TOMORROW IS JUST ANOTHER TODAY

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The main 'controversy' of the day - the 55% threshold for any precipitous dissolution of parliament - was one of yesterday's main stories on Today. (I posted this first thing on Saturday morning!!)
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John Humphrys kicked off the 6.10 paper review with some Tory-bashing from The Daily Mirror (9.37-10.12) followed by some more Coalition-bashing from The Independent (10.12-10.51). Evan Davis was next, discussing the 'debate' on the Left about how to respond to the coalition - starting with some sour-grapes Tory-bashing from Johann Hari of The Independent (10.59-11.31), followed by Martin Kettle of The Guardian (11.31-12.08) hoping for salvation from the 'reactionaries' courtesy of the Lib Dems. Finally, John Humphrys turned to The Sun's interview with David Cameron. (12.08-12.40). So the anti-government Left got 82% of the action, the pro-government Right just 18%.
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Next John Humphrys turned to BBC political correspondent Peter Hunt. His first "question to Mr Hunt? "It is hitting a few problems Peter, the government?" Peter's reply? "Yes." The 55% threshold "is causing concern at the moment in public from senior Labour figures, some Conservative privately. And I think that's not going to go away, the concern". Mr Hunt then quoted the criticisms of Lord Falconer. And a half-hearted attempt to put into words what supporters of the move are saying (especially the Lib Dems), he then returned to the attack: "But it's the devil of this 55% that is concerning constitutional experts, senior Labour figures...I mean one constitutional expert said "they're doctoring the constitution, they're priming the pitch" and senior Tories in private...I think the problems for the government will be if senior Tories come out in public to express their views."
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Nick Cosgrove, one of the BBC's gaggle of left-wing business correspondents, was flagging up more problems for the new government - and seeing who saluted. After talking of 'grim times' for private equity companies, part of that 'grimness' arising from the "proposal by the new coalition government to raise capital gains tax", Cosgrove went hard at it with his main guest Keith Ludeman, CEO of the rail and bus operating company The Go-Ahead Group. Straight away we got "You've got a new transport secretary Philip Hammond to deal with in the new government. Are you optimistic about the coalition and its attitude to your industry?" Mr Ludeman was not going to be drawn into party politics but welcomed some of the coalition's priorities. "That may be the case," replied Nick sceptically, "but transport is going to be low down the list of priorities, below things like health and the police, so we're going to see cuts in the transport budget". (As if we weren't under Labour!!). "Cos the Liberal Democrats actually wanted real cuts in rail fares in their manifesto, which would be disastrous for you?" was the next question. Then Cosgrove bigged up a Labour policy: "What about the free bus passes for the over 60s? I mean that's been very popular. Do you think we can afford them as a nation? Should they be ditched?" He then quipped "I'm sure you get free fares in any case." Mr Ludeman didn't snigger back, probably because he doesn't and wouldn't think of abusing his position in that way. (He's a private sector boss after all, not a public sector manager). Mr Ludeman refused to bite on any of Cosgrove's hooks and was an impressive guest.
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John Humphrys (6.29am): "Over the next couple of weeks Radio 4 will be taking us back to the 1980s. Here's Carolyn Brown." What did Carolyn say? "We'll have three dramas set against the momentous events of that decade. We begin tonight with a satirical look at the Wapping dispute." The title of the play? "Greed All About It." Do you suspect that all the remaining dramas are going to be similarly negative about that evil decade of Conservative rule? Coming up on 17th May, according to The Radio Times, we will get: "Afternoon Play: The End of the World: It's 1983: The Cold War is raging, Thatcher is in government, Britain is in recession and 17-year old Simon, living in the shadow of Sellafield, is haunted by fears of nuclear holocaust. When he falls in love with Tasha, a beautiful anti-nuclear activist, he sees his chance to make a difference." Is a play on the Miners' Strike (from the perspective of the striking miners naturally) or about the sinking of the Belgrano (not The Falklands Play I bet!) still to come? The BBC have their view of the 1980s. I have mine.
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With the 6.41 paper review, would fairness win out and the Conservative-backing papers get both the first crack of the whip and the lion's share? Well, no. Still this review was certainly an improvement on the one half an hour earlier. It began again though with the Mirror's Tory-bashing attack over the 55% bar (41.26-41.48) followed by more critical comments from the Guardian (41.48-41.52). The Daily Mail calls it "a shabby stitch-up", so it too got a mention (41.52-41.56). The Cameron interview with the Sun followed (41.56-42.14) with John Humphrys repeating what he said last time but at less length, then came the Telegraph's news of Sam Cam's own "drastic pay cut" (42.14-42.31). Evan then brought us the Independent on Bercow (42.38-42.44). It wouldn't be a Today paper review featuring John Humphrys without the Independent!
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Humph then discussed DC's first trip as PM to the "potentially more hostile territory of Scotland" with Scotland editor Brian Taylor. (Neither forgot to mention that the Tories have just one seat up there). We were treated to Mr Taylor's opinion that Mr Cameron's statement that he's "going to govern Scotland with respect" (quoted by Humph in a tone of total incredulity) is "a bit vacuous".
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The ever-present Peter Hennessy was present after 7 o'clock to discuss the protocol for new prime ministers, according to the Today website, but actually was mainly there to discuss the 55% bar. He was "very, very surprised" at the "very, very iffy politics" of the proposal. We learn from his use of the "prime the pitch" phrase that he was the constitutional expert quoted earlier by Peter Hunt (as I suspected). "I really don't think it's on and I'm not in the least bit surprised that people are very worried indeed about it. It creates a very, very poor impression for the new politics". (He's been in too many studios with Norman Smith recently, as the hyperbole is catching).
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The next section was about Labour: After losing power for the first time in 13 years, is the New Labour project finally over? Two newly-elected Labour MPs, Rachel Reeves (I.C. of 0) and Chris Williamson (I.C.of 0.7), discuss how the party is trying to re-invent itself. John Humphrys presided, asking among other things: "And what about that word 'progressive', that Chris Williamson just used, and people are using all the time now? Maybe you should call yourselves 'The Progressive Labour Party' or 'Labour progressives' or something?"
Humph talked sarcastically about "Nick and Dave" "loving each other" and "almost physically hugging each other"
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The 7.41 paper review began with another attack on the new government from the Guardian: 41.47-42.00, but the Telegraph followed (42.00-42.20) & then we got the FT's take (briefly) on Europe's economic woes (42.20-42.29). Humph took over and went straight to the Independent and its attacks on the coalition (42.29-42.42). He read this out in a serious tone before adopting a larky tone as to read out the Sun's enthusiastic response to the coalition's first few days (42.42-42.48). Evan Davis took over again & went straight back to the Indie (42.48-43.02) for its take on the first cabinet meeting...before he turned to the Times (43.01-43.11) for a description of Baroness Warsi's dress! John Humph took over again and it was straight back again to the Indie (43.11-43.49), this time for a justice story. They do like the Independent!
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I mentioned the following segment in my previous post - actually, due to my topsy-turvy methods of composition, it seems like a subsequent post!! - (and note the opening sentence of the Today blurb, which should surely have read "A number of MPs, mostly from the Labour Party, have condemned..."):
0821
MPs have condemned the new government's plans to introduce fixed-term five-year parliaments and raise the threshold at which parliament can be dissolved to 55 percent of a Commons vote. Professor Robert Hazell, director of the Constitution Unit, UCL, and John Gummer (I.C. of 0), a former Tory minister and party chairman, examine the pros and cons of the proposals.
I would just add that Prof Hazell, who has been quite keen in the past to attack the Conservatives over their constitutional agenda - and has been, perhaps not entirely coincidentally, a regular on the BBC doing just that -, by pouring cold water on the fuss over 55% ensured that he, unlike Prof Hennessy, wouldn't get a mention in Clare Spencer's article.

