NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING

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The Record Europe's main topic this week was 'Climate Change', specifically how the EU could speak with a common voice on the issue in the wake of all the acrimony at Copenhagen.
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Shirin Wheeler's introductory report (complete with icebergs, but thankfully no polar bears) featured just one 'talking head' - Sonja Meister of Friends of the Earth Europe. That's par for the course.
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The studio discussion featured five guests, only one of them a sceptic - Roger Helmer.
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Not unlike this post (!), things took a predictable path. Here are the stats:
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Length of time each guest got to speak
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Rebecca Harms (German Green) - 3 minutes 35 seconds
Dan Jorgensen (Danish Social Democrat) - 3 minutes 15 seconds
Sirpa Pletikainen (Finnish Centre Right) - 2 minutes 59 seconds
Chris Davies (British Lib Dem) - 2 minutes 28 seconds
Roger Helmer (British Conservative) - 2 minutes 20 seconds
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Despite that the only uses of the command 'Briefly!' by Shirin were directly at the sceptical Tory (twice)! (That's as it always is on this programme!)
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Interruption Coefficients
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Roger Helmer - 0.9
Sirpa Pletkainen - 0.8
Dan Jorgensen - 0.3
Rebecca Harms - 0.3
Chris Davies - 0
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So the centre-right comes of worse, yet again.
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The only politician to be contradicted by Shirin was Mr Helmer.
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When he argued that "everyone from the Maldives to China sees this as a way of getting money from the West", she interrupted to say "But I mean we've spoken to the prime minister of Tuvalu, who travelled all the way to Brussels to say that his island is drowning. And we've seen pictures of it! He's not making it up!" Her point is perhaps weakened by the fact that Tuvalu is a chain of islands, not a single island. Moreover, the rise in sea level around the nine islands is not, as she assumes, necessarily caused by 'global warming', even according to our old friend Wikipedia: "This concern is compounded by the effects of subsidence which causes the islands naturally to sink into the sea, and non-natural land use (such as farming) which causes soil compaction. And to further complicate matters, it has been difficult to accurately measure to what degree each of these causes is affecting the observed rise in sea level. Global warming may not be the primary cause for the rise in local measurements." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_Tuvalu. Mr Helmer was having none of it anyway, and discussed the case of the Maldives.
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Behind the Green lady was a window and through the window snow-flakes fell.
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DON'T LEAVE US AGAIN EDDIE!

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While Eddie's away the Quinns will play! Yesterday's PM, presented by leftie lassie Carolyn Quinn, was one of the worst I've heard for ages.
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It featured an extremely soft interview by BBC economics 'guru' Nils Blythe of Peter Mandelson in the wake of Brown's right-wing-bashing speech at the Policy Network conference. Three easy questions and no interruptions from Nils, lots of Brown-nosing and attacks on the Tories from Mandy.
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A report by Andrew Harding from Argentina on that country's posturing over the Falkland Islands saw Andy neglect to mention that Argentina's posturing (but beautiful) president is a socialist. Had the fair Cristina (pictured with all the inevitability of a Paxman sneer) been a right-winger you can bet your bottom peso he'd have thought it worth mentioning - especially as there was criticism of her from various Argentinians.
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The programme then mounted the green platform and spent what seemed like an eternity discussing a row between the government (represented by Lord Hunt) and an electricity generator that wants subsidies to transfer from coal to renewable 'biomass' energy. Green Party London Assembly member Darren Johnson stuck his oar in here. Carolyn's questions tended towards Darren's position while she was interviewing the Labour lord.
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The programme stayed on the same platform for a report by BBC science correspondent Palab Gosh on electric cars in America, and how they could save us from our gas-guzzling cars, which are "pouring carbon dioxide into the planet's atmosphere." He talked to a broccoli-juice drinking (no, honestly!) Californian couple who believe their solar-panel fitted sports car points the way to the future.
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HOT AIR BLOWS IN FROM THE LEFT

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Today's World at One saw the return of Shaun Ley (after a long absence). With him came a deluge of left-liberal opinion.
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Eurostar's difficulties with the snow were discussed with Tunde Olatunji of the government's subsidy-supporting rail watchdog Passenger Focus and critical Labour MP Louise Ellman (I.C. of 0.3).
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MI5's robust defence of itself over allegations of collusion in torture was discussed with the government's terrorism tsar and Lib Dem lord Alex Carlile, who said exactly what you'd expect him to say (I.C. of 0).
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The row over elderly care (see previous post) was discussed with Dame Joan Bakewell, who Shaun said "was appointed by ministers to champion the interests of older people, but stresses she's independent of government". (The whole programme was full of people of whom that could also have been said!). Joan is, of course, about as left-liberal as left-liberals get. She attacked the Tory R.I.P. poster as "grotesque" and "an insult to everybody".
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The final slab of the programme turned to the issue of the 'recovery' and announced its intention of looking at the topic of growth areas for jobs over the coming months. On the day that the 0.5% growth figure came out I noted that both Michael Buchanon on the World at One and Jonty Bloom on The World Tonight concentrated on renewable energy companies, especially wind turbines, in their respective reports on the 'recovery'. The BBC's pushing of wind turbines is relentless. Today, when the topic re-surfaced (after going quiet for a while), guess what? Sometime-Tory-basher Ray Furlong trotted northwards to look at how wind-turbine companies could lead us out of recovery. We heard from various directors of various wind-turbine companies and just one other person..."Chris Goodall, writer, environmentalist and Green Party candidate for parliament."
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PLANET'S WORST FRIEND

