and with obvious mistakes corrected, but which on the other hand leaves out nothing that adds to the meaning of the speech or illustrates the argument.
The Speaker has stated that the archive tapes cannot be used for the purpose of casting doubt on the validity of the Official Report.
Oh, I do love it when people proclaim that some Herculean task is "easily achievable with today's technology" (KP, #14) without having any apparent grasp of the scale of the task, the real capabilities of today's technology (full-text indexing of video..?), or the likely cost of implementing such a thing even if it should prove to be possible.
In any case, some of the written word's value as evidence lies, perversely, in the ease with which it can misrepresent; it means that people do not become complacent about its accuracy. In contrast, doubting the content of even a doctored video, without the original to hand, requires that someone disbelieve the evidence of their own senses... not for nothing have dictatorships tended to favour visual propaganda and revisionism.
Will that do you, madasafish?
Nick
I'm not sure why 91Èȱ¬ feel the need to apologiseto Darling.
1. They utilised the official Hansard record of the event which had beem compiled and published with no objection from Darling or the Government. What's wrong with that ?
2. Whereas Darling did not indicate specific agreement with Cousins on the nationalisation point, neither did he indicate disagreeement.
3.Cousins put forward a highly negative, unequivolcal and strongly worded analysis re the likely effects of nationalistion. Given that nationalisation was one of the options being considered by Darling, why did not he tell Cousins and the House there and then that he did not agree with the analysis ?
4. Having failed to do so, Darling left himself open to the strong possibility that his response would be regarded as tantamount to his having agreed with Cousins. "Silence gives consent" ?? At the very least, he ran a clear risk of giving the impression that he was in agreement. Hansard's people seem to have reached that view and who can blame them ?
5. Darling is not stupid and it is fair to wonder if the risk that he might give the impression that he agreed with Cousins was less a risk than the intention.
I think Darling is deserving of sympathy on some counts - mainly connected with the legacy left by the past holder of his job and the propensities of his current boss. However, on this issue, he is the author of his own misfortune. He and Cousins were quite happy to use the occcasion to sneer at the Lib Dems - the only people to come out of this with any credit.
Darling is not deserving of an apology from either 91Èȱ¬ or Hansard but he might consider making one to Vince Cable. Flying Pig alert.
Why do we need to keep questioning about how corrupt that place is anyway?
If there is anyone in the land that STILL believes that place has a shred of integrity, i've yet to meet them?
Perhaps they should say what they mean and mean what they say?
A fine example of the Today programme 'spinning' - something they often fire at the Government. Humphreys accused Darling of making certain statements, re nationalisation of Northern Rock, in the HoC. Darling denied making the comments. Humphreys then argued that if Darling didn't say it - he had agreed with it. Darling denied this as well. Humphreys persisted. The truth is that Humphreys was wrong. The apology by Nick Robinson and Humphreys said they got it "a bit" wrong. No. They got it completely wrong - wrong attribution, wrong meaning, mealy-mouthed "apology".
Nick, I really wouldn't lose any sleep over this. You reached a perfectly reasonable conclusion based on the data available.
Andrew @ 6.31pm has got it right. Politicians can't complain when they are hoist on the petard of their newspeak gobbledegook.
Ian Bedford @ 9.29am has got it wrong. Alistair Darling is slippery than a greased eel!