OUT OF KILTER

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The balance between the individual and the state was the theme of this morning's Today programme. The balance between the Today's programme's treatment of the three old parties is mine.
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There were three big political interviews.
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The first was a thoughtful one conducted between James Naughtie and Labour's John Denham, all very civilised on Jim's part, all very party political on John's.
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The last was a less philosophical one between James Naughtie and the engaging Lib Dem David Laws, where Naughtie seemed more interesting in tying the Lib Dems to the Tories. Still, it was far from being a hostile interview.
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What of the central interview? This was between Evan Davis and Conserative Michael Gove. Evan is more than capable of thoughtful interviewing (it used to be his forte) but this was no thoughtful interview, being full of aggressive interruptions and cynical comments. Michael Gove eventually had to criticise him for being so cynical - entirely reasonably - and then, good man!, went on to say that Today (among many other programmes) always concentrates on government initiatives and that he was glad today to get the rare chance to talk on the programme about exciting non-government initiatives. He's not wrong about that.
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John Anderson (whose ideas, when I first began looking at how to use interruption coefficients a year or so ago, have helped shape all my subsequent actions) notes, over at B-BBC:
The intro was that Tory ideas are a "hodgepotch". Now that's a nice unbiased start! Then described as a "great fluff". And "half-baked".
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What do the interruption coefficients tell us here?
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John Denham (James Naughtie) - 0.4
David Laws (James Naughtie) - 0.5
Michael Gove (Evan Davis) - 1.4
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Breaking down the Denham and Gove interviews shows the following:
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John Denham

34.14 Q1
34.22 A1
34.58 Q2 (long & ponderous)
35.37 A2
36.13 Interruption 1/Q3
36.17 A3
36.30 Interruption 2/Q4
36.46 A4
37.38 Q5
37.54 A5
38.37 Q6
38.47 A6
39.27 Q7
39.40 A7
40.03 Interview ends

Michael Gove

10.47 Q1
11.00 A1
12.o2 Q2
12.30 A2
12.44 Interruption 1/Q3
12.54 A3
12.57 Interruption 2/Q4
13.05 A4
13.16 Interruption 3/Q5
13.35 A5
13.39 Interruption 4
13.42 A5 (continued)
13.44 Interruption 5/Q6
13.52 A6
14.13 Interruption 6/Q7
14.25 A7
14.27 Interruption 7
14.34 A7 (continued)
14.42 Interruption 8/Q8
14.49 A8
15.00 Q9
15.18 A9
15.22 Q10
15.26 A10
15.28 Interruption 9/Q11
15.45 A11
15.51 Interruption 10/Q12
16.09 A12
17.28 Q13
17.41 A13
17.48 Interruption 11/Q14
18.02 A14
18.06 Interruption 12
18.09 A14 (continued) - a brilliant answer!
19.34 Interview ends

It other words, it's the standard Today programme pattern.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8657000/8657637.stm

