NEATHER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET? OH YES THEY WILL!

*
According to an article on the BBC News website by David Goodhart of the centre-left Prospect magazine (based on his Analysis broadcast, 8/2) the extraordinary levels of immigration in the earlier years of this Labour government came about mostly by accident:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8494275.stm
*
You will doubtless recall the comments of former Labour advisor Andrew Neather, who let the cat out of the bag last year when he said that mass immigration was engineered by Labour to rub the Conservatives' nose in diversity - i.e. that it was no accident. They were dismissed by Labour and downplayed by the BBC (after being ignored for days). Now, thanks to Migration Watch's efforts and a Freedom of Information Request, a draft cabinet paper has been released that confirms what Mr Neather said:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249797/Labour-threw-open-doors-mass-migration-secret-plot-make-multicultural-UK.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1249823/SIR-ANDREW-GREEN-Paying-price-decade-deception-Migrationwatch.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/7198329/Labours-secret-plan-to-lure-migrants.html
*
There's nothing yet on the BBC News website about this scandal. Will there by later today?
*

WHEN BARNIE MET ALI

*
I have a fitfully sharp memory and news of the conviction of Met chief Commander Ali Dizaei for misconduct and perverting the course of justice (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8504308.stm) reminded me of something I read a couple of years ago in The Daily Mail:
Race war at the Met: We reveal what's REALLY going on at Scotland Yard
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1030074/Race-war-Met-We-reveal-whats-REALLY-going-Scotland-Yard.html
*
The whole article is well worth reading, and you might need to read it in full to cast the following extracts in context. These, however, are the sections pertinent to the BBC:
*
What better location, then, for the most recent annual conference of the National Black Police Association (NBPA)?
A delegate recalls one session in which several speakers advocated an official policy of positive discrimination to advance black officers.
The compere - BBC reporter Barnie Choudhury - said that if proof were needed of modern racial discrimination, they had only to consider one 'black' officer who was sitting in the audience.
'He told us that this particular delegate had passed all the required exams, yet his force still refused to promote him to the rank of commander,' said the delegate.

Who was this unfortunate victim?

In the body of the hall, Chief Superintendent Ali Dizaei could afford himself a private smile. And not only because he was the anonymous officer to whom the sympathetic BBC man was obviously referring.
Within 24 hours, the sharply dressed, Iranian-born Dizaei would be unveiled as the new president of the NBPA. No other policeman was put forward as an alternative candidate.

Ugandanborn Ghaffur will be alleging a litany of racial discriminations. Certainly, it was Dizaei who was given a prominent slot on BBC's Newsnight and yesterday's Radio 4 Today programme, where he was allowed - almost unchallenged - to discuss racial grievances within the Met.

Then this week, with the latest allegations of prejudice, an even deadlier blow was struck. A source at BBC Six O'Clock News told us that the reporter who came to them with the exclusive story of Ghaffur's legal action was none other than Barnie Choudhury, Dizaei's cheerleader at the NBPA conference.

Rum goings on, don't you think? Here's a transcript of a Barnie Choudhury Newsnight report from 2003 ("an exclusive interview" no less) on an earlier court case involving the corrupt police commander:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3112472.st

Barnie still works for the BBC.
*
***************************
*
UPDATE 9/2: The story was passed over in just a few seconds by last night's Newsnight.
*

THE STRANGE CASE OF EVAN JEKYLL AND EVAN HYDE

*
The issue of parliamentary privelege was discussed with Sir George Young for the Conservatives and Harriet Harman for Labour on this morning's Today programme.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8503000/8503608.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8503000/8503686.stm
*
Harriet Harman faced Sarah Montague, was interrupted twice and scored an Interruption Coefficient of 0.6. Sir George Young faced Evan Davis, was interrupted seven times and scored an Interruption Coefficient of 1.3. The I.C.s suggest that Sir George's interview was at least twice as tough as Hattie's, and this is certainly how it felt listening to both interviews.
*
Evan, as when interviewing Chris Grayling on 3/2/10, was not the quiet, thoughtful Evan Davis we know from his interviews with Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, but an aggressive, mocking, opinionated character. The man is turning into James 'Jekyll-when-talking-to-Labour,-Hyde-when-talking-to-the-Tories' Naughtie.
*
The bulk of Evan's interview with Sir George did not focus on parliamentary privilege at all, but instead hammered away at the BBC-Guardian-Labour Axis's favourite obsession, Lord Ashcroft. 38.5% of the interview discussed the former, topical issue, whereas 61.5% of the interview fixated on Lord Ashcroft.
*
The sheer scale of BBC bias is now growing week by week. There must be an election in the offing.
*

