BBC Complaints: The link you need!

Saturday 1 May 2010

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!"

9 comments:

  1. Great post as usual. Come to expect it really now!!
    Had typed a load of guff but somehow lost it in the ether and too late now as we're getting little on ready for her swimming lesson.

    Keep it up Craig. I'm sure far more people have now found your blog than are actually commenting.

    As for Eunice and people not being botherd, well it was certainly covered by all the networks I saw here accompanied by much sniggering. Several people who know I'm a Brit (are we still allowed to refer to ourselves like that) have commented to me about it and expressed incredulity that a prize prat like that irs running the country.
    Which bring me on the the old canard that the BBC liked to fly about Brown and world leaders "queueing up begging Gordon to return their calls to get his advice on how to handle their economies".
    The clown Brown could do better than get advice from Canada about handling financial crisis with regard to their handling of one in the mid 90's.

    Andy C

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  2. Thanks Andy. I felt I was flagging a bit mid-week but the scale of bias on Friday's 'Today' got me going again.

    On your message to the ether, that often happens to me when I comment (surprisingly often) - even on my own blog.

    I'd once written out one of my most deeply considered (and longest) replies to a comment only to find it vanish before my eyes. My fingers seem to have an independent existence sometimes! (Oh for a 'save' button on comments fields!) I tried again at a similar length & it vanished again! I gave up & went to bed!

    freddo41 is reporting similar reactions across the Atlantic to Brown the Clown. Their news clearly doesn't come filtered by the biased BBC!

    Canada, from what I've read, was extremely tough and successful. The Irish seem to be taking a similar approach. (The BBC has been shockingly negative about that). If we go down a similar route, the BBC will scream blue murder.

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  3. My own feeling that the token presence of non-Lefties, and the once or twice a year non Left-biased Question Time panels, are done purely to avoid the risk of upheld complaints to independent watchdogs.

    It would be even worse without the Ofcoms of the nation...

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  4. Also astonishing that labour (no, they can't have a capital letter) apparently complained four times during the BBC leaders' election debate. About what for God's sake???

    Then I got it. So that the BBC could say that all parties have complained of bias during the campaign so it's obviously balanced, of course.

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  5. "Yasmin Alibhai Brown loved it and laughed uproariously."

    And watching here at home, my wife and I laughed and cheered as well, because the comment was by and large true and most media commentators are far too chicken to say it.

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  6. Anonymous,

    It's not REALLY true though, is it?

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  7. Muito bonito !!!

    Portugal, the next Greece, fond as I am of the country and people. Portugal, that is, not Greece !

    I am far from being a little Scotlander, but am I alone in resenting foreigners commenting in public on British politics ? I don't do it in other countries.

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  8. David R
    Good point. Labour can make spurious complaints to their allies, the BBC, so the Beeboids can claim they are impartial. A dirty business.

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  9. How is it not a bigger story? Before the election Dateline at least tried to talk about the issues, and not just be left wing rants. Now not even a vague effort to hold back. I hope the government (both Conservatives and Lib Dems) eventually catch-up the problems on this program (among many) and call the BBC out on it.

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