NOT MAKING FRIENDS WITH NIGEL

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There are several ways to look at the remarkable levels of bias in this morning's Today programme.
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The first is to compare the respective lengths of each interview with a party politician. Given how many parties were interviewed, this comparison becomes especially telling. Here are the results in descending order::
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1. Peter Mandelson (Labour) - 11m 12s
2. Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) - 4m 29s
3. Caroline Lucas (Green) - 4m 16s
4. Vince Cable (Lib Dem) - 4m 5s
5. William Hague (Con) - 4m 0s
6. Nigel Farage (UKIP) - 3m 44s
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Why was Mandy given getting on for three times more air-time than anyone else? Why was Nigel Farage granted the least time? Why did William Hague get less time than either Nicola Sturgeon or Caroline Lucas?
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Note also that Mandy got the prize spot at 8.10, the spot all politicians want.
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The second way is to compare the interruption coefficients (the number of interruptions/the length of the interview.) Again these make dramatic reading, particularly for one party, and will be given in descending order:
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1. Nigel Farage (Evan Davis) - 2.3
2. Vince Cable (Evan Davis) - 1.2
3. Nicola Sturgeon (James Naughtie) - 0.9
4. William Hague (Evan Davis) - 0. 5
4. Peter Mandelson - (Evan Davis) - 0.5
5. Caroline Lucas (Evan Davis) - 0.2
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If that suggests that Nigel Farage got a HUGELY rougher ride from Evan Davis than either Peter Mandelson or William Hague, or anyone else for that matter, well the suggestion is borne out by the facts. (The William Hague interview might have contained a lot more interruptions but it was conducted down a phone with a very audible one-second delay, which always makes interrupting tricky). Nigel Farage was interrupted 8 times, Caroline Lucas just once.
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A third way is to compare the interviews schematically. I haven't the time to do schemes for them all, so I'll just compare the two most extreme interviews - Evan's interviews with Nigel Farage (go Nigel!) and Caroline Lucas:
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Nigel Farage:
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0.22 Q1
0.29 A1 (24s)
0.53 Q2
1.05 A2 (4s)
1.09 Interruption 1/Q3
1.16 A3 (1s)
1.17 Interruption 2/Q4
1.19 A4 (6s)
1.25 Interruption 3/Q5
1.28 A5 (17s)
1.45 Interruption 4
1.49 Q6
2.05 A6 (2s)
2.07 Interruption 5/Q7
2.20 A7 (19s)
2.39 Q8
2.48 A8 (7s)
2.55 Interruption 6/Q9
3.17 A9 (8s)
3.25 Interruption 7/Q10
3.28 A10 (16s)
3.44 Interruption 8/Q11
3.47 A11 (4s)
3.51 Interview ends

Caroline Lucas:
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0.22 Q1
0.28 A1 (45s)
1.13 Q2
1.34 A2 (41s)
2.15 Q3
2.45 A3 (46s)
3.31 Interruption 1/Q4
3.55 A4 (37s)
4.32 Interview ends
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The contrast could hardly be sharper. Caroline Lucas was allowed to be expansive in her answers and to put across her vision at the end (before she ran out of time). Nigel Farage was barely allowed to string a couple of sentences together without being disrupted by interruptions. Indeed he spoke for 51.5% of the interview, while Evan Davis spoke for 48.5%. Call that interviewing? Debating - or arguing - more like!
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A fourth way, and just sticking with these two interviews, is to compare the substance of the questions (or points) put by the interview. Are they hostile, contradictory, neutral or supportive?
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Here are Evan's contributions:

Caroline Lucas

1. Have you been disappointed by the intensity with which environment issues have been debated during this campaign?
2. Right, so it is clear you are different to the other parties. One of the key things about the Green Party, as I understand it, are ultimately you think we ought to put less emphasis on material consumption. We have, if you like, to reconfigure the culture of consumption. Am I right in that?
3. Well give me a scale of how big an impact a Green vision or a Green government would be if we had one. Let's take the example of flights. You know, what sort of number of flights, what sort of change in the number of flights would you expect in say after ten years of a Green government? Are we talking a 100% reduction in the number of flights, a 5o% reduction, a 10% reduction, a lower growth rate in the number..? Just give me some sense of the scale of impact you want to have.
4. But you're sounding a little less ambitious than I might have thought. I mean if it is just a matter of saying no more flights, we replace the domestic flights with trains and some of the near-continental flights with fast trains, that's not going to do it, is it? That's not going to give us human beings kind of an extra twenty minutes on this planet in terms of the scale at which we're burning the resources and putting them into the atmosphere.