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The Today website introduces today's closing discussion in this way:
"Some scientists are questioning the environmental cost of owning a pet, saying that pet lovers have a higher carbon footprint than people without pets. There are an estimated 20m domestic cats and dogs in the UK. Dr John Barrett, research associate at the Stockholm Environment Institute, York University, and Tony Juniper, an environmental campaigner, consider the environmental impact of man's best friend." http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8501000/8501780.stm

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The professor from the green policy institute argues that fewer carnivorous pets (like the enemies of the planet pictured above) would significantly help reduce our 'carbon footprint', whereas Mr Juniper from the Green Party, who owns cats and dogs, disagrees (like a good nimby) and would rather deny us other pleasures instead and tax us more too - and who has a problem with the practice of keeping caged birds as pets.
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If only Andrew Neil rather than Sarah Montague had been in charge of this interview! Sarah never thought to challenge the underlying assumptions shared by both of her guests, and treated the topic as if it wasn't slightly absurd.

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TODAY TODAY

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This morning's Today programme was noticeably left-liberal in its orientation again.
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At 7.09 John Humphrys discussed British social attitudes with sociologist Alison Park of the National Centre for Social Research. The results show that "Britain has become more liberal over the last 25 years with greater tolerance of homosexuality and co-habitation. The report also found that for the first time in 20 years more people identify themselves as Conservative and not Labour supporters." John Humphrys chose to focus the interview on the former (especially attitudes towards homosexuality) rather than the latter, though not before Alison had chose as examples of the "recent swing more towards the right" the fact that "people have become less sympathetic towards the poor, less accepting of the need to reduce inequality between rich and poor." That this lady is also a Fabian is hardly surprising.
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The greater tolerance towards homosexuality was discussed with another left-winger, high tribal Labour MEP Michael Cashman, former Eastenders actor and gay rights campaigner (I.C. of 0.5 for John Humphrys), though here he was joined by former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie.

The issue of climate change (meaning 'global warming') was dominant. There were plenty of weasel words over the IPCC's discredited claims over the alleged melting glaciers of the Himalayas from Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele of the IPCC at 7.12. He claimed (counter-intuitively) that the scandal "could increase the credibility of the IPCC." That was not strong enough however for the Today programme's website who ignore the "could" in the professor's statement and go not just for dead certainty but also for a completely unwarranted use of the past tense: "Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice chair of the IPCC, told Sarah Montague that the IPCC had gained credibility from its ability to admit its mistakes and argued that the other claims in the report were "very strong"." That is not what he said.
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This issue was revisited later in the programme (8.53) with an environment campaigner and a leading climate sceptic. Only joking! Of course there was no 'climate sceptic'! Instead we had Mike Hulme, professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia, and a highly intolerant Tony Juniper, climate change campaigner and former director of Friends of the Earth (and a Green Party parliamentary candidate). Both backed the IPCC. The discussion was presided over by John Humphrys. (Would that Andrew Neil had been in charge of it instead!!)

(Even this wasn't enough, so we had a report from Tom Fielden (at 8.44) on 'ocean acidification', "an issue biologists have dubbed the "elephant in the corner" of the climate change debate", according to the Today programme's website.)
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Assisted suicide was discussed (at 7.16) by Sarah Montague with a Labour peer, Lord Joffe, "who has campaigned for a long time to get the law on assisted suicide changed" - of course in favour of a more liberal approach (I.C. of 0.3)
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Mark Mardell reported on the rise of the Tea Party movement in America (at 7.23). The 'elephant in the room' in American politics is no longer being ignored (as it no longer can be ignored, even by the most dogged Democrat supporter at the BBC). This being Mark Mardell a totally straight, totally unbiased report was out of the question. He asked a Tea Party-goer this deeply loaded question: "How much is it a movement of 'the people' or how much is it a movement of largely white, largely quite well off people?" Are there strong grounds for that allegation, or is it just a smear?
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EXTRA: Please have a read of the wonderful David Preiser's comments on this on the Biased BBC website: http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/01/open-thread_23.html#comments
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Who's "not helping the talks today" in Northern Ireland, according to Nick Robinson (at 8.20)? The Conservatives and their 'secret talks' with the UUP and DUP, that's who! Robinson reported on the suspicions and 'anger' of Labour and their allies the SDLP (and the Alliance Party) at David Cameron, with Sarah Montague pushing those suspicions even further forward. You can bank on old Nick to act as a faithful mouthpiece for Downing Street. For some good sense on this, please red Benedict Brogan: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100023701/david-cameron-is-a-unionist-remember/
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All in a morning's work at the Today programme.