QUINN-TESSENTIALLY BIASED

*

Radio 4's Westminster Hour continues to spit in the face of impartiality.
*
This being Monday morning it's time for that (ever-growing) list again! This week's all-seeing journalist was Nick Watt of The Guardian, back again to discuss the political week with Carolyn Quinn (pictured).
*
Last week I wrote:

"When can we expect a Conservative (or UKIP) supporting journalist from the Times, the Telegraph or the Mail to receive an invite to appear on this most unbalanced of BBC programmes? Surely next week?"

Fat chance!
*
Here's the list, complete with its latest member:
*
7/2/10 Nick Watt of the Guardian
31/1/10 George Parker of the Financial Times
24/1/10 Kevin Maguire of the Mirror
17/1/10 Andrew Grice of the Independent
10/1/10 Nick Watt of the Guardian
3/1/10 Michael Savage of the Independent
27/12/09 no programme
20/12/09 no journalist
13/12/09 Andrew Miller of the Economist
6/12/09 George Parker of the Financial Times
29/11/09 Toby Helm of the Observer
22/11/09 no journalist
15/11/09 Nick Watt of the Guardian
*
As it has done for the whole of the last month, the programme began by discussing on the 'woes' of the Conservative Party: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_westminster_hour/8503270.stm

*

So for weeks now Westminster Hour has opened its political coverage with overviews from almost exclusively Left-leaning, Labour-supporting journalists. Not a single Conservative supporting journalist has been invited - no Peter Oborne, no Ben Brogan, no Matthew Parris.

*

And it isn't as if Carolyn Quinn tries to play devil's advocate. Her questions are hardly calculated to help the Conservative Party - far from it! Her first question to Nick Watt was about whether the Tories had 'wobbled' this week and if so why? Her second was about whether their austerity message had been 'undermined'. Her third question talked of a 'rowing back' by the Tories and asked if the public services could now 'relax a little bit' because they won't immediately face 'swingeing cuts under the Conservatives'.

*

A TALE OF TWO CONSTITUENCIES

*
Jo Coburn, making her debut as presenter of The World This Weekend, went to two constituencies to assess the mood of voters over MPs expenses, one Labour-held, one Conservative-held. Sounds fair, doesn't it?
*
First up was Stevenage, home to Barbara Follett. Here Jo talked to a sprinkling of voters of varying views, and to Labour-supporting pollster Peter Kellner (of Baroness Ashton 'fame'), but she didn't speak to any of Labour's political opponents here. She tried to talk to Babs (who is stepping down) and to her would-be Labour successor Sharon Taylor, but without success.
*
Then she moved on to St. Albans, home to Anne Main. Here she met more voters of varying views, and managed to grab a brief word with a reluctant Mrs Main. Here - unlike in Stevenage - she also talked to one of Mrs Main's opponents, Sandy Walkington, the Lib Dem candidate, who had nothing good to say about her.

The segment ended with a short interview with Labour MP John Mann, who defended Labour from claims that it could be worst hit in the coming election by the public's residual rage.
*
As I listened I thought that the bit on the dodgy Conservative was going on for longer than the bit on the dodgy Labour MP. Checking back confirmed this, with the section on Mrs Follett lasting 2 minutes 33 seconds, while the bit on Mrs Main lasted 4 minutes 13 seconds.
*
On top of this, Jo Coburn went into some detail about Anne Main's expenses claims but not about Barbara Follett's.
*
What may initially have seem balanced turned out not to be that balanced after all.
*

SETTING A CAP ON BEEB BIAS

*
Today's The Politics Show focused on immigration and staged a debate between Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems in the programme's chosen constituency of Stourbridge. Jon Sopel, of course, presided.
*
The audience were certainly more balanced than a Question Time audience but centre-right viewers will have noticed that the Conservative spokesman, mild-mannered Damian Green, spoke less and was questioned and interrupted by Jon Sopel more than his more aggressive left-of-centre counterparts.
*
Here are the statistics:
*
Damian Green (Conservative)
Number of questions - 7
Number of interruptions by Jon Sopel - 3
Time allowed to speak - 3 minutes 58 seconds
Interruption Coefficient - 0.8
*
Phil Woolas (Labour)
Number of questions - 4
Number of interruptions by Jon Sopel - 2
Time allowed to speak - 5 minutes 41 seconds
Interruption Coefficient - 0.4
*
Chris Huhne (Lib Dem)
Number of questions - 3
Number of interruptions by Jon Sopel - 2
Time allowed to speak - 4 minutes 24 seconds
Interruption coefficient - 0.5

NEVER MIND THE VOTERS...