Nigel Farage

1. Do you think there's been enough honesty from the other parties about their plans about taxation and spending in this election campaign?
2. Well, 50 billion pounds in Year One plus honesty means you will be able to tell us in an amount of detail what we are going to lose in Year One of our UKIP government.
3. No the 45 million, no the 45 million...is it 45 million? Isn't that a gross figure not a net figure?
4. Right, so that's a bogus figure then, isn't it? The net figure is the relevant figure.
5. OK, so the first thing that goes is everything we've spent on...
6. But Mr Farage you were the one who said we need honesty, you're the one who said we need to cut 50 billion out of public spending straight away and then citing you're example you come up with something like the Equality and Human Rights Commission! It's not going to be 50 billion! We don't spend 50 billion of quangos like the Equality and Human Rights Commission...
7. We also...we spend tens of millions of pounds on the quangos but some of them are ones that are actually providing very substantive services, they're not just ones that are providing equality and human rights and things like that.
8. Do you think it's really that easy (laughing) to draw a line between front line services and back office services? I mean you're probably counting a teacher as a front line service presumably....
9. Yes, but a lot of those MOD people are kind of engineers and others who are repairing vehicles or testing things, scientists. I mean, these are not people who are useless. They are people who are doing a very important job. Of course there probably are some bureaucrats, aren't there. You don't really have any idea do you how many are doing useless activity and how many are doing useful activity because you haven't...
10. And how much does that take you towards your 50 billion in the first year?
11. You haven't told us either. You haven't given us the detail either, any more than the others have!
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With the Green leader Evan Davis was thoughtful and spoke quietly and slowly. With the UKIP legend he was excitable, aggressive and loud. He spent almost all of his interview with Nigel F contradicting his every statement. His tone with Caroline was friendly, with Nigel it was full of scorn and felt at times more like a dressing down than an interview.
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There are doubtless several other ways of recording such extraordinary bias but that's enough for now. I can't listen to that interview again, lest my temples explode!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/default.stm

ALL ROADS LEAD TO BIAS

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Crime was the theme of this morning's Today programme, and several acts of GBH were carried out against the Conservatives during the course of it. Indeed, the whole programme seemed to be structured in such a way as to make the mugging of Chris Grayling at 8.15 its focal point.
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It began with Mark Easton telling Justin Webb that Labour were right about the crime figures, and that crime shot up under Ma Thatcher and the Conservative Gang but fell back again after Labour's Untouchables came to power. After initially sketching each party's view of whether crime is rising or falling, Justin turned to Easton and joked "I wasn't going to ask you who's right and who's wrong Mark." He might as well have done. Easton's description of what has happened to crime over the last thirty years would have been music to Alan Johnson's ears. The stats he used are those of the opinion-poll-like British Crime Survey, recommended by Easton as the best way of judging the figures.
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Justin Webb then interviewed Chris Huhne. He gave him a very easy ride, but got him to agree with Easton that crime has been falling significantly under Labour. Just one interruption in five minutes saw a very low interruption coefficient here of 0.2.
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Alan Johnson came on at 7.33. There were no audio clips from crime victims before his interview, no academics critical of Labour's record, indeed no pre-prepared ambushes whatsoever. He was simply interviewed. Evan Davis was the interviewer and he did plenty of interrupting (achieving an IC of 1.5). As to why the public remains unconvinced by the official statistics, he got Mr Johnson to concede that it wasn't just the Tories who were guilty, but when Al said it was the Conservative-supporting media (ie. 'The Daily Mail'!) as well Evan gave an 'Ah!' and let matters rest - for the time being. His next interruption was merely to say "'It's all working now' would be your perception?"
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The next phase of the interview did get a concession that not everything was rosy in the garden, though it was laced with a repetition of the good news: "Just want to clarify. Because we are saying that crime is down and violent crime is down I think it's very fair to point out, I thought you'd like to comment on this, that the drop in violent crime is primarily domestic crime, acquaintance violence. If you look at muggings or violence committed by strangers, I know you would want to clarify, that has really barely budged over the last 15 years. It just carries on more or less level, doesn't it?" When Mr Johnson said that domestic violence has gone down by 50%, Evan chipped in supportively "Very dramatic." Mr Johnson repeated "Very dramatic." Still Evan did get him to admit that muggings were "stable" and "not going down".
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He next returned to his original point and said, as well as the Conservatives and the media, maybe you have contributed to the public's fear by all those law and order bill...and promptly wasted the rest of the interview (two minutes) ploughing this minor point - a minor point which only served to reinforce the BBC narrative: Crime has fallen since the Conservatives left office. The Conservatives are lying over the crime statistics. Vote Lib-Lab. Shouldn't Evan have used those remaining minutes to interrogate Mr Johnson over some of his manifesto pledges?
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Before Chris Grayling came on we heard an audio clip from an OBE-winning woman from Bristol, Mary Smith, who said that crime has dramatically fallen in her area, then an interview with Prof Rod Martin, a crimologist at Bristol University. "Can we nail this business of violent crime first of all," said Justin Webb. "I don't want to get bogged down in statistics and want to talk about other things, but when the Conservatives say we live in a more dangerous country thanwhen Labour came to power, I mean in so far as we can say, can we say that that's true or false?" Prof Martin thinks the Conservative position is "not defensible". That, surely, is why Today invited him onto the programme!!! To reinforce the message, Justin asked "So they are simply flat wrong when they make that allegation?" "Yes", replied Mr Martin. Such were the tripwires laid in front of Mr Grayling.
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Everything in this programme seemed to lead to this interview. Mark Easton's initial 'analysis' of the crime figures, which 'refuted' the Conservatives and showed that crime has fallen significantly under Labour, the easy interview with Chris Huhne (which plugged away at the same point), the part-flattering, part-probing (but far from hostile) interview with Alan Johnson (which plugged away at the same point), Mrs Smith saying that crime has fallen on her estate, Prof Martin saying that crime has fallen significantly under Labour...all leading to 8.15, Evan Davis and Chris Grayling.
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The interruptions flew again, even more so that with Alan Johnson (I.C. of 1.8). This time, however, it was straight down to business, there were no supportive interruptions and Evan's tone (and I like Evan Davis, so I'd rather not say this) was noticably tarter than with Alan Johnson. He debated which crime figures to trust with Mr Grayling, advocating the British Crime Survey (asserting, at one stage - in echo of Easton, that they are "the best statistics") against Mr Grayling's preference for the recorded crime figures. This was a dialogue of the deaf. Evan Davis later rubbished Mr Grayling's anecdotes, heckled him ("We always have!") and did that thing I always think interviewers should NOT do - disagree with their interviewee then change the subject without granting him a right to reply ("Well, we've had gangs, we've had problems with teenagers for as long as we've recognised the existence of teenagers. Just to follow up with a quick, specific policy proposal of yours, I think on knife crime...")
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The Today programme's aim was clearly to show that the Conservatives are wrong on crime. Listeners would be forgiven for believing them. I have to admit I found myself being persuaded by the BBC line. Chris Grayling's inability to get past Evan Davis's constant interruptions didn't help. I am armour-plated against BBC bias, so if even I find myself struggling to believe the Tories on this one, either the Tories are very wrong...or the biased BBC has done a very good job indeed. I think I know which it is. The whole thing stank of a set-up.
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Like yesterday.
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EVAN'S ABOVE!

