WHO'S LEFT OUT?

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Dateline London's extreme left-liberal bias has thrown up the remarkable situation of having UK politics largely discussed by left-wingers. I've also noted before that the representative of the British press on the panel tends overwhelmingly to come from the Left (see my earlier list).
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Would that change during the general election? Time for an update:
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Well, week one (10/4) saw the appearance of New Labourite Steve Richards of The Independent. Week two (17/4) saw Conservative-supporting Janet Daley of The Sunday Telegraph (Janet was the first centre-right UK journalist on the show since 20/2!!!) Week three saw Michael White of The Guardian. Who was it this week? Yasmin Alibhai Brown of The Independent.ependent.
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If they give us either Janet Daley or Ann Leslie once every six or seven weeks they seem to think they've done their bit for impartiality!!!
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Instead of giving you a picture of any of these fine people, or even Gavin Esler, I will instead offer a photo of one of Yasmin's companions today, the far-left Portuguese writer Dr Eunice Goes. (I chose her completely at random of course).
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Referring to the story of the week, Yasmin Alibhai Brown said the broadcasting of Gordon Brown's private views was "unfair" and said that "personally...there was something bigoted about how she was going on about immigration". The lovely Eunice thought that "the public at large are not too bothered" about the story. (Funny, they were talking about it where I work). At least the usually sound Saul Zadka of AI London was on hand to talk of Brown's "completely insincere" apology and the "contempt" Brown seems to have for such working class people. Henry Chu of the LA Times, one of the usual crop of liberal Americans (there has never been a Republican-supporting American journalist on this show since I began watching it a couple of weeks ago), backed Yasmin ("Everyone is entitled to their views in private.")
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When the conversation turned to immigration, Mr Chu made reference to the "nasty" way the issue came up in 2005 but he was going too cautiously for Yasmin Alibhai Brown who, characteristically, leaped in hysterically to denounce the media for pandering to this talk of immigration as being a bad thing. Naturally, Eunice Goes agreed wholeheartedly and sung the praises of mass immigration. Gavin Esler intervened at this point to back up Eunice, saying "I've conducted some public meetings and ordinary members of the public have said precisely that, our health service could not exist without people who are migrants." When Saul raised the point that many people think immigration has been "excessive" and that the UK is a rare example of a country that doesn't know how many immigrants it has, he was leaped on by all and sundry, including the supposedly impartial host. Saul tried to continue but was shouted down by Yasmin Alibhai Brown. Gavin Esler did not ask her to let Saul speak. Eunice had a few angry goes at him too. Ah, the old rallying cry of the Left against the Right: "Shut up!!"
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Incidentally, for regular viewer of Dateline (if there are any, other than me and Martin at B-BBC!), the role usually provided by French lefty Marc Roche was this week taken by Eunice Goes, who said "most of the Conservative MPs who will come to parliament on May 6th, they are not urbane, metropolitian guys like David Cameron. They are, most..many of them, climate change deniers, homophobes, xenophobes and supporters of the death penalty." Yasmin Alibhai Brown loved it and laughed uproariously. That's the quality of commentator they have on Dateline!
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The late stages of the show brought attacks on Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch Press. When Yasmin had finished her attack on them, she praised Sky News for not being partisan. Gavin Esler just couldn't stop himself from chipping in "They've not been Fox News in other words!". Cue liberal laughter. Well, I'm going to chip in too: "They've not been BBC News either then!"