JOHN HUMPHRYS REFUSES TO BE AWAY WITH THE AIRY FAIRIES

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The tendency of the Today programme to base its stories more on the findings of left-of-centre think tanks than their right-of-centre counterparts was in evidence again today.
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At 6.49 John Humphrys discussed economic growth with Andrew Simms of the New Economic Foundation, a red-green think tank. Mr Simms's central point was this: "We've looked at how much economic growth the world can get away with while it stays the right side of dangerous climate change and the results are not good. It's extremely difficult if not impossible to square the circle." We have to free ourselves as much as possible from the need for fossil fuels, he said, and we should re-order our economy, giving up on the idea of perpetual economic growth.
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The programme's producers may have been on board with all this guff but, to his credit, John Humphrys was having none of it, calling it "airy-fairy". Being very much an Old Left man, JH is not in tune with the wishy-washy utopianism of the New Left. He wasn't much in tune with Mr Simms's line of analogy either (which was funny!).
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BIAS AT EVERY TURN ON 'THE WORLD TONIGHT'

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2010 has not brought a lessening of left-liberal bias on The World Tonight if the first programme of the year is going to be typical. This was breathtaking at times. This is going to need some spelling out!!
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BLACKWATER AND THE LEFT
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First up for discussion was the case of the Blackwater security guards accused by the Iraqis of the unprovoked killing of civilians. A U.S. judge has ruled against prosecution and the Iraqi government is not happy about it. After hearing from the Iraqis and from Mark Hulkower, lawyer from the defence team, presenter Felicity Evans sought academic advice and turned to "David Cole, Professor of Law at Georgetown University." Professor David D. Cole is very much a World Tonight-kind of American academic, as he also functions as legal affairs correspondent for the self-described "flagship of the the left", The Nation (not that Felicity mentioned any of that, preferring to let us think that he was a non-partisan expert.) After Professor Cole, Felicity then turned to "Ruth Tanner, director of campaigns and policy at War On Want". I thought, very naively, that War On Want was just a well-known anti-poverty charity but it turns out that it's also a left-wing campaign group on a wide range of left-wing issues. Felicity said that it "has campaigned for stronger rules governing the actions of private security companies in places like Iraq." Ruth Tanner herself raged against "the privatisation of war" and "corporate mercenaries" and wanted all private security companies banned from all sensitive areas of the world.
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A LOT OF LEFT-WINGERS CALL FOR AN END TO THE ANGLO-SAXON MODEL

Next came a section on sustainable economic growth, which took the form of a guest-report. Felicity said, "We asked Andrew Simms, the author of 'Ecological Debt' and the co-author of 'The New Economics' for his ideas on a sustainable approach to economic prosperity and personal happiness." It's very rare for The World Tonight to grant anyone such a privilege. Andrew Simms of the New Economics Foundation (and frequent contributor to The Guardian and The New Statesman) was however granted nearly 10 minutes to report for the programme and make his left-wing case!! I'll give you a strong flavour of it.
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Simms began thus: "I'm on a cold London street and it's very early in the morning. I'm just about to meet possibly the greatest authority on the fate of the planet. It's Dr Rajendra Pachauri. He's the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and I want to ask him what he thinks of the Western life style with its television sets the size of swimming pools and its gas-guzzling urban 4-wheel drive cars." Dr Pachauri attacked our 'vulgarity' and said 'we need to stop' such levels of consumption. "So here's the problem, " Simms continued. "We've become obsessed with growth, competitiveness and consuming more stuff as an end in itself. Some at least, like Adair Turner, head of both the Financial Services Authority and the official climate change committee, are beginning to ask questions." Baron Turner (proponent, of course, of the Tobin Tax) wants 'government intervention' to tackle the issue.
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Simms 'Consumerism Bad, Citizenship Good' principle soon received further support: "According to academic Richard Wilkinson so-called "broken Britain" (as well as calling this Conservative phrase "so-called" he also said "broken Britain" in such a way as to show his disavowal of it) can be explained by the consumerism and unhappiness that walk hand in hand with the extreme inequality of aggressively competitive Anglo-Saxon economics." Professor Wilkinson is a co-founder of the Equality Trust.A change towards frugality is going to be hard on a personal level, as Simms had confirmed by his final talking head, Larry Elliott, economics editor of (guess where?) The Guardian.
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LEFT-WING PERSPECTIVES ON YEMEN
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The third part of the programme discussed Yemen with academic Ginny Hill, who has been on countless programmes over recent weeks. She is the BBC's 'woman who knows' on the subject. They almost always go to her (though yesterdays PM with Carolyn Quinn went to Keith Vaz MP instead!! He chairs a cross-party group on Yemen, obviously. What pie doesn't that man have a finger in?) Of course, Ginny also occasionally contributes to The Guardian as well, and al-Jezeera. For another (similar) point of view Felicity then turned to a Labour MP, Mike Foster, international development minister.
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FELICITY EVANS BATS FOR THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT
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After this barrage of left-liberal hot air, the final topic, economic forecasting, broke free from this Guardian-soaked world and gave us David Smith, economics editor of The Sunday Times (now there's a man and a newspaper you don't hear much from on the BBC!!), and the man he nominated economic forecaster of the year, Peter Warburton of Economic Perspectives. Even here, however, the Beeb's left-liberal bias was far from absent. Felicity Evans introduced the piece with these telling words: "The economist and liberal thinker J.K. Galbraith once said that the only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable." (J.K. Galbraith, most beloved economist of all left-thinking people! That's fair enough though, as it's a good quote.) Where Felicity showed bias was in her examples of errant forecasting in 2009 - the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyor 's underestimate of the rise in house prices and the Chartered Instituate of Personnel and Development's forecast overestimate of the rise in unemployment. Why pick those two examples? Because they show that the economy is doing better than forecast. And who does suggesting that help? The Labour government, of course. David Smith's first example, however, was the Treasury's wild underestimate of how much the economy would shrink in 2009 (1% they said, whereas it was nearer 5%). Why didn't Felicity Evans use that example herself? Because that wouldn't have reflected well on the Labour government? She ignored the point and, in her next question, steered the conversation back onto the lower-than-expected unemployment figures. Why? To help save the Labour government's blushes? Why else?
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Even by the biased standards of The World Tonight this was quite an edition to start the year with!!
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AM I (ROGER) HEARING THAT RIGHT?