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Well, David Cameron won that skirmish with Evan Davis all hands down! http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8610000/8610852.stm
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For the first few minutes the interruptions flew (and Evan's voice got higher and higher) as he he pressed the Conservative leader to say that there would be lots of job losses in the public sector if the Tories won the election, much more than if Labour got back into power. Then Evan Davis pretty much stopped interrupting and the interview calmed down into a much more gentle attack on the Tories' poster about Labour widening equality (Evan defended Brown's record, Mr Cameron scuppered it). At the end it was even quite good-humoured as Evan asked him what his favourite paper is. (At least he didn't ask him what his favourite colour is!)
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David Cameron was very lucky to get Evan Davis, the least aggressive and the least overtly biased of the five Today presenters. Just imagine if he'd have been up against Justin Webb, Sarah Montague, John Humphrys or, God forbid, the rabid James Naughtie!
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How's this for an unexpected set of interruption coefficients?
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7/4 James Naughtie - Nick Clegg - 1.4
8/4 John Humphrys - Gordon Brown - 2.1
9/4 Evan Davis - David Cameron - 1.1
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ON AND ON AND ON

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So it's been another Lord Ashcroft day at the BBC. The non-story that just won't die was back again, zombie-like, to stalk the studios of the BBC.
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I clicked onto the Today website a couple of hours ago and listened to this morning's programme. It featured one of the most pointless and frankly tedious interviews I've ever had the misfortune to sit through - Evan Davis asking arcane question after arcane question on the issue to an infinitely patient William Hague. This nonsense went on for nearly thirteen minutes and was both preceded by and followed by some anti-Tory insinuations from Nick Robinson. (Where did it all go wrong for Nick Robinson?). http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8574000/8574008.stm
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It came about because a Cabinet Office document about Lord Ashcroft was leaked to the Today programme this morning. With Labour in the mire over Gordon Brown's forced retraction of (some of) his lies over defence spending and the party's umbilical ties to the Unite union coming in for telling criticism, what could have been more convenient for Labour than a leak that puts Lord Ashcroft and the Tories at the top of the news cycle at the BBC? And what better programme to leak it to than the Today programme? The Today programme, as the leaker(s) would have surely have known, leaped on the story like a pack of starving hyenas.
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For a commentary on how Today handled this please click on the comments on the Biased BBC website: http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/03/open-thread_17.html. Starting at the beginning with It's all too much and Cassie King, you will read some angry and insightful reactions to it all as it unfolded.
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I note in passing that the BBC's Anti-Tory Correspondent Norman Smith reported for duty in the programme's first hour. (Try keeping him away!) He blaahed on and on, adding "inevitably it will fuel Labour and Lib Dem demands for more answers as to when he (Mr Hague) knew what." Labour and Lib Dem demands indeed! What about BBC demands? They are at least as keen as Labour and the Lib Dems! Nowhere in this discussion between Norm and Justin Webb did either speculate as to who had leaked this official document or as to why it had been leaked today? A revealing omission. The leaker(s) may have been banking on Norman Smith. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/b006qj9z/console .
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Not a sheep compares the BBC News website's enthusiasm for the Ashcroft story with its reluctance to dwell on the Brown/Chilcot story:
http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/03/whats-news.html
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The World at One followed, leading with Lord Ashcroft. (Of the BA strike and Brown's lies, however, no time for discussion was found). Martha Kearney began "Just to remind you of the details of all this" before doing just that, boringly. Norman Smith was back, of course, playing us a clip from today's select committee meeting where a Labour baroness who was present when the 'deal' was done in 2000 was questioned by the committee's Labour chairman. (The Conservatives boycotted the meeting, regarding it understandably as nothing more than a political stunt.) Another attendee, the civil servant who brokered the deal, Sir Hayden Phillips "conceded", said Norm, that he "was - to put it mildly- very far from being a tax expert" (Norm is never sparing with superlatives) unlike the more "tax savvy" Lord Ashcroft and his Tory representative James Arbuthnot. The insinuation here, of course, is that the wicked Tories pulled the wool over Sir Hayden's eyes. "Now there was also criticism of the role of William Hague with Labour MPs (yes Labour MPs!) questioning how Mr Hague could not have have known about Lord Ashcroft's tax status since cabinet office documents released today ('released today'?! 'Leaked today' surely?) show that he'd been kept informed about the final deal reached by Mr Arbuthnot."
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When the story was at its most feverish a week or two ago, I noted that the BBC seemed to be ringing around the Conservative Party to find any Tories who were willing to criticise Lord Ashcroft, finally alighting on Barry Legg and Elizabeth Peacock - both of whom lost their seats in the 1997 general election. Guess who followed Norman ('Don't mention the leak') Smith? Yes, Barry Legg again. Mr Legg did indeed criticise Lord Ashcroft, calling for him to be sacked, and - remarkably - defended the various Labour and Lib Dem non-doms against any defence of equivalence. At least he did also defend William Hague (so that's only two out of three for The World at One!).
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In fairness space was also given to Ian Liddell Grainger, one of the Conservative MPs who boycotted the committee. He gave a very robust performance, and challenged the BBC to say when it received the leaked document, as if it received it "before 12.00 yesterday" then it proves that the government leaked it. The BBC, he said, could clear the matter up by providing just that bit of information.
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The story has also led PM. Peter Hunt replaced Norman Smith. but said much the same sort of thing (just without the superlatives). Still at least this programme didn't fixate on the story, and Eddie Mair's discussion with Andrew Hoskins of ComRes about the public's reaction to all these sort of stories (Labour and Unite as much as the Conservatives and Lord Ashcroft) was an interesting one.

