Even the debate on social care for last night's Newsnight special ended early to allow space for David Grossman to talk to Kirsty Wark about Lord Ashcroft. This was in the 'other news' section at the end of the programme - a section that glided with unseemly haste over the BA strike and cuts to university funding. The first item on the 'newspaper front pages' section was, inevitably, the Guardian's story about Lord Ashcroft.
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At least The World Tonight dwelt on another BBC obsession: Israel and the Palestinians!
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The BBC News website, however, is not prepared to move on. They show themselves to be truly tenacious propagandists for Labour.
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The site has got a trumped-up story about two of the stars of Dragon's Den, and its home page links to it as the story on its Business section (ignoring 'BA strike talks to resume later'): 'Dragon's Den star breathes fire over non-doms' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8575626.stm.
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The fire-breathing 'dragon' is Duncan Bannatyne. One of the other 'dragons', James Caan, is a non-dom, and Mr Bannatyne uses him an an 'case study'. Of course, the 'case study' is then applied to the specific circumstances of a certain Conservative donor:
"Mr Bannatyne, a Labour party donor who has publicly backed Gordon Brown, also waded into the row over Lord Ashcroft, but denied he was doing it for political ends.
"In my opinion no one should be allowed to be an MP sitting in the House Of Commons, sitting in the Houses of Parliament, sitting in the House of Lords, unless they are fully dominated [sic] in Great Britain and pay British taxes," he said."
Craig,
ReplyDeleteThank you for these last two postings. It is simply incredible that the BBC will virtually halt newscasting and political discussions simply to employ all its resources to hype the Labour Party's agenda.
There are at least three stories stemming from the 'Ashcroft affair' which the BBC could have investigated and discussed but chose not to:
1. Lord Paul
2. The leak of Cabinet papers to support the continuing hype about Ashcroft. Was that done by the Labour Party?
3. Charlie Whelan.
But no. I admire the way you can document such relentless bias. These pages demonstrate that the concept of 'public service' broadcasting is dead.
Over at Guy Fawkes I noticed his link to a "Sun" article entitled "Blatantly Biase against Conservatives".
ReplyDeleteThe article goes on, amusingly to the likes of us, "A SUN investigation has unearthed an alarming BBC bias against....."
I really like the "unearthed" bit. It seems the Sun has twigged onto the ingrained bias across the spectrum of BBC output and not just the news. Even Basil Brush is at it.
"Covert smears on David Cameron's Conservatives are being made right across the state-owned network - sparking hundreds of viewers' complaints.
News coverage, chat shows and even kids' TV are guilty. We found:......."
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2898713/Sun-unearths-alarming-smears-against-Tories-by-state-owned-BBC.html
Andy C
There is a side panel story on the Sun's BBC article. Have a look if you get a chance.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the BBC were trying to be clever.
Wednesday's 'News at Six' had something on which required photographs entitled "Mr. Banker", "Mr Builder", Mrs Doctor" and "Mr Plod" to be shown.
The BBC, in their usual sensitive way showed a photograph of a police officer who had been accidentally killed during a firearms exercise for Mr. Plod.
The Coroner at the inquest ordered the BBC to send an executive to explain to the inquest just what they were up to and to apologise to the widow.
No one from the BBC turned up, with the BBC explaining, with some incredulity, that they "had difficulty in getting someone from London to Manchester"
Andy C
Ctesibius, thank you for those kind words.
ReplyDeleteAnd if I'm not very much mistaken I also have you to thank for this blog's USP - the idea of the interruption coefficient. It has proved an invaluable tool - simple but deadly!
Andy,
ReplyDeleteThe 'Sun' has awoken!
'Their' analysis of 'Question Time' EXACTLY matches mine. I'll post about this later tonight.
Hi Craig,
ReplyDeleteI am the same, despite having died in second century BC Alexandria.
I think the way you have taken the IC concept and proved it is fantastic and I take my hat off for the way you run your site. I hope that it is starting to become mainstream. The thing is, any single interview can go anyway, but the IC's show that the BBC persistently interrupts Conservatives more than other politicians. Why? It can only be as a result of hostility and hence bias. Your hard work must have produced hundreds of IC's now - I bet that you could average all of them when Con vs. Lab discussions took place and absolutely PROVE institutionalised bias. I'm sensitive about this having just paid my telly tax (reluctantly) again.
Keep up the great work!
Ctesibius
Ah, now that you mention it...
ReplyDeleteBy the end of February I'd reviewed 2194 interviews and did, as you suggest, a 'super average' for all the UK political parties.
The bias against right-of-centre parties (and nationalists) is clear and unequivocal:
UKIP (30) - 1.01
Conservatives (619) - 0.85
English Democrats (1) - 0.80
SNP (70) - 0.76
Sinn Fein (9) - 0.71
BNP (4) - 0.65
Plaid Cymru (11) - 0.65
DUP (10) - 0.62
Labour (1054) - 0.59
Liberal Democrats (333) - 0.44
Greens (16) - 0.26
TUV (2) 0.25
SDLP (3) - 0.20
UUP (2) - 0.15
Alliance (6) - 0.03
Respect (1) - 0
I've been hawking these results around to all manner of people. The Conservatives have begun to nibble (some more than others). UKIP 'bit' long ago. The BBC, meanwhile, first quibbled about it and then went very quiet when I pressed my case with examples from individual interviewees. They are hoping I'll give up. (I won't!)
You ancient Greeks continue to give us such good ideas!
Best wishes
Craig