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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UNJUST(IN) BEHAVIOUR

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Bupendra at B-BBC (good man!) picked up on some more biased behaviour on the Today programme:
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Same old, same old on The Toady Programme.

Justin Webb interviewing Tory Nick Herbert and a couple of others I'd never heard of about The Countryside.

Webb straight into Nick Herbert with...

Can I ask you first of all, Nick Herbert, are you the party of the hunt?

And how important is the reinstatement of hunting with hounds to that general picture?

Ok. We'll come to those things (reviving the rural economy, rural unemployment and rural services, which Mr Herbert had brought up) in a second. Let's get hunting out of the way out of the way first of all.

It is a fact, isn't it Nick Herbert, that your party leader wants to bring it back. He's not going to force his party down that road, but he wants it back?

But he personally wants it back...

Yeah alright, Justin, we get it. The Tories are very bad people who want to kill foxes. Now if you want to talk about the countryside how about the economy, housing, education, services, farming etc. You know, relevant, important stuff rather than stuff you can use (you think) as a stick to beat the Tories with.

Credit to Nick Herbert who swatted Justin away.
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/04/open-thread_8124.html
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A spot-on analysis.
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This debate on rural policy lasted 9m 33s. The first 3m 28s were spent on fox hunting.
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After this interruption-filled probing of Nick Herbert and a lesser grilling for the 'third way-over-fox-hunting'-advocating Lib Dem David Heath (one of my favourite Lib Dems - as I've mentioned before. He was one of the few Lib Dems to go against his party and honour his election pledge on a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty), Justin Webb turned to Hilary Benn (who had already had his chance to slag off the Tories over fox hunting).
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What searing question did he ask Wedgie Jnr?: "Ten thousand homes, Hilary Benn, ten thousand homes in rural areas and homes coming soon. This is what you're promising?" Reading out a manifesto pledge is hardly a demanding question!! Nick Herbert gets grilled on fox hunting; Hilary Benn gets a Labour manifesto pledge read out! Amazing!
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What happened next was scarcely less amazing. Did Justin return to Nick Herbert and read out one of his party's proposals? No he didn't. He read out another of Labour's lovely promises to bring sunshine and smiles to the nation: "Nick Herbert, two things. The homes and the broadband. Labour promising a potentially large-scale home buildings (sic), as Hilary Benn says, which in a sense has already started. But also the idea that in rural communities it is just no acceptable in the future for you not to have access to high-speed broadband."
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What do the interruption coefficients tell us? Things are bad enough already for Justin, surely they can't show any further bias, can they? Oh yes they can!
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Nick Herbert - 1.2
Hilary Benn - 0.8
David Heath - 0.7
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GOVING AS GOOD AS HE GETS

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B-BBC readers will be up on this story already (and there have been some excellents comments there about this already), but a few more things can be said.
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Today this morning decided that the biggest story of the day was some criticism of Conservative education policy made by a Conservative council leader, Paul Carter from Kent. As the programme began, John Humprhys read "The news headlines this morning. A Conservative council leader has said that Tory plans to allow parents in England to set up their own schools could damage state schools."
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As the newsreader read out the gist of the story I immediately spotted some misreporting: "Free schools, as they are known, would be established outside local authority control, using money that would have been allocated to the state sector." My understanding, based on a little reading on the subject and from watching an otherwise incredibly biased Newsnight report on the subject a couple of months ago, was that 'free schools' were state schools - albeit state schools outside local authority control. That's what the Conservatives have always said. That's what Michael Gove went on to repeat to John Humphrys.
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Gillian Hargreaves, the BBC's education(al establishment) correspondent, then reported, saying "this intervention is embarrassing." She emphasized that Mr Carter "isn't against choice in education but he thinks the funding of free schools could be unfair to councils because money will be diverted from local education authorities". She continued, "He's not alone in his unease. The head of Hampshire's children's services, who is also a Conservative, says local councils must have the chance to turn a school around rather than give parents and charities the immediate right to set up a new school."
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Gillian's full report can be read here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8640576.stm
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It details the concerns of both men at some length. Several things quickly become clear from reading the men's carefully filleted words (rather than merely attending to the BBC reporter's framing of them). Both men's concerns are nuanced, even in the excerpts we get (and, unsurprisingly, their support for the concept of free schools is skirted over very briefly in indirect quotation while their reservations are dwelt on across several paragraphs in direct quotation. (I wish we could hear the full interviews with both men). Also Cllr Carter is just as concerned about Labour's academies as he is about Conservative free schools. You wouldn't have got any sense of that from just listening to the Today programme.
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Then we here from that trusty stand-by in times of need - the unnamed man, who goes a lot further than either of the named councillors:
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Another Conservative councillor who runs education services in one of England's cities, but who does not want to be named, says he "is not a fan of the free schools policy".