The leaker must be delighted at the BBC's obliging behaviour.
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HOPE SPINS ETERNAL

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Labour's care services minister Phil Hope said that he "didn't mind" Evan Davis interrupting him "in the middle of a sentence" towards the end of a five minute interview on this morning's Today programme, as it showed Evan's passion for the subject. Oddly, I was thinking that Evan had been showing too little passion, letting Mr Hope waffle on in classic Yes-Minister-style ('talk-and-talk-and-talk-but-say-absolutely-nothing'). The overall interruption coefficient was a low 0.4.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8555000/8555105.stm

AN EVAN-HANDED PROGRAMME?

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Evan Davis will be on BBC1 tonight with a programme about immigration. The programme was previewed on this morning's Today by the man himself, and two guests. One was free-thinking Labour MP Frank Field, the other was Labour-supporting economist and keen advocate of economic migration Philippe Legrain of the L.S.E. (of course).

As well as praising Labour's record on the issue during the last thirteen years (and having a dig at the Tories) - and bashing the bankers for good measure - Mr Legrain, author of Immigrants, Your Country Needs Them, praised Evan's documentary: "I thought the programme was excellent." He continued, "It was balanced", but in what he went on to say he seems to have been using the word 'balanced' to mean 'supportive of my position': "It presented material that contradicted many of the scare stories and prejudice about immigration and I thought your conclusion, which is that Britain wouldn't be able to cope easily without its foreign workers, was just right."

Mr Field immediately picked Evan up on his figures, saying that the presenter's statement that "hundreds of thousands of motivated foreign workers" had come to work in Britain was a severe underestimate: "I mean it's not, as you suggested, hundred of thousands, it's been millions coming in."

'RIGHT'...

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I've been bogged down with work this week, so I must apologize for the stingy number of posts I've been able to write over the last few days. Things will return to normal next week (as I grab back some flexitime)! I've recorded all the interruption coefficients though and, of course, heard lots of biased BBC reporting. I just haven't had the time to sound off about it all. I will catch up with some of the worst examples this weekend (there are many to choose from).
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In lieu of my own posts, here is another fine post from Not a sheep's blog. Here he nails Evan Davis in the act of 'moving the story on' when in becomes too embarrassing for Gordon Brown:
http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/02/bbc-just-see-almost-everything-from.html

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Have a listen to the interview and you'll hear that Not a sheep is spot on:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8509000/8509875.stm

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I have a soft spot for Lord Krebs. I used to love his textbook on behavioural ecology and he talks good sense on such things as 'organic' food.

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THE STRANGE CASE OF EVAN JEKYLL AND EVAN HYDE

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The issue of parliamentary privelege was discussed with Sir George Young for the Conservatives and Harriet Harman for Labour on this morning's Today programme.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8503000/8503608.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8503000/8503686.stm
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Harriet Harman faced Sarah Montague, was interrupted twice and scored an Interruption Coefficient of 0.6. Sir George Young faced Evan Davis, was interrupted seven times and scored an Interruption Coefficient of 1.3. The I.C.s suggest that Sir George's interview was at least twice as tough as Hattie's, and this is certainly how it felt listening to both interviews.
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Evan, as when interviewing Chris Grayling on 3/2/10, was not the quiet, thoughtful Evan Davis we know from his interviews with Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, but an aggressive, mocking, opinionated character. The man is turning into James 'Jekyll-when-talking-to-Labour,-Hyde-when-talking-to-the-Tories' Naughtie.
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The bulk of Evan's interview with Sir George did not focus on parliamentary privilege at all, but instead hammered away at the BBC-Guardian-Labour Axis's favourite obsession, Lord Ashcroft. 38.5% of the interview discussed the former, topical issue, whereas 61.5% of the interview fixated on Lord Ashcroft.
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The sheer scale of BBC bias is now growing week by week. There must be an election in the offing.
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EVAN SEES RED MIST