*
If it's Sunday it must be The Record: Europe and more on lovely Shirin Wheeler's unfair interviewing. This week's example can't really compare to some of her most egregious performances, but it's still typical.
*
Her gathering of politicians this week consisted of a Labour MEP, a Dutch Green, a Fine Gael MEP and a British Conservative. Anyone watching would have surely noticed that the British Tory was being sidelined. Counting how long each guest got to shine shows the extent of the problem:
*
Gay Mitchell (Fine Gael) - 4 minutes 15 seconds
Michael Cashman (Labour) - 3 minutes 55 seconds
Judith Sargentini (Dutch Green) - 2 minutes 27 seconds
Nirj Deva (Conservative) - 1 minute 53 seconds
*
To compound this unfairness, Shirin twice stopped Mr Deva from interrupting (though he himself was interrupted every time he spoke!). His first failed attempt was met with "Let Michael finish and then..." and his second failed attempt was greeted by "Let Judith answer the question first." Then when all three other guests piled in on him, Shirin stopped them only to let one of them continue!
*
It's not easy being a right-of-centre politician on The Record: Europe.
*
*
Later on the programme Shirin talked to Bruno Waterfield of The Daily Telegraph (good man), Antonio Missiroli of the pro-European think tank The European Policy Centre and a man called Richard Corbett, styled as "advisor to the EU Council president" (ie. Rumpsy). Now, as all you keen Euroland-watchers will know, Mr Corbett was the NE Labour MEP (much admired by the Beeb's Mark Mardell) who lost his seat last year to the BNP, and who used to lead the Labour group in the European parliament. Now that's Euroland for you! You get booted out by the voters and yet within a matter of months you're flying high again, advising the never-elected President of the United States of Europe! Isn't the EU great?!
*

FRAUDCASTING HOUSE

*
As well as the BBC's Nigel Wrench remembering the release of Nelly Mandela and Steve Punt doing a 'funny' turn on the subject of 'talking Britain down' (in the wake of Lord Mandelson's diatribe against George Osborne), this morning's Broadcasting House also discussed the issue of purity and politics in the wake of the DPP's announcement of the prosecution for fraud of three Labour MPs and a Tory peer. That's not quite how presenter Paddy O'Connell put it though: "Three MPs and one Tory peer must decide if they'll use parliamentary privelege as part of their defence against allegations, which they deny." Can you spot the missing word in Paddy's sentence? (Clue: it rhymes with neighbour).
*
The issue was discussed with the crossbench philosopher-baroness (and liberal) Onora O'Neill and with Labour-supporting Sir Gerry Robinson. Both wanted us to 'move on' from the Great Expenses Scandal, as Paddy noted. That seemed fine by him, but when Baroness O'Neill said we should also 'move on' over the issue of bankers Paddy seemed a little taken aback, and (clearly thinking on the spot) could only ask in response whether they (the bankers) should listen more. He's clearly not prepared to 'move on' on that subject any time soon, by the sounds of it. BH in recent months has been full of anti-banker humour.
*

LORD PAUL ANYONE?

*
The bias of Andrew Marr was not revealed by any interruption coefficients this morning (which showed a surprisingly high 1.3 against Alan Johnson and a remarkably low 0.2 against William Hague - though the latter took place over a long-distance feed with a couple-of-second delay, which is doubtless why Marr wasn't interrupting him!) No, the bias was revealed in the nature of the questioning. Here's how the questions broke down by topic:
*
Alan Johnson
Theme - Number of questions asked
Immigration - 8
Prosecuted Labour MPs & the 1689 Bill of Rights - 2
Chilcot Inquiry - 4
Narrowing polls - 1
*
William Hague
Theme - Number of questions asked
Chilcot Inquiry - 2
Narrowing polls - 1
Climate Change - 1
Iran - 1
Lord Ashcroft's tax status - 4
Prosecuted Labour MPs & the 1689 Bill of Rights - 1
*
Note that, 4 questions - 4!!! - about Lord Ashcroft's tax status.
*
Again and again, first Andrew Marr then Jon Sopel will ask their Sunday Conservative guests about Lord Ashcroft. Of Labour's Lord Paul (who?) not a question. Only Lord Ashcroft. Marr last tackled David Cameron about it on 10th January and interrupted William Hague 5 times over the issue back on 8th November.
*

