At the end of an interview with Ed Balls this morning, Sarah Monague (02h 22m in) gave us a wonderful example of the ideological presumptions of supposedly neutral BBC reporting. She asked Nick Robinson: "It's about economic credibility here, isn't it?"

What's going on here is a double ideological trick.

First, "credibility" is defined in terms of whether Labour's plans are sufficiently fiscally tight*. This imparts an austerity bias to political discourse. There's no necessary reason for this. We might instead define credibility in terms of whether the party is offering enough to working people, and decry the derisory rise in the minimum wage as lacking credibility from the point of view of the objective of improving the lot of the low-paid.

Which brings me to a second trick. Credible with whom? We might ask: are Balls' policies credible with bond markets - the guys who lend governments money - or will they instead cause a significant rise in borrowing costs? Or we could ask: are they credible with working people? But neither she nor Nick presented any evidence about either group. The judges of what's credible seem to be her and Nick themselves - who, not uncoincidentally, are wealthy, public school-educated people.

This poses the question: what is the origin of this double bias?

It's tempting to say that it is a simple right-wing bias; why should people from public schools on six-figure salaries think that politics should concern itself with the living standards of ordinary people?

But maybe it isn't. What we're seeing here might be yet another example of an idea that's outlived its usefulness.

There was a time when the credibility of fiscal policy mattered; in the 70s and 80s, social democratic governments in the UK and France were constrained by the bond market vigilantes. But this is no longer the case. We live in a world of a savings glut and safe asset shortage. The bond vigilantes have gone home. Maybe Balls' looser fiscal policy might raise bond yields a little. But does this matter much when they are negative? However, Montague and Robinson haven't adapted to this new world, and - like all mad people in authority - are the slaves of some defunct economist.

So, I'm not sure what the reason for Montague's bias is. But I do know that the idea that the BBC is neutral is just...

* For more intelligent discussion of those plans, try this and this.