He points out (which makes it sound as if he is just stating the fact of the matter) if parents were able to set up free schools in his area - a city with a growing population - it would make strategic planning a nightmare.

What of Michael Gove's rejection of the story? It gets one short paragraph!!!!
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What follows in the rest of the article, which still leads the BBC's Education page and, amazingly, which still hasn't been updated since 7:05 GMT? We hear a steam of criticism of the Conservative plans.
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There are two paragraphs from The Institute for Fiscal Studies then, under the sub-heading 'Privilege the few', we get four paragraphs of pure Ballsian Tory-bashing bile from Ed Balls. Next come two 'attack paragraphs' from Lib Dem Sarah Teather. Then two more from head NUTter Christine Blower.
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UPDATE (even before I've published this post!). Gillian has now updated her article (18.16 GMT). Michael Gove now gets two short paragraphs to defend his position (and a short video clip)!!! WOW!!!. Generous eh?!

Why hasn't she outlined the robust defence Mr Gove gave on the Today programme? What happened to the idea of a right to reply? Surely a half dozen paragraphs at the very least from Michael Gove would only have been fair, given the length of the article and the sheer amount of criticism contained in it - all of which remains from this morning, except that Ed Balls loses one of his four paragraphs (he still has one more than Michael Gove!!!) - and given the scope of Mr Gove's case as made (under fire) this morning.
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Just from reading this article (in both versions) you can tell that Gillian Hargreaves might not be the most impartial of reporters.

Gillian Hargreaves had a little chat with Justin Webb at 6.36am, giving only the criticisms without the nuances. The chat ended with Justin saying "Briefly Gillian. A bit of a blow?" "Yes", she replied. "It is embarrassing for the Conservatives and privately several councillors have told me this policy has not been thought out properly, certainly not when it comes to funding ".
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The Daily Mail's take on this includes these points - which (if they are all true!) raise yet more questions about the BBC's behaviour:
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The BBC was criticised today for claiming senior Tory council figures have reservations about plans to let parents and charities set up their own schools.
With just 10 days to go before polling day, leader of Kent County Council Paul Carter accused the broadcaster of attempting to create division in Conservative ranks.
It contacted Tory council chiefs in an apparent bid to drum up any criticism about the party's education scheme and then, to the delight of Labour, led with Mr Carter's comments in its news bulletins this morning.
The BBC leapt on comments from Mr Carter, which simply repeated concerns he had already raised earlier this year, to argue that he was calling into question Tory plans.
Mr Gove insisted that existing schools' budgets will be untouched because the plans would be funded by slashing waste in the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
And other council chiefs, including Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Merrick Cockell, and Stephen Castle from Essex County Council, also fully backed them.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1268885/General-Election-2010-BBC-claiming-Tories-divided-flagship-schools-plan.html

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Well, didn't Michael Gove do well! We are in what Hippiepooter would call 'Attaboy!' territory! Trouncing John Humphrys (I.C. of 2.2), correcting the BBC's distortions and getting the message across about BBC bias with force, intelligence and good humour, he showed his colleagues the right way to deal with the Beeb. It has given me hope that the Conservative leadership isn't as sanguine about BBC bias as we (with ample justification) thought. Listen again here, and enjoy:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8643000/8643459.stm
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I'M I.P.P.P.R.

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The nearest thing I've got to a catchphrase here is "If it's not the IPPR, it's probably Demos". (Nothing to worry Bruce Forsyth, I admit). Of course, it usually is the IPPR - the Labour-aligned Institute for Public Policy Research. (That could become a new catchphrase! In the style of Brucie: It usually is the IPPR, the IPPR it usually is!)

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Well, following yesterday's distasteful hatchet job on UKIP by Jon Manel, which name-checked the IPPR and used one of its former member as UKIP-basher-in-chief, this morning's Today, just before 7.00am (as David Vance points out at Biased BBC), based a story on a report on immigration by....the IPPR. That showed something or other that the BBC wants us to hear about immigration - and the BNP. Justin Webb twice called their research "interesting". He talked to co-author Laura Chappell of the IPPR (pictured).

It usually is the IPPR.