ALAS POOR ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

*
Have I become far too cynical or did I just witness one of the most blatant and unconvincing bits of acting and spin ever broadcast? Alastair Campbell 'getting upset' at Andrew Marr's questions about the Chilcot Inquiry - and about Marr's introductory quip comparing the legendary dodgy dossier with Campbell's latest work of fiction - was something to behold. I note that this dramatic turn of events allowed him not to answer the question, and suspect that's why he 'got upset'. Now, I may be doing Campbell a disservice. That quip of Marr's would have annoyed me too had I been on the receiving end of it. But I've seen The Thick Of It & this could have been a scene from any of its episodes. (Anyhow, if anyone deserves to be on the receiving end of a few disservices it's surely the man who led the sucking-out of all honour from our political system under New Labour and has handed out more than a few disservices himself over the years.)
*
When Campbell talked of Marr's own views on the Iraq War, which no-one who listened to Start the Week's endless coverage of the Iraq War and its consequences at the time - and for a long time after - (I got so fed up with hearing about it and associated Muslim-related subjects, week in and week out, that I gave up on the programme completely) could be in any doubt about, Marr made this extraordinary comment: "I don't have an opinion of this." Like hell he doesn't. If he thinks he's kept his strong disapproval of the war hidden, he's a very deluded man indeed.
*

PAINTING IN GREEN AND RED

The BBC's left-liberal filter is generally found firmly in place on such programmes as From Our Own Correspondent and Crossing Continents, but also on the BBC News website. Here's an example. The BBC's James Painter reports from Costa Rica in a website article called Costa Rica - green and happy? Why Costa Rica scores well on the happiness index.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8498456.stm
*
Mr Painter is enthusiastic about Costa Rica, which sounds a little like paradise on earth. Part of its appeal to him is its commitment to the Climate Change agenda (to which he himself is highly committed: "It was also the first developing country to state its aim of being carbon neutral (by 2021)." There's more though: "And then there's Costa Rica's reputation for being one of the happiest and greenest countries in the world. It regularly appears top - or near the top - of international surveys. It is usually the only developing country to do so." The international survey referred to in the article is the Happy Planet Index compiled by the left-wing, green New Economics Foundation (NEF) think tank and is calculated by combining "three key variables - what people say about their life satisfaction, their longevity and their ecological footprint." (You can read their unlikely list of happy and unhappy countries at http://www.happyplanetindex.org/).
*
We hear from Ricardo Ulate, a climate change advisor to the country's social democrat government; that government's ambassador to the UK Pilar Saborio; Bishop Melvin Jimenez, a multinational-bashing eco-priest; and Juan Francisco Montealegre, who owns a construction company. All plug the green agenda at great length. Only at the end of the article are other factors considered: "Analysts say that Costa Ricans' apparent happiness could be down to a whole series of factors in addition to greenness: strong social networks of friends, families and neighbours; ubiquitous social and education programmes; and tolerance of social divisions and different opinions."
*
James Painter's other BBC News website articles also strongly push this red-green agenda, with a similar homogeneity of opinions offered, from melting glaciers and sustainability in Bolivia http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8172981.stm to the damage climate change could inflict on Chile's wine-growing regions http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8058080.stm, as well as plenty of outright environmental advocacy, as in this piece on REDD - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8399882.stm
*
Journalisted provides a handy index of Painter's latest articles:
http://www.journalisted.com/james-painter?allarticles=yes
*

THIS WEEK'S DIMBLEDATA

*
A little late but here come the stats for Thursday's Question Time:
*
*
4th February 2010
*
*
Who got most time to speak?