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'Climategate' has been buried alive at the BBC & it's certainly back to business as usual at The World Tonight - though with an odd twist. Last night's edition featured a long closing section on the subject of global warming, beginning with a lengthy chat between BBC economics correspondent Jonty 'Tax and Spend' Bloom and Jonathan Porritt (no one at the Beeb asks him about his education at Eton and Oxford). Bloom sucked up to Porritt ("You came at this remarkably early"), invited him to join him in castigating the 'short-termism' of UK politicians, and wondered why, when the Thames is at such risk of severe flooding due to global warming, Westminster (which is on the river) is so inactive on the issue?
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On the Left-Right front, the following discussion (hosted by Roger Hearing) was unusual for the programme in featuring two right-of-centre panelists - historian Andrew Roberts and Europhile environmentalist Conservative MP John Gummer - as well as, much more typically, George Monbiot. (You wait days for a single right-of-centre guest to appear on The World Tonight, then two appear at once!). All, however, advocate action 'to tackle climate change', which (I presume) is why they were acceptable to the programme's left-liberal producers -and Mr Gummer wanted, not surprisingly for him, action at the EU level - which would make him doubly acceptable to them!
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Elsewhere, though, The World Tonight trod very familiar left-liberal pathways. On the execution of Mr Shaikh by the Communist Chinese, Roger Hearing talked first to a lady from the anti-death penalty organisation Reprieve Sally Rowan (director of their Death Penalty team), and then to the very-left-wing commentator/former World Tonight presenter Isabel Hilton of China dialogue (and the Guardian and Independent).
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The latest protests in Iran were then discussed with the man the BBC regularly chooses to discuss Iran with, Professor Ali Ansari of St Andrews University (and the Guardian, Independent, and New Statesman). Why not Amir Taheri? Why is he so rarely on the BBC? Is it 'cos he's a conservative?
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Next up for discussion was President Obama's reaction to the attempted Christmas mass-murder-on-board-a-plane by a Londonistan-educated Nigerian Muslim extremist. A bizarre BBC correspondent called Imtiaz Tyab called it a "Christmas Day scare", and contrasted the 'cool', 'calm' and 'very reassuring' way Mr Obama had handled it with the way the previous Bush administration might of handled it. (Ah, the BBC in America! You can always rely on them for biased reporting!)
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Finally, there was an interview with a lady from the Isle of Barra (Karen MacLean), who wants the government to step in and subsidize the air-link to the island, currently at risk.

MORE ON 'THE WORLD TONIGHT'

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Rounding up the remaining editions of The World Tonight this week, Monday's programme (hosted by Ritula Shah) was the best, if only because it featured a fine discussion on quangos between Sir Alistair Graham (that admirable ex-chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and chair of Berwick Labour Party) and Mark Wallace of the (also admirable) Taxpayer's Alliance. The discussion was prefaced by BBC favourite, Professor Tony Travers of the Beeb's favourite academic institution, the L.S.E. (who said that quangos had "mushroomed...particularly since the 198os").
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Of course, there was also plenty about 'climate change' (as if it ever stays the same!), with two AGW-believers tussling over the effectiveness of carbon-trading. One, Bruce Duguid ("head of investor engagement at The Carbon Trust") , was in favour; the other, Chris Hope ( "an economist at the Judge Business School at Cambridge University" ), thought carbon-trading was merely "a first step" and wanted more direct taxes on emissions ( "'trade' is more of a dirty word than 'tax'", said Professor Hope.) A report from Brazil followed on the U.N.'s REDD programme (The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries, to give it its very full title), during which only supporters of the scheme spoke. (Well, what's new there!). It's "not cheap", we were told. I bet.
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Tuesday's programme was presented by David Eades. It featured another such report, this time from Obama's Chicago, where Robin Lustig had flown to find out just how 'green' a city it really is. Again, everyone spoken to was in favour of 'doing something about climate change', though there was a lively debate about coal-fired power stations. Commissioner Suzanne Malec-McKenna (appointed by Democrat mayor Richard Daley) was grilled by Lustig (with two interruptions) over the issue, after he (and we) had heard from two green activists and a Democrat alderman (Joe Moore) who are involved in the campaign against the power stations. Lustig's report was preceded by an interview between David Eades and Peter Stott of the Met Office - and a leader author of the IPCC report (though that curiously was not mentioned), who was on to assure us that man-made global warming is real and thay world temperatures really are soaring despite this and despite that.
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The day's inhuman bombings in Baghdad prompted a BBC invite for a professor at Baghdad University who has been seconded to the the Beeb's favourite academic institution, the L.S.E. (His name sounded like Sahd Zavad). This chap, who with all possible respect I would label a 'nut', attacked the "failing" policy of the Iraqi government and "the occupying forces" and, when asked who was guilty of the bombings, said "Of course if I were a member of the government the easiest and ready-made accusation is Al-Qaeda and the Ba'ath Party members. But it's not the truth." Who did he blame then? "Members of the government are involved", he asserted. Anyone else? "Foreign elements...Israel, Iran." Ah yes, Israel! The nutty professor had earlier also said this: "this new character in Iraqi politics - the violent nature of the political differences between the political parties as well" . New? Well, he's Iraqi so he should know but...I seem to heard something about there being a long history of political violience and savage killings in the country even before Saddam Hussein got into power, and after Saddam Hussein got into power Iraq was, shall we say, not exactly free of political violence, was it? Just who was this professor? Was he a Ba'athist supporter?
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A preview of the Pre-Budget Report (due the following day) saw a report on "anxiety across the public sector" from Jonty Bloom. He visited a community college in Newquay - "a success story and it wants to stay that way." Jonty said, "It all adds up to a very successful system but it's not been cheap and...the headteacher worries about where the money is going to come from next year." *

