BBC Complaints: The link you need!

Saturday 10 April 2010

YET ANOTHER WARK ON THE BIASED SIDE

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That "Cadbury's Law" which sounds so tasty to that BBC reporter was the main subject on last night's Newsnight, the basic gist of which can be copied and pasted from the live blog itself:

2248: Newsnight's political editor Michael Crick says Cadbury's Law will be a hard policy for the Conservatives to criticise. It's a patriotic issue - protecting UK firms from predatory foreign companies - and is likely to appeal to many traditional Tory voters, he says.
2242: "Cadbury's Law" is set to be a feature of the Labour manifesto, BBC Newsnight has learned. The policy has been prompted by the Kraft takeover of British chocolate giant Cadbury - American firm Kraft promised to keep the main factory open before the deal was agreed, but then changed its mind afterwards. Under Cadbury's Law, it would be harder for overseas takeovers of UK companies to happen - requiring two thirds of shareholders to agree, not 50% as it is now. Newsnight's economic editor Paul Mason says it's the main concession to the Unite union in the Labour manifesto.


Ah, a little Old Labour protectionism to warm the cockles of a Beeboid's heart, fire-proofed against Tory attack - according to Michael Crick! On the programme itself he called it "a very tricky issue for the Conservatives". (Guess what though? The Lib Dems support Labour on this!)
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What though of the other measure discussed in the programme - "Tory marriage plans"? Kirsty Wark turned to Crick and asked "More ideology that actual effect, or what?" In response, Crick emphasized the "symbolism" of the move, especially in trying to show "the Conservative commitment under David Cameron to civil partnerships, to gay marriage - and that's particularly important after the trouble they had only a few days ago, after Chris Graying's comments about bed and breakfasts being allowed to refuse gay couples staying." Ah, back to that again! What a surprise!
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Kirsty then turned to Paul Mason (who had earlier downplayed the importance of Unite to Labour's anti-Kraftwerk wheeze), and again asked a question from a stance hostile to the Tories' plans (this time from a feminist angle): "Is this an encouragement for one of the marriage (sic), probably the woman, to stay at home?"
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Interviewing Ed Davey of the Lib Dems, Kirsty, Newsnight's most biased interviewer, turned to the subject of the Tory marriage proposals and asked Mr Davey this testing question: "And how are we on the tax break in the Liberal Democrats then?" Mr Davey, being a Lib Dem, laid into the Tory plan with a vengeance. "Let's see how ludicrous this proposal is," he ended. "If you've been widowed, you're there in bereavement, you're going to have this take break taken away from you at that point? That surely can't be right." Any half-decent interviewer, acting at all times as devil's advocate, would then surely have felt it their obvious duty to ask the next question from a stance supportive of the Conservative position. This is Kirsty Wark though, so instead she merely echoed Ed Davey's point, and asked "And presumably the same will happen if couples split up and the the woman is left behind, she loses out as well." Well might Mr Davey have begun his reply "Absolutely!"
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Kirsty is both incompetent and deeply biased. Mere guidelines on impartiality during a general election mean nothing to her.

4 comments:

  1. Guidelines are temporary, BBC bias is permanent.

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  2. Craig,
    Great to see more people posting here now. Word is spreading !!

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  3. "Newsnight's economic editor Paul Mason says it's the main concession to the Unite union in the Labour manifesto."

    So Mason trying to associate Unite with a policy that traditional Tories would support, thus hoping to obviate any negative impact of the mention of the name Unite in relation to Labour. I doubt very much this policy, if it is one, had anything to do with making a concession to Unite. Just the extreme left-wing Mason propagandising again.

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