1. Melanie Phillips - 10 minutes 57 seconds
2. Lord Falconer - 10 minutes 29 seconds
3. Clare Short - 9 minutes 47 seconds
4. George Galloway - 9 minutes 39 seconds
5. Theresa May - 6 minutes 49 seconds
*
*
Who received the most interruptions from David Dimbleby?
*
1. Lord Falconer - 8
2. Theresa May - 7
3. Clare Short - 6
4. Melanie Phillips - 4
5. George Galloway - 2
*
**
Who scored the highest interruption coefficient?
*
1. Theresa May - 1.1
2. Lord Falconer - 0.8
3. Clare Short - 0.6
4. Melanie Phillips - 0.4
5. George Galloway - 0.2
*
*
Who was asked the most supplementary questions by David Dimbleby?
*
1. Lord Falconer - 12
2. Theresa May - 8
3. Clare Short - 5
4. Melanie Phillips - 3
5. George Galloway - 1
*

SPOILING THE PARTY

*
This morning's Today programme discussed America's Tea Party movement with "Christine Todd Whitman, former Republican Governor of New Jersey and co-chair of the moderate Republican group the Republican Leadership Council". That was a little surprising.
*
Not remotely surprising however was The World Tonight's treatment of the same subject on Thursday night's edition of the programme.
*
This consisted of a discussion between Robin Lustig and Professor Stephen Wayne of Georgetown University. Prof. Wayne was extremely sniffy about the Tea Partygoers, downplaying the numbers who attend their meetings as well as questioning how representative they are of the public mood. Financed by "wealthy backers", they show, he said, that "we are still in the era of Ronald Reagan" (and he didn't mean that in a good way). Then came the inevitable: "There may be an element in this that's racial in character" with people who are "angry that there is a black man who they view in a very suspicious way" and about whom they have "some fantastic ideas".
*
You can always rely on The World Tonight to dig out some liberal American academic to back the Democrats and reinforce the programme's left-wing world view.
*
*
*
This same edition of the programme ended with a report from Southern Italy on the problems facing illegal immigrants in the wake of violent clashes with local people. BBC reporter Emma Wallis made no secret about whose side she was on, talking to a Catholic missionary who works with the illegal immigrants, three of the illegals and a sympathetic centre-left regional councillor, with only the local police chief standing out (very briefly) from the crowd. Emma referred to the 'hardline' Italian interior minister and how the 'centre right government', in the wake of the riots, is now 'paying lip service' to the 'centre left' policies of the regional council (of whom she so clearly approves).
*

OF TORY MILLIONAIRES AND MAGNATES

*
The Politics Show's series of pre-election reports from the marginal Stourbridge constituency of Labour's Lynda Waltho have made frequent reference to the fact that Ms Waltho's Conservative opponent Margot James is a "millionaire businesswoman". Friday's Daily Politics featured an Adam Fleming report from Cannock Chase, constituency of the retiring Labour MP Tony Wright. The Conservative candidate there, one Andrew Bridgen, was called a "potato magnate", perhaps to enable young Adam to make a bad pun, but just as likely to allow him to highlight the Tory's high social position/wealth. No descriptions of any kind were applied to the Labour or Lib Dem candidates. Gordon Brown's attempts to play the 'class' card seem to be finding an echo at the BBC.
*

ROBIN SHOOTS AN ARROW IN DEFENCE OF GORDON

*
There was a revealing intervention from left-liberal BBC presenter Robin Lustig on Thursday's The World Tonight. The issue was MPs' expenses and Robin had gathered together Ben Brogan of The Daily Telegraph (a rare invitation to anyone from that newspaper on this most left-liberal of Radio 4 programmes) and one of the BBC's favourite constitutional experts (familiar from sundry election programmes), Professor Vernon Bogdanor.
*
Lustig had asked Ben a question that puffed up Gordon Brown's constitutional reform proposals. Ben reminded World Tonight listeners of Gordo's history of unprincipled behaviour over the expenses issue, which brought Robin Lustig crashing in with "Put his past record on one side, do you think there's something in it?"
*
Why should Brown's (at best cowardly, at worst self-interested) behaviour be put aside? He allowed his ministers and favourites to scupper Freedom of Information legislation that could have smoked out and resolved this crisis some time before the Great Expenses Scandal erupted, thanks to Guido Fawkes and Ben Brogan's paper.
*
The BBC is far too keen to put Brown's past record on one side.
*

SAY IT AIN'T SO, JO

*

I have to say that, as a centre-right-minded guy, I was personally disappointed by all the Tories caught out by the Expenses Scandal, as I expected better from them than, say, their Labour counterparts, just as some of the dodges committed by (now-ex-)UKIP MEPs personally disappointed me too, as I expected far better from them from I did from, say, their Labour colleagues. Given the standards, and the ideology, and the background of both Conservative and UKIP politicians, who wouldn't expect them to have behaved more honorably with taxpayers' money than their counterparts in the reckless, sleazy Labour Party?

