PRE-BUDGET BIAS

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Wednesday's The World Tonight was the worst by far. Hosted by Ritula Shah, it focused mostly on the day's big story - Labour's shameless Pre-Budget Report. It was unquestionably biased towards Labour.
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First came a chat between Ritsy and BBC economics correspondent (and unabashed leftie) Jonty Bloom, during which Jonty gave the government a glowing review. The scary news that Labour will need to borrow an extra £178 billion this year alone "could have been a lot worse", according to Bloom. Mr Darling was "very generous to pensioners", and "the economy is not doing quite as badly". Bloom is openly hostile to raising the threshold on Inheritance tax (please see http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-bloomin-bias.html for the details on this) and said of the freeze on Inheritance Tax announced in the P.B.R. "that'll effect people with big estates, the rich basically" . People with a house worth just over £300,000? Are such people all 'the rich'? This was a party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour Party. Another was to follow.
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The next commentator was Richard Murphy of the Tax Justice Network which, Ritula said, "lobbies for a more progressive taxation system". He was another leftie, who approved of the Inheritance tax freeze and thought the anti-banker legislation was a step in the right direction ("an attack on the disparity of wealth in our country"), though he wanted much more action against the rich. He got 1 minute 33 seconds.
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Next up was Dave Prentice of UNISON, who condemned proposed public sector pay cuts. He got 41 seconds.
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We did then get a banker - George Mathewson, formerly of R.B.S. - though he only got 12 seconds!
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Finally a bit of balance was restored with a debate between Labour-supporting pollster Peter Kellner and Anne McElvoy of the London Evening Standard.
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Jonty Bloom returned later with a second Labour Party political broadcast, advocating the need for more government spending on the UK's infrastructure. All of his four 'talking heads' agreed on the need for this.
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Ritula Shah's introduction to Bloom's report pretty much says it all: "Our economics correspondent Jonty Bloom now reports on the importance of government investment to the British economy". First up was Cross-Rail: "So it's just as well that the government is spending a small fortune on Cross-Rail", Bloom opined after talking to a chap who says "What's keeping us going is public sector spending." He then went to a school in Nottingham "transformed" thanks to the generosity of this glorious people's government (all hail the prime minister). "It's a huge undertaking, but better schools are only one of the things Britain will need in the coming years - new and faster rail links, better roads, broadband internet access, new power stations and massive amounts of money for green projects like wind farms are also needed." (As they used to say at school: "Discuss.") Again, Jonty Bloom strays from reporting into open advocacy.
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He ended by sounding a warning to the country against electing a Conservative government: "Our economic rivals around the world, but especially in Asia, are using this recession to increase intervention in their infrastructure, providing a tonic to their economies during the recession and making them better placed to compete with us when growth returns. What many in business fear is that in the rush to cut government spending and reduce borrowing we here will be doing the exact opposite."
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Alistair's cheque's in the post, Jonty.
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The programme also featured a report on the Palestinians. Of course it did.