BBC Complaints: The link you need!

Sunday 30 August 2009

LEYING OFF JACK STRAW


Jack Straw has just been on 'The World This Weekend'. I can guess why he chose to appear on that programme in particular.

The reason is Shaun Ley. He's one of the Beeb's most biased interviewers, as regulars of this blog (???) will know! (Please click on the label Shaun Ley if you're a newbie.). He gave Jack a very easy time, never interrupting him and letting his answers go on at length (one lasted almost 2 minutes). His interruption coefficient, I hardly need to tell you, was a big, fat 0.

Ley even prefaced one of his questions by quoting the Baron of Foy and Hartlepool rubbishing the Sunday Times story: "Well, Lord Mandelson used the words 'implausible' and 'offensive'". You'd expect Mandy to defend Mr Straw, but you wouldn't normally expect an interviewer to include that defence in a question to the person being defended (if that makes sense!).

The whole segment began with the words, "It was the Scottish government which decided to free the Lockerbie bomber..." - just to make that absolutely clear.

Yes, it was a wise move by Jack Straw to get himself interviewed by Shaun Ley.


*****

Ley then moved swiftly on to a long section on binge-drinking legislation. No opposition politicians, nor any newspaper columnists, were allowed a look-in on the Straw story. It was a classic case of job-done, move-along-now, nothing-to-see-here.

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