*

All this is merely a preamble to a quote from Jo Coburn on yesterday's The Daily Politics. This is a question she put to Nick Watt of The Guardian: "Which party is going to suffer the most? I mean one might say, just because they've got the most MPs, it would be Labour and also is there also a case that Labour grassroots will feel, actually, we expect more of our MPs perhaps, because of the standards, and the ideology and the background of the Labour Party?"

*

Would it ever have occured to left-wing Jo that she could have substituted (as I did) the words Conservative Party for the Labour Party, and their respective grassroots, and put the same question to Fraser Nelson of The Spectator? I very much doubt it.

*

This BBC-wide assumption that Labour just must be morally superior to the Tories is one I don't share at all. Far from it.

**

CRICK JUST CAN'T HELP HIMSELF

*
The prosecution of 3 Labour MPs and a Conservative peer was reported on by Michael Crick on last night's Newsnight.
*
Crick is incapable of not trying to spin a story against the Conservatives (as all my long series of sometimes very long posts about him have, I believe, conclusively shown. Please click on the label Crick for much, much, much more).
*
Though most of his report could hardly fail to concentrate on the charging of the Labour MPs, nor acknowledge that this would look especially bad for Labour, Michael Crick just couldn't help himself. After listing the three Labour MPs - Messers Morley, Chaytor and Devine - he turned to the Tory, Lord Hanningfield and, after outlining the allegations against him just as he had outlined the allegations against them, spun this additional sentence: "He's the most senior politician of the four, serving until today as leader of the Tories' flagship Essex Council and as a Tory frontbench spokesman in the Lords". (He just loves that word 'Tory', and can't repeat it often enough - especially when he talking scandal!)
*
Technically, of course, he's correct but - as I'm sure he's very well aware - putting it like that makes it sound as if the Tory case is the most serious. Elliott Morley is far more high-profile and was a Labour minister from 1997 to 2006.
*
Crick has committed far worse infringements of the laws of impartiality than this particular minor example, but even master criminals drop litter from time to time.
*

WHICH LEFTIE SHALL WE INVITE ON THIS WEEK GAVIN?

*
Left-wing Polly Toynbee of The Guardian was the Brit on today's Dateline panel. Last week it was New Labour-loving David Aaronovitch of The Times. The week before it was left-winger Yasmin Alibhai Brown of The Independent. Previously, it was far-left Isabel Hilton of The Guardian. The week before that it was snooty leftie Sir Michael White of The Guardian. Only when we get back to 2nd January do we find a right-winger, Peter Oborne of The Daily Mail. And on it goes...the last edition of 2009 featured Polly Toynbee again, preceded by David Aaronovitch again. On 12/12 we find a second right-winger, Janet Daley of The Sunday Telegraph. And then Isabel Hilton, preceded by Yasmin Alibhai Brown again...and on and on...
*
So of the last 11 editions of Dateline to feature a Brit (and all but one Washington-based special have), 9 have been left-wingers and only 2 right-wingers.
*
As Dateline regularly discusses British politics, this matters.
*
That's clear Beeb bias in action.
*

WHICH TORY CONSTITUENCY SHOULD WE GO TO NEXT?

*
You'll doubtless remember all those BBC reporters flooding mostly to Conservative-held constituencies at first great explosion of the Expenses Scandal last year. It's nice to see that Today is keeping up that fine tradition, sending one of its reporters to Thanet North, held by Tory Roger Gale.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8501000/8501775.stm
Flora Watkins was the reporter - she who asked David Buik, "So with George Osborne saying that an incoming Tory government would like to do what President Obama is proposing, how does that make you feel?" (which provoked Bonkersgate). In fairness to her, her report was pretty balanced in the range of opinion it allowed.**

PLANET'S WORST FRIEND

*
The Today website introduces today's closing discussion in this way:
"Some scientists are questioning the environmental cost of owning a pet, saying that pet lovers have a higher carbon footprint than people without pets. There are an estimated 20m domestic cats and dogs in the UK. Dr John Barrett, research associate at the Stockholm Environment Institute, York University, and Tony Juniper, an environmental campaigner, consider the environmental impact of man's best friend." http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8501000/8501780.stm