There was a rare interview with a Bush era state department official, Wayne White of the Iraq Intelligence Unit. David Eades interrupted him three times in less than three minutes. That rarely (if ever) happens with a Democrat on The World Tonight.
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MARR CHATS TO CAROLINE AND WEE DOUGIE

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This morning's Marr Show was, you won't be surprised to hear, strongly weighted towards the Left. We had far-left media-type Mariella Frostrup on the paper review, Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti discussing the extradition of Gary McKinnon, Green leader Caroline Lucas and close Brown ally Douglas Alexander as the 'big' interviewee. Matthew Parris of The Times was the only voice allowed on from the other side of the political spectrum.
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The interview with Caroline Lucas was a very soft one (scoring a low interruption coefficient of 0.3), heralded by the friendly greeting, "Welcome! Thank you for coming in Caroline." Asking her questions about what she wants from the Copenhagen summit and letting her off the hook on nuclear power (despite some self-contradictory points that a decent interviewer would have picked up on and challenged, had he been so inclined), Marr did at least bring up the scandal over those leaked East Anglian e-mails - though clearly only because he felt he had to ("I must ask you about the big row...") and chose not to press the matter by any other questions on the subject. This is not unsurprising, as he didn't bring it up at all during the paper review (when Mariella was waxing hyperbolic on global warming) or during the section of his interview with Wee Dougie when Copenhagen was discussed. He did bring up Nick Griffin and the BNP (Caroline Lucas replied very sensibly to that) and fished for a little praise for his Labour Party chums: "What about the British government then? What about Ed Miliband? He's had a fairly good press for sort-of trying to push quite hard. Generally speaking, in the past the British government would boast about being one of the leaders on sort-of emission targets and cutting and so on. What's your appraisal at the moment?"
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With regards to the interview with Douglas Alexander, this was scarcely any tougher, scoring another low I.C. of 0.4 (only 4 interruptions in 11 minutes). When Marr brings up Labour's lag in the opinion polls he always talks about Gordon Brown's personal unpopularity - as he did twice here - whereas surely Labour as a whole are unpopular for being a bunch of dangerous, incompetent and corrupt liars who've sunk us up to our eyeballs in debt by spending all our hard-earned money like a gang of greedy, drunken idiots as well as changing our country for the worse in too many ways to mention. Talking merely of Brown's personal unpopularity is a total distraction, and so the sort of thing I'd expect from Labour-friendly Andrew Marr. (You can come out now. Rant over!). And guess what? He brought up that Observer opinion poll from last week again (which showed a mere 6% gap between Labour and the Conservatives) before discussing hung parliaments. He's still chasing that dream!
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SMALL ACORNS

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What with those climate scientists over in East Anglia getting into a spot of hot water (man-made!) over their dodgy e-mails, it was interesting - and heartening - to hear a sceptical voice on yesterday's The World At One with Brian Hanrahan. The sceptical voice belonged to Dr Benny Peiser of Lord Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation. Of course, this is the BBC so he was teamed up for the interview with Saleemul Huq from the green think-tank The International Institute for Environment and Development. This is as it should be, of course.
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However, I note that, unlike Dr Peiser, Saleemul Huq was introduced by Brian Hanrahan with these words of commendation: "He's an authority on the threat of climate change to developing nations". A classic sign of bias that, to promote the expertise of someone of whose view you approve (ah, assonance!) but not to promote the expertise of someone of whose views you don't approve.
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Moreover, before we reached this discussion we had already heard two other full-length interviews, - and both were with other strong proponents of the theory of Man-Made Global Warming: Professor John Agard of the University of the West Indies (who wants 'binding targets across the board') and Bob Brown, leader of Australia's Green Party.
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Oh well. Rome wasn't built in a day.
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Please see the Biased BBC website at http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/ and Not a Sheep at http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/ for lots more on this gripping story - and how the BBC has been handling it.