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My early high hopes for Evan Davis have been fading month by month. His interview this morning with Chris Grayling, over the Conservatives' alleged misuse of crime statistics, was not one of this thoughtful, relaxed interviews - far from it. Evan's tone here has been very accurately described by Not a sheep as "indignant". There were 6 stroppy interruptions, resulting in an I.C. of 1.0. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8494000/8494982.stm
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If Evan is on tomorrow's 'Today' and gets to interview a Labour politician, I hope he tackles him and waxes equally righteous on the issue of Gordon Brown's outright lies at Prime Minister's Questions:
http://dizzythinks.net/2010/02/brown-accused-of-lying-to-parliament-by.html. I suspect he won't.
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EVAN FALLS TO EARTH

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The shine is coming off Evan Davis and my hopes that he would soften the left-wing bias of Jim and John are fading. This morning's political interviews provided further evidence than Evan is starting to go down the Naughtie route. The interviews with Labour's Lord Myners and the Conservatives' Michael Gove lasted almost identical lengths, but whereas Lord Myners was only interrupted twice (I.C. of 0.4) Mr Gove was interrupted six times (I.C. of 1.2). Moreover the highly sceptical tone of Evan's questioning of Michael Gove was not matched by his much more reverent questioning of Paul Myners, as you can hear for yourself:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8464000/8464789.stm
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TAKE ME YOUR LEADER, EVAN

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In the light of Evan Davis's pretty tough interview with David Cameron yesterday, I thought I might look back and see how its interruption coefficient of 1.1 compares with Evan's other interviews with Cameron and Gordon Brown since I began my survey in June 2009. He's conducted two interviews with each man, so this could be a fruitful exercise:
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Gordon Brown - 0.4 - 1/6/09
David Cameron - 0.8 - 6/10/09
Gordon Brown - 0.2 - 13/11/09
David Cameron - 1.1 - 7/1/10
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Averaged out, this means it's 0.95 for Cameron and 0.3 against Brown - suggesting that Evan Davis is three times tougher in interviews with Cameron than he is with Brown.
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Of course, he's not Jim Naughtie, who's only conducted one such interview in this period:
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David Cameron - 1.7 - 2/6/09
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WHILE TWEEDLEDEE'S AWAY...

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Today's Today programme didn't include Jim Naughtie (or John Humphrys) so the bias was far less extreme than yesterday. There was, for example, an interesting discussion on aspiration between Conservative cutie Justine Greening and likable Labour MP John Hutton (chaired fairly enough by Justin Webb). The left-liberal bias appeared, however, in the choice of guests. For example, the only other guest who talked about aspiration was another voice from the Left, Lisa Harker, co-director of the Labour-aligned Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). Evan Davis, who I (perhaps very naively) place some hope in for the salvation of this deeply biased programme, blotted his copy-book here by asking Labour-leaning Lisa a question critical of the Conservatives, though no questions critical of Labour (and asked it as if she were a wholly non-aligned expert): "The difficulty associated with the Conservatives is that if you just talk about all the horrible things you have to do it's not going to get you very far so you need some positive word, and this is a bit of a catch-all." Lisa said "yes" to this.
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This was not wholly the case, however, as the school closures caused by the snow were discussed with Stephen Alambritis, chief spokesman of the Federation of Small Businesses, and Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers. Still we had 'economics expert' Simon Johnson, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, discussing banking system reforms, a self-declared man of 'the centre', though one who openly says he voted for Barack Obama.
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The issue of bias really arises though over the discussion of David Blunkett's warnings that the Conservatives will spend more than Labour at the general election. Here the guests were a neutral, Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, an authority on political finance at Brunel University, and a partisan for Labour, Sir Chris Powell, Labour's former advertising expert. Why no Conservative supporter?
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A MORE BALANCED SPLASH

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Today this morning was guest-edited by the wonderful David Hockney, That's why we got to hear from the (very French) conservative philosopher Alain Finkielkraut on jogging (like Mr Hockney, he's not a fan!). We also got to hear from a left-wing historian David Kynaston on smoking (of which Mr Hockney is very much a fan!) That's how Today should be edited every day - with the guiding principle of political balance to the fore.
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Away from David Hockney and smoking, the programme featured futile condemnation of the Chinese government's execution of the drug-trafficking Brit, Akmal Shaikh, from Labour minister Ivan Lewis (I.C. of 0 for Evan Davis). It also featured an interview with another anti-death-penalty campaigner, the UN's Philip Alston. (You might be suspected of thinking that the BBC is not in favour of capital punishment!)
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Talking of cruel, authoritarian regimes, our own beloved Labour government's record on the issue of personal freedom is hardly a glowing one & (following a report from Nick Robinson that gave one bite of the cherry each to Bob Marshall-Andrews (Labour) and David Willetts (Conservative) and, naturally, two bites of the cherry to Lib Dem Chris Huhne) ol' Justin Webb challenged David Blunkett about the issue, albeit with good humour (he's not a Tory after all) (I.C. of 0.4). *
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WHO WILL INTERVIEW CAMERON DURING THE GENERAL ELECTION? EVAN OR JIM?