*

The professor from the green policy institute argues that fewer carnivorous pets (like the enemies of the planet pictured above) would significantly help reduce our 'carbon footprint', whereas Mr Juniper from the Green Party, who owns cats and dogs, disagrees (like a good nimby) and would rather deny us other pleasures instead and tax us more too - and who has a problem with the practice of keeping caged birds as pets.
*
If only Andrew Neil rather than Sarah Montague had been in charge of this interview! Sarah never thought to challenge the underlying assumptions shared by both of her guests, and treated the topic as if it wasn't slightly absurd.

**

LES IN LOCO PARENTIS

*

I'll be back tomorrow (having to catch up like crazy!). A little overtime followed by a party will take me out of action today. So I'll leave the late, great Les Dawson in charge for the day.

*

FREI, BABY, FREI

*
Matt Frei's diary could become compulsive reading, though for all the wrong reasons. I just thought I'd click at random on another article, Evangelical and environmental? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8405108.stm
*
The theme is 'Climate Change':
*
"According to a BBC News/Harris Poll, the number of Americans who worry that carbon emissions are slowly heating our planet like a lobster pot has actually declined in the last eight years by 25%.
Despite Hurricane Katrina, which rang alarm bells about the connection between climate change and menacing weather, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and a photo album of environmental horrors from melting ice caps to rising sea levels to receding glaciers (ha!), fewer Americans are convinced today that the planet is in peril because of human behaviour.
Global warming has cooled off alarmingly on the list of priorities."
*
After dismissing 'Climategate' as a "brouhaha", Matty goes on to give us this peach of a paragraph - pure Matt Frei: "The evangelical movement is split between those conservative Christians who suspect that climate change is an evil secular plot, concocted by the devil, Al Gore and "the global government crowd" - in the words of Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher - and those who passionately believe that good Christians need to be good custodians of the planet." Can you guess which side Frei doesn't approve of?
*

BROWN LIES

*
Sky News is reporting the story about how Gordon Brown lied to parliament yesterday about Conservative manifesto commitments on defence spending:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/PMQs-Covered-Live-On-Twitter-Gordon-Brown-Begins-Prime-Ministers-Questions/Article/201002115541331?lpos=Politics_Second_Home_Page_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15541331_PMQs_Covered_Live_On_Twitter%3A_Gordon_Brown_Begins_Prime_Ministers_Questions
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Proof that Brown did lie yesterday, as Dizzy points out, can be found on page 25 of the Conservative Manifesto:
http://www.conservatives.com/pdf/manifesto-uk-2005.pdf
And from the BBC in 2004:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3707660.stm
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Needless to say, the BBC News website today is staying completely silent. Will this morning's Today programme maintain radio silence on the story too, or will it indignantly question any passing Labour minister about it?
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THE ROAD ALWAYS TAKEN

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Unlike Newsnight, which gave us the unusual luxury of two Conservative politicians last night (Dan Hannan and Michael Portillo), The World Tonight trod its usual left-liberal path.
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The government's defence green paper was discussed with Andrew Dorman of King's College London, and "committed European" Philippe Morillon, who served as a French Liberal MEP. A report from Chavez's Venezuela was followed by an interview on the same topic with former Costa Rican vice president (and interim president) Kevin Casas Zamora, a social democrat. Finally, President Obama's decision not to attend the latest US-EU summit in Spain was discussed with Spanish writer Miguel Morado, who the programme always turns to (exclusively) to discuss Spanish politics, and Dr Daniel Hamilton of John Hopkins University, who made noises supportive of Obama and who, it transpires, worked in Bill Clinton's State Department.
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Robin Lustig presided, liberally.
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OLD HABITS DIE HARD

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MPs expenses will be back in the public eye again as Sir Thomas Legg publishes his final report. As a result, the BBC will doubtless have recourse to its old habit of stressing Conservative expense claims above Labour ones.
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I thought I'd test out this hypothesis by seeing what's on the BBC News website this morning. It's the main story there:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8496729.stm
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Only one MP is singled out for attention by the article and, yes, he's a Tory:

Among them is Conservative Bernard Jenkin, who had been asked to repay £63,250 - the highest amount known - after renting his second home from his sister-in-law. This practice was banned in 2006. He has said his repayment has been reduced to £36,250.