'RICHARD' AND 'GAVE' ONLY

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Thursday's The World At One, with Shaun Ley, was characteristically tilted towards the Left.
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The BBC has (for some time now) been brainwashing us (along with its favourite economic commentators Vince Cable and John McFall) that bankers are the sole cause of all the economic woes that have so wounded this country in the last couple of years (absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with our own Labour government of course, despite its remarkable and well-document closeness to those very bankers throughout its long, long years in power). Should all those guilty-as-charged bankers who earn more than £1 million be named and shamed? That was Shaun's question. Who did he interview to explore the issue? Labour MP Jim Cousins, who is responsible for a Commons motion calling for a charge on banks that have received public help - a 'peoples' dividend', he calls it (I.C. of 0), and Labour peer Lord Paul Myners (I.C. of 0.5). All of Shaun's questions to Myners came from a 'name those names' standpoint. The brainwashing continues - as does the dominance of the Left in the BBC's worldview.
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Greens dominate the BBC's worldview too, of course. The programme's discussion of China's promises on reducing carbon emissions was introduced with these typical words: "Expert comment this morning praised China's move as a gesture and a morale-booster." 'Expert comment' indeed! Who did he mean? Come on Shaun, name names!!
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The issue was then discussed in interviews with Ailun Yang, head of Greenpeace China's Climate and Energy Campaign ("I think it's a very positive step"), and Charles McElwee, who "teaches environmental law at Shanghai University and has advised the Chinese government on the environment, though not on climate change. He stresses that today's move falls short of actual emission cuts" ("It's significant for a number of reasons. I think it shows a growing maturity on the part of the Chinese leadership.") So, both praised China's 'green' commitments but both wanted even more. Shaun Ley interrupted neither.
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The third topic up for discussion was 'The Special Relationship' in the age of President Obama. It was discussed with Gavin Esler's chum from Dateline London, Stryker Maguire of Newsweek, and Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Blair's man at the U.N. Maguire is always soft on Obama, but so it seems is Sir Jeremy: "Most of Europe, including the U.K.. welcome the fact that there is a president in the Whitehouse who knows the world and seems to understand the outside world."
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I'm not Shaun Ley and that was The World At One yesterday lunchtime.

WHY LABOUR SHOULD SEND CAROLYN QUINN A CHRISTMAS CARD

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The 'politics panel' on last night's Westminster Hour featured Green leader Caroline Lucas, Labour's Tom Harris and Mark Field for the Conservatives. Proceedings were chaired by Carolyn Quinn.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_westminster_hour/default.stm
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Let the statistics speak for themselves:

Interviewee***Number of interruptions***I.C.

Mark Field*** 3*** 0.6

Tom Harris*** 1*** 0.3

Caroline Lucas*** 1*** 0.2

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The topics covered were:
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The Copenhagen climate change conference
David Cameron, all-women shortlists and Liz Truss (trouble for the Tories)
That opinion poll again that showed the Tory lead over Labour narrowing (more trouble for the Tories)
Hung parliaments
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The interruptions of both Tom Harris and Caroline Lucas were hardly interruptions at all, but the first against Mark Field was prompted by his attack on the Labour prime minister's 'delay and dithering' over Copenhagen. Carolyn interrupted him with a mock-exasperated "Oh come on!" and proceeded to defend Gordon Brown's actions ("Gordon Brown has written to the Danish prime minister (etc)...). Later (in a question to Tom Harris) she also praised Ed Miliband: "We've seen Ed Miliband working hard at measures like the energy bill and streamlining planning rules".
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Later in the programme came a long, strikingly sympathetic interview between Carolyn Quinn and the politician she twice called 'Dr Tony Wright'. If the double-use of that title suggests a reverential tone on Carolyn's part, the suggestion was more than fully realised by the interview itself. Over 8 minutes long, with no interruptions, it was as unchallenging as the sort of chat you might have with, say, the father of one of your favourite work colleagues - oh, of course, that's exactly what the father of BBC political correspondent Ben Wright is to Carolyn Quinn! *

PLASTIC BAGS, NEANDERTHALS AND LANCASTER CANAL

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Today's Politics Show doesn't call for much comment - though that won't stop me.
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It began by covering the proposed high-speed rail line that should connect our major conurbations within the next few decades, centring on an interview with Lord Adonis (a man who really shouldn't be in the Labour Party), scoring Jon Sopel an I.C. of 1.1.
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It ended with talk of plastic bags. Sopel discussed this with Beebette Gillian Hargreaves. The underlying assumption that plastic bags are a major problem that effects climate change - and that limiting their use will cut carbon emissions - was not challenged. The only talking head in the piece was, naturally, an environmentalist - Green MEP Jean Lambert, who (of course) wants a tax on plastic bags and lots and lots of left-wing compulsion.
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Beeboid Andrew Sinclair was in S.W. Norfolk to discuss the spot of local bother for brainy beauty Elizabeth Truss and her stalled ambitions to be selected as the Conservative candidate there. Any story that damages the Tories, by showing splits and Neanderthal attitudes, is an absolute gift to the BBC - and Sinclair seemed very eager to open it. The word 'nasty' was batted about between him and Sopel at regular intervals. (The 'nasty party', you may recall, was what Labour used to call the Tories). Sopel called the story 'extraordinary' and said ominously "We'll be following it very closely." I bet they will!!*
*
Cocky Max Cotton's latest report was an interesting one on Treasury plans to sell off British Waterways's £500m property portfolio (so as to help cut the insanely high deficit this reckless government has built up - not that Max put it that way, of course). The case against such a move was made by many of the people who use our magical canal network. (As you might guess from the use of the word 'magical' I love our canals too. Lancaster Canal, here in NorthNorthwesterLand, is just pure magic - except when it passes through Lancaster!) Max played devil's advocate, as he should. (Well done!). The piece's only lapse into bias came as Max spun for Labour: "Many Labour MPs have a real problem with selling off British Waterways assets. They see canals as a Labour success story". Cue Alun Michael MP, claiming that "since 1997" Labour had turned the canals around, turning them from the terrible state they were in under the wicked Tories ("badly maintained") into a "national asset". Is there any truth in this? Max certainly didn't dispute the claim, or comment any further on it. My canal, however, has always been beautiful in my eyes - even, my Beeboid friends, during that fearful time when the land lay under the dreadful sway of the evil Mrs Thatcher. *