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I began my survey following the June 2009 elections, provoked by the bias I heard in many BBC interviews leading up to election day. Browsing the Today programme's archive for the first days of June reminds me why I started doing it - and provides a warning for the general election to come.
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On June 1st Evan Davis conducted a long (18 minute plus) interview with Gordon Brown - a very gentle affair (that did not even mention Brown's own expenses claims) which yielded a paltry interruption coefficient of 0.4. On the following day came David Cameron. Unfortunately for him he was up against James Naughtie. This was a hostile (11 minute) interview, full of personal attacks (on Cameron's expenses) and lots and lots of sighs, abortive interruptions and miscellaneous weird noises from Naughtie. The I.C. here was 1.2. If that suggests that the Cameron-Naughtie interview was three times tougher than the Brown-Davis interview, well that's about right!That's Beeb bias for you!
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Take a festive trip down memory lane, & have a listen to both interviews & you'll see why I'm worried about fairness at the Today programme & also why I'm interested to know who will be interviewing who come the general election. Brown was given an easy ride by Evan, whereas Cameron was picked at with a vengeance by Naughtie (who gave Labour's Keith Vaz a free-ride on the same edition of the programme).
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Here are the links:
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For Gord & Ev:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8076000/8076456.stm
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For Dave & Jim:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8078000/8078343.stm

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS STRIKES PAST

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Unite, the union at my own workplace (of which I am not a member), are continuing their campaign to return Britain to the 1970s. Following on from their set-back over B.A., this morning's Today highlighted that they are also leading a strike of electronics workers at Fujitsu. Correspondent Judy Hobson spoke first to two of the workers, then John Humphrys spoke to "Roger Seifert, professor of Industrial Relations at Wolverhampton Business School", asking him, "Is there anything in what that lady said there that they're just using the recession, companies like that, to push down wages and conditions?" Prof Seifert replied, "Oh absolutely true" and went on to attack business ("big multi nationals"). He sounded like a true old-style leftie and, checking him out, it turns out that he's just that - an academic 'socialist' (see
http://solidaritymagazine.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/hazards-conference-2008/ and http://www.sochealth.co.uk/confs/labreform.htm). He was so far-left even John Humphrys baulked at some of the simplistic things he was saying! (A professor! God help his students!)
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*****

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Evan Davis discussed serial killers with another leftie academic, introduced as "Professor David Wilson, a criminologist at Birmingham City University and author of A History of British Serial Killing". He often pops up on the BBC whenever a serial killer is in the news, discussing the subject from a left-liberal perspective - just how regularly can be guaged by his reaction to Evan's salutation, "Good morning": "Good morning Evan, nice to talk to you again." Not mentioned, though, is the fact that he's also 'Vice-Chair of the Howard League for Penal Reform'. (The BBC are always talking to them again!). Today though he pretty much struck to telling stories about serial killers past.
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OCTOBER'S I.C.s - EVAN DAVIS

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The other Today newbie, Evan Davis, has been busier. (A clearly impressed Craig just said that Evan Davis has been busier than Justin Webb. Is he now about to say 'Here are his results for October?)
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Here are his results for October:
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06/10 David Cameron Conservative 0.8
12/10 Peter Mandelson Labour 0.6
20/10 John McFall Labour 0.5
27/10 Bridget Prentice Labour 0.5
06/10 Lord Falconer Labour 0.4
07/10 David Mundell Conservative 0.4
07/10 George Osborne Conservative 0.4
12/10 Sir George Young Conservative 0.4
05/10 Michael Gove Conservative 0.3
07/10 Stuart Hosie SNP 0.3
29/10 Kit Malthouse Conservative 0.3
05/10 Dominic Grieve Conservative 0
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His averages for October then are:
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Labour - 0.5
Conservatives - 0.37
SNP - 0.3
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Is Evan shaping up to the 'the unbiased one' on the Today programme? Well, looking back since his arrival (aptly enough in June), we find these super-averages:
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Labour (30) - 0.47
Conservatives (12) - 0.44
SNP (1) - 0.3
Lib Dems (7) - 0.06
Greens (1) - 0
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I think it's going to be a case of keeping our fingers crossed with Evan Davis. He needs to toughen up though against the Lib Dems.

DOING THE TORY SPLITS

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The Tory-splits-over-Europe angle has dominated much of the BBC's coverage of the first day of the Conservative conference with much of 'The Daily Politics' being devoted to the subject. In interviews with Boris Johnson and Norman Lamont the subject was the first subject to be broached and broached at some length and it was the raison-d'etre of the interviews with Dan Hannan and Ian Taylor. Andrew Neil's discussion with David Cameron however ranged more widely.
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Similarly The World At One devoted the bulk of its coverage to the subject (over a quarter of an hour), with all of the interviews with Andrew Rosindell and Sir Malcolm Rifkind and all but one question of Martha Kearney's hugely entertaining interview with Boris Johnson fixing on it like an illegal wheel-clamp. Martha got very excited and kept on asserting that the 'toxic' element Cameron had, according to Boris, taken out of the European debate within the Conservative Party was back: "now it's back!..it's back now!..it's back now!...it's back!", she cried over and over again, like Violet Elizabeth Bott. "You're just trying to make it back!" countered Boris. (The interview's I.C. was 1.5). Even after the subject changed to welfare reform, Martha's interview with Theresa May turned back to Europe at the very end.
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The programme also featured Ben ('Son of Tony') Wright who trotted off to a fringe meeting to hunt down Kenneth Clarke, in the hope of highlighting those 'Tory splits'. He got nowhere!

As another developing strand we had Evan Davis plugging away at the "retro" angle in his interview with Michael Gove on this morning's Today, plugging the Labour line that the Conservatives are going back to their 'bad old ways'. This line and the word "retro" was also used at the beginning of Martha Kearney's coverage. Beeboids clearly like to hunt in packs, as we saw so blatantly yesterday!

SEPTEMBER'S I.C.s - EVAN DAVIS

Evan Davis no sooner arrives at Today than he falls quiet. Come on Evan, get some work done!

David Miliband Labour 1.1
Lord Baker Conservative 1