FLAWED-CASTING HOUSE

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Another quick glance backwards...
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The recurrent anti-capitalist strain on Radio 4's Broadcasting House was in evidence again last week, with presenter Paddy O'Connell referring (gratuitously) in passing to Sunday as "an oasis free from stock market speculation". He used this phrase in his introduction to the final election pontifications of those erudite old lefties Anthony Howard and Peter Hennessy (who have been the programme's chief election pundits throughout the whole campaign), who went back down memory lane to Jeremy Thorpe in 1974 before cooing over Jim Callaghan.
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The only other point to make about this (as was made by Deborah at B-BBC at the time) is that Paddy did his usual thing of leaping to Labour's defence. When Mr Howard brought up the now famous 'heated' telephone conversation last week between Clegg and Brown, Paddy stepped in to say "Although that was strongly denied in the briefings that were given..." and then to move the conversation swiftly on: "...but let me just ask you to nail this down then. What does the stopwatch say from history..." This blog is festooned with other (often far worse) examples of the same thing. (Just click on the label Paddy O'Connell at the bottom of this post).
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If you remember back a week, you will recall that the BBC was still banging on obsessively about electoral reform (when they hoped this could wreck the chances of a Conservative-led government in perpetuity). Paddy O'Connell paused last Sunday to mention "one of the big events in Westminster this weekend". What was that seismic event? "The arrival of a crowd chanting for voting reform. They gathered outside one of the multiple meeting of the Liberal Democrats". We heard their chanting. (He was to return to the same (minor) event later in the programme & played us another clip from it!)
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Paddy then went for a walk around London talking to people about the post-election uncertainty. He met newly-retired Labour MP Andrew McKinlay, Charles Kennedy and Michael Crick, a morris-dancing lady, a couple of workmen, a pro-Brown 'ordinary woman' and a psychotherapist called Lucy Beresford, who said that all this election uncertainty unsettles us because it reminds us of the uncertainty of our own date of death. I can truly say I'd never thought of it like that before!!
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Another of Paddy's very selective use of listener e-mails followed. I have also commented on this abuse before. Why are they almost exclusively from left-wing listeners? This one, John Anderson (not John at B-BBC I would wager), said "David Cameron constantly emphasized during the campaign 'Vote Clegg & you might get Brown'. So I did. Now it looks as if I voted Clegg and I might get Cameron." Yes, John, you did and you did. Oh the irony!
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Proportional representation was back on the agenda next as Paddy discussed its varieties with Dr Stuart Wilks-Heeg of what he called the "independent research organisation" Democratic Audit. 'Independent' it and Dr Wilks-Heeg may very well be, but Democratic Audit is a Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust-sponsored offshoot of Charter 88, and so very much the BBC's sort of "independent" organisation (i.e. a left-leaning one).
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A rare Tory on BH appeared for the paper review, albeit the somewhat semi-detached Michael Portillo. The other paper reviewers were Channel 4 News's political correspondent Cathy Newman and left-wing comedian Francesca Martinez.
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Paddy's run-down of the front pages of the Sunday papers began, of course, with the Independent on Sunday (36.43-36.53) before moving on, no less 'of course', to the Observer (36.53-37.09) and talk of Lord Ashcroft. The Sunday Times (37.09-37.28) on the shambles of election day and the Sunday Express (37.37-39.44) on Brown's future brought up the rear. No space for the Sunday Telegraph on the Mail on Sunday.
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The final seven minutes or so of the programme were the latest pages - written during the election - from newly-retired Labour MP & popular diarist Chris Mullin, read by the man himself. Mr Mullin is a very entertaining writer and has a refreshing detachment but he's still a staunch Labour partisan nonetheless and this was a sharply political piece. BH has given a platform to many Labour MPs over the past year, with Conservatives far, far thinner on the ground.
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There was just time for two more listener e-mails before the show ended. The first came from a Mrs Glenys Burgess: "Am I the only one to see the irony in news reporters repeatedly saying 'we need a decision for the markets'? The markets, with their massive self-centred mismanagement, have done more than most to create this situation." I wonder why Paddy picked up on that one! More anti-capitalism! The other was a joke (and not a bad one) from a Gerald Toranto: "When Caroline Lucas won Brighton Pavilion, was I the only one to wonder what the second prize was?"
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If you thought The Andrew Marr Show was biased just try its simultaneously-broadcast Radio 4 counterpart. Broadcasting House is far subtler in its bias but the bias is even more pervasive.
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(That wasn't as "quick" a glance backwards as I thought!)