TWO AGAINST ONE - TWICE

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This week's The Record: Europe was on biased form again.
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There were two discussions.
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The first was on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, another EU-built Trojan horse against national traditions. Or at least that's the view of one of presenter Shirin Wheeler's guests - Jan Zahradil of the Czech centre-right ODS. Against him were pitted two strong supporters of the Charter - the Green Jean Lambert and the German Social Democrat Joe Leinen. Quite why it was necessary to have two supporters of the Charter - and both of them from the Left - escapes me (and when one was speaking the other was nodding his/her head in agreement!)
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Jean Lambert was asked the first question and given the last word (I.C. of 0). The lovely Shirin asked her such testing questions as "Why has the Parliament been such a champion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights" and "So what are we to make of this?"
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Centre-right Jan was not so lucky. He was asked "And that is very explicit actually, isn't it, Jan Zahradil, there are no extra rights conferred by this? This is just a question of bringing things together. So why all the fuss in the Czech Republic and Britain?" (A fuss, eh?) Then when Socialist Joe complained about "forces" who are trying to "confuse the public", Shirin turned to Jan and (pointing her pencil at him) said, "Is that you?"
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The second discussion turned to the new powers accrued to Europe by the Lisbon Treaty. Here we had two ardent Europhiles, an attractive Dutch liberal Sophie In't Veld and a Danish Social Democrat called Dan Jorgensen, pitted against our own Paul Nuttall of UKIP. You won't be surprised that the only one Shirin Wheeler interrupted was Mr Nuttall (I.C. of 0.7). She stopped his protest against the scandal of Ireland's try-better-this-time second referendum with the words "OK, but we're not talking about the referendum here, we're talking about actually the policy and trying to understand if it really is going to be as devastating as people say." She then passed the baton on to the pro-Lisbon Mr Jorgensen.
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When Paul Nuttall came under fire from the lovely Sophie, Shirin did not intervene. Later, when Dan Joregensen came under fire from Paul, she did intervene: "Just finish your point Dan. I'll come back to you Paul." When Dan finished his point, we saw Paul Nuttall open his mouth and start of the first syllable of a reply when in crashed the 'Record: Europe' theme and graphics and...that was that!!
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THE MOST SUPER OF ALL THE SUPER-AVERAGES

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So far, since beginning my survey in June this year, I've reviewed 1129 BBC interviews with UK politicians. This allows me to extend the super-average principle to all these interviews & get a single measure of bias for each political party for the last 5 months. (See my previous posts for all the thinking behind this!).
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The results are revealing - and not a little damning. Remember that the more interviews I've surveyed for each political party the firmer the evidence (so the figures for Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are very firm, and those for UKIP, the Greens and, above all, the SNP pretty compelling!). I think Lord Pearson will be very interested in which party is the most-interrupted of all!!:
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UKIP (12 interviews) - 0.90
Plaid Cymru (6 interviews) - 0.88
Conservatives (312 interviews) - 0.84
English Democrats (1 interview) - 0.8
SNP (39 interviews) - 0.76
Sinn Fein (2 interviews) - 0.75
BNP (4 interviews) - 0.65
Labour (557 interviews) - 0.57
Liberal Democrats (167 interviews) - 0.41
DUP (3 interviews) - 0.27
Greens (9 interviews) - 0.24
UUP (1 interview) - 0
Alliance (1 interview) - 0
SDLP (1 interview) - 0
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I think I'm on pretty safe ground in suspecting that many right-of-centre readers (and not a few nationalists, of every stripe) will have known already in their guts that these might be the sort of results that a scientific study of BBC interviews would produce. This provides objective proof for such gut feelings. I intend to carry on doing just what I've been doing all the way up to the general election - and, maybe, beyond.
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I will, as usual, be looking at each interviewer in turn over the coming days. Who will be a saint, and who a sinner? Who will be October's King (or Queen) of Bias?
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OCTOBER'S I.C.s - SUPER-AVERAGE I.C.s

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My favourite measure of bias across the Beeb is the super-average interruption coefficient - which is calculated very simply by adding up all the individual I.C.s for each party & then dividing them by the number of interviewed granted to each party that month. As with all statistics, the larger the sample, the better the result (with the consequence that the Sinn Fein figure, based on 2 interviews, is probably not typical!) - and more significant any differences (hence the increase of the I.C. to 2 decimal places).
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Here is how things worked out in October 09:
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Conservatives (124 interviews) - 0.87
Sinn Fein (2 interviews) - 0.75
SNP (11 interviews) - 0.65
UKIP (4 interviews) - 0.60
Labour (134 interviews) - 0.54
BNP (2 interviews) - 0.50
Greens (2 interviews) - 0.45
Liberal Democrats (32 interviews) - 0.37
Plaid Cymru (2 interviews) - 0.35
DUP (2 interviews) - 0.15
Alliance (1 interview) - 0
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Now here's some strong statistical evidence that the BBC, as a whole, is significantly more likely to interrupt a Conservative spokesman than a Labour spokesman, not to mention a Lib Dem.
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OCTOBER'S I.C.s - AIRTIME PERCENTAGES