Here we go again!

FREI'S OBAMA DELIGHT

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Matt Frei can always be relied upon to provide a biased point of view on his diary. Just have a look at this gem:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8494796.stm
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So Newt Gingrich's Contract with America was "a dodgy deal", the Tea Party movement consists of "Braveheart warriors", Bill Clinton was a "magician" and "Tony Blair his best understudy" in the admirable tactic of "triangulation" and Barack Obama's presidency "is turning out to be a masterclass in triangulation". "Triangulation" (and "The Third Way") "appeals to his elegant intellect". "The current president is a man whose quiet self-confidence is the result of having always triumphed as the outsider...Obama was always the talented misfit." (Sounds like a character in a liberal Hollywood movie, doesn't he?). Frei talks of how Obama "seduced this country":
"We saw a reminder of Obama the candidate in his State of the Union speech last week. As the usually raucous ranks were reduced to a hush, hanging on words delivered with the cadence of a preacher, there must have been a few Republicans who wondered if they should delay their run for the White House by another four years." Must there? "A chastened President Obama should carry on triangulating, making deals, rejecting ideology and govern from the centre, but couch his complex method into a simpler message." #
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EVAN SEES RED MIST

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My early high hopes for Evan Davis have been fading month by month. His interview this morning with Chris Grayling, over the Conservatives' alleged misuse of crime statistics, was not one of this thoughtful, relaxed interviews - far from it. Evan's tone here has been very accurately described by Not a sheep as "indignant". There were 6 stroppy interruptions, resulting in an I.C. of 1.0. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8494000/8494982.stm
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If Evan is on tomorrow's 'Today' and gets to interview a Labour politician, I hope he tackles him and waxes equally righteous on the issue of Gordon Brown's outright lies at Prime Minister's Questions:
http://dizzythinks.net/2010/02/brown-accused-of-lying-to-parliament-by.html. I suspect he won't.
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QUESTIONS QUESTIONS

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Has anyone else noticed that the Tories seem to be being even more closely questioned that ever these days, and much more so than their Labour counterparts? Is this going to become a significant trend in the lead-up to the general election?
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Following on from Kirsty Wark (not pictured) on last night's Newsnight, I note that Martha Kearney asked Conservative Jeremy Hunt 5 questions on today's The World at One but Peter Hain just 3 questions (and Sarah Teather of the Lib Dems only one). Similarly even blog favourite Andrew Neil asked the self-same Jeremy Hunt 34 questions on today's The Daily Politics, but only asked 'Lucky' Liam Byrne just 7 questions. Even this blog's other favourite Eddie Mair presided over a discussion between the parties on Monday's PM that saw Philip Hammond score an I.C. of 1.2 compared to 0.6 for the self-same Liam Byrne and 0 (of course) for Vince Cable.
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WATTS GOING ON?

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Also on Newsnight, I see that Susan Watts's report on the IPCC's latest blunders featured among its talking heads one Mike Hulme, labelled only as 'Professor of Environmental Sciences'. I wondered where he was professor at, as Newsnight generally mentions an academic's place of work. It certainly did with the other academics in the piece, namely 'Professor Gwyn Prins, LSE' and 'Bob Ward, LSE'. Could it be that Newsnight merely forgot to mention this useful bit of information about one of its key witnesses for the defence? What raises suspicions, however, is that that is transpires that Prof. Hulme works at the scandal-hit University of East Anglia (of 'Climategate' notoriety). Maybe Newsnight didn't forget at all. Maybe they chose to 'forget', so as not to tarnish the non-sceptical professor by association. Aha!!
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KIRSTY TREATS THE TORY WORST

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During last night's boisterous Newsnight discussion on electoral reform (AV) Kirsty Wark asked Eric Pickles 8 questions, Chris Huhne 6 and Peter Hain only 3. Fancy a BBC interviewer giving the Labour politician the easiest ride!
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She interrupted Eric Pickles 5 times, Chris Huhne 3 times and Peter Hain only once. Fancy a BBC interviewer giving the Labour politician the easiest ride!
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The resultant I.C.s were 2.0 for Eric Pickles, 1.3 for Chris Huhne and 0.7 for Peter Hain. Fancy a BBC interviewer giving the Labour politician the easiest ride!
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