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With the BBC's coverage of the Conservative Party conference an unprecedented thing happened in October - the Conservatives got more air-time than Labour! Last month they came third behind the Liberal Democrats (whose party conference it was then). As I posted then, this distorts matters (http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/10/septembers-ics-airtime-percentages.html) - distortion ironed out by combining October's figures with September's (the party conference season). This I shall do, as promised.
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But first, here's this month's figures, complete with the actual amounts of interview time granted to each party:
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Conservatives - 10 hours 51 minutes 29 seconds, 43.20%
Labour - 10 hours 42 minutes 41 seconds, 42.61%
Liberal Democrats - 1 hour 45 minutes 39 seconds, 6.99%
SNP - 1 hour 0 minutes 22 seconds, 3.99%
UKIP - 11 minutes 17 seconds, 0.74%
DUP - 9 minutes 2 seconds, 0.60%
BNP - 8 minutes 8 seconds, 0.54%
Sinn Fein - 6 minutes 16 seconds, 0.41%
Greens - 5 minutes 20 seconds, 0.34%
Alliance - 3 minutes 26 seconds, 0.22%
Plaid Cymru - 3 minutes 16 seconds, 0.21%
UUP - 2 minutes 27 seconds, 0.15%
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**
Now for the combined figures for September/October:
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Labour - 23 hours 7 minutes 58 seconds, 51.01%
Conservatives - 13 hours 43 minutes 30 seconds, 30.26%
Liberal Democrats - 5 hours 50 minutes 49 seconds, 12.88%
SNP - 1 hour 19 minutes 57 seconds, 2.92%
UKIP - 22 minutes 9 seconds, 0.81%
DUP - 11 minutes 17 seconds, 0.41%
Plaid Cymru - 10 minutes 50 seconds, 0.39%
Greens - 8 minutes 11 seconds, 0.30%
BNP - 8 minutes 6 seconds, 0.29%
Sinn Fein - 6 minutes 16 seconds, 0.23%
Independents - 5 minutes 16 seconds, 0.19%
UUP - 4 minutes 54 seconds, 0.17%
English Democrats - 2 minutes 27 seconds, 0.08%
SDLP - 1 minute 56 seconds, 0.06%
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So, despite the Conservative Party conference, Labour continues the rule the BBC's airwaves, with a majority of the corporation's interview time.
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Click on the label for 'Air Time' and you'll see that this is par for the course.
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OCTOBER'S I.C.s - THE NUMBER OF INTERVIEWS FOR EACH PARTY

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As this month contained the Conservative Party conference, the Tories got a lot more interviews than usual. This makes my usual totals for the month less valuable in their own right but, as promised last month (http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/10/septembers-ics-number-of-interview-for.html) I shall then remedy that difficulty.
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Here, for the record then, are the figures for October alone:
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Labour - 134
Conservatives - 124
Liberal Democrats - 32
SNP - 11
UKIP - 4
DUP - 2
BNP - 2
Sinn Fein - 2
Green - 2
Plaid Cymru - 2
Alliance - 1
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Even with all coverage of the Conservative Party conference Labour still got the most invites to the BBC's studios!!
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Now, as promised, here comes the combined tally for September and October, covering the whole of the party conference season, which gives the truer picture:
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Labour - 259
Conservatives - 169
Liberal Democrats - 87
SNP - 15
UKIP - 7
Plaid Cymru - 4
DUP - 3
Greens - 3
UUP - 3
BNP -2
Sinn Fein - 2
Independents - 2
Alliance - 1
English Democrats - 1
SDLP - 1

GREEN MONITOR

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This week's The Record: Europe was unmistakably biased in favour of one particular side of the environment debate -the Green side.

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Presenter-in-boots Shirin Wheeler introduced the opening discussion about the forthcoming Copenhagen conference on climate change with a report full of images of melting icecaps and more alarming stories about the future. She stated firmly"The world needs to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol" and reminded us of those climate scientists who "go on charting rising temperatures around the globe". As a long-term watcher of this programme, I think it's fair to say that Shirin is a devout believer in all this sort of thing.

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The roundtable discussion that followed featured Green leader Caroline Lucas MEP, the head of the European parliament's Environment Committee and German Social Democrat Jo Leinen, and former head of media for the Liberal Democrats Mark Littlewood, who is now a leading figure in Green Monitor, a group that intends to keep a careful eye on the excesses of the Green movement - and a mild AGW sceptic. (He contradicated Shirin's figures, saying that there has been no overall rise in global temperature between 1998-2008.)

**

How did they fare at the fair Shirin's lovely hands?
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Time to speak:
Caroline Lucas - 4 minutes 10 seconds
Jo Leinen - 3 minutes 49 seconds
Mark Littlewood - 3 minutes 25 seconds
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Number of interruptions:
Caroline Lucas - 0
Jo Leinen - 0
Mark Littlewood - 3
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Interruption Coefficients:
Caroline Lucas - 0
Jo Leinen - 0
Mark Littlewood - 0.9
8
One of Shirin Wheeler's interruptions was simply a cut-off to pass the conversation on to another speaker, but the other two were much more telling of bias.
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When Mark said "I'm not as persuaded by all the science surrounding this...", Shirin interrupted him, saying "What, what do you mean you're not persuaded by all the science?"
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Even more typical of a true believer, she later went on to stop him in mid-flow when he began saying something she really didn't want to hear. He was saying "Caroline talks about the science as if it's so black and white. Climatology is still in its infancy. I'm not trying to dismiss those that..." when Shirin butted in with "Well, let's not go back to the science argument" and then said "Jo", passing the baton back to the pro-Green socialist.
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Still, at least a mild AGW sceptic got a look in here. Later in the programme the focus turned to those wicked multi-national oil companies and their wicked doings in the developing world. Who did Shirin Wheeler discuss this topic with? Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of the Earth International and Claude Turmes, a Luxembourgeois Green MEP. Why interview one Green when you can interview two!!
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