AS SIKKA AS A PARROT

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The Today programme didn't completely ignore Labour's protectionist 'Cadbury's Law'. Justin Webb, in the course of a surprising - and admirably - strong grilling, got support for the proposal from Vince 'more-Labour-than-Labour' Cable.
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Later Justin talked to Prof Prem Sikka of Essex University on the subject. My heart sank as soon as I saw his name. I knew immediately that he was on to back the government. I've written about him before:

Prem Sikka, professor of accounting at the University of Essex, was on this morning's Today programme, talking to James Naughtie about Lehman Brothers.
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Prem and Jim got on like a house on fire.
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Prof Sikka was also recently on The World Tonight (1/3/10), causing mischief for the Tories over the issue of non-doms and tax. You may not be surprised to learn that Prem Sikka also blogs for The Guardian and holds left-wing views - for a full flavour of which please click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/premsikka.

Prof Sikka indeed backed the government over the matter. "I think it is a good idea", he said, before talking lots of socialist tripe. Justin, again to his credit, refused to take the Esler approach and just accept what he said without challenge.
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No-one from Labour "was available" to talk about the matter.
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JOHN, MARK AND JUSTIN

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At least Today didn't entirely swallow The World Tonight's deviant line!
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Continuing on from my earlier posts, there was confirmation that Labour is (paradoxically) keen to hear the BBC discuss Mark Easton's holiday freebies story rather than the far-more-damaging-to-Labour lobbying story from the characteristically unsure-footed Sir Stuart Bell on this morning's Today programme.
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Labour veteran Sir Stuart gave the game away, saying in answer to a question from Justin Webb, "Well I think the Labour Party meeting last night was more to do with the three cabinet ministers rather than the question of 20 MPs who had not declared their interests on foreign trips. So essentially what I'm talking about today is this further error of judgement in our colleagues, twenty of them, which unfortunately means that 646 MPs are now tarred with the same brush..." To his credit, Justin (who was not reading from the prescribed Mark Easton/Michael Crick/The World Tonight script) pulled him back to the cabinet ministers and pressed him on it! Not that Sir Stuart gave any real answers. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8582000/8582281.stm
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Still the narrative, a "cross-party affair" (as Justin called it), was back in place soon after with the appearance of the man himself, Mark 'Stick-the-knife-into-the-Tories' Easton. In outlining the rules to John Humphrys he used a far-from-hypothetical example of an MP who, say, goes to the Maldives. There is such an MP, and he's a Conservative, David Amess. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8582000/8582305.stm. Andrew Dismore (the sacrificial Labour lamb) followed, as he did with Michael Crick and on The World Tonight. He's the one on the Parliamentary Committee on Standards and Privileges. Then Easton went back to the Maldives guy, Mr Amess (this time naming him). As Sir Stuart said, Labour is much more comfortable here, where the guilt is spread much more widely across the parties.
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John Humphrys returned though to the big story at 8.10, but he spun it in the expected way.
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He began by saying that their was anger at the former cabinet ministers not just from the opposition but "not only on the opposition benches. There was plenty of anger among Labour MPs too. Well now the government has reacted. The three ministers involved have been suspended from the Labour Party". So there you go, Labour is outraged and has taken strong action against the three . Labour's all right really, it's only a few rotten eggs.
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Interviewing Jack Straw, John Humphrys first discussed the individuals then questioned the rules. Shouldn't the rules the changed? The rules, the rules, it's the fault of the rules. After the few rotten eggs came the generalities. The government's thinking on the generalities was where the bulk of the interview lay. So the discussion moved from three individuals from the Labour Party to parliament as a whole without dwelling on the in-between i.e. the Labour Party itself, which is riddled with sleaze.
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TWO WAYS TO DEFLECT AN UNWELCOME STORY

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Fair's fair, Norman Smith was on this morning's Today to talk to John Humphrys about the 'cash for access' scandal involving those senior Labour figures, and Nick Robinson discussed it with Justin Webb.
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The 7.10 spot today, however, showed the BBC moving firmly to change the focus away from Labour and onto the evils of lobbying itself. JH talked to Prof David Miller of Strathclyde University, one of the founders of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency. This alliance's definition of 'lobbying' seems to mean 'corporate lobbying'. Here are its members:

Action Aid
Campaign Against Arms Trade
Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom
Corporate Watch
enough'senough.org
Friends of the Earth
Greenpeace
National Union of Journalists
Pesticides Action Network
Platform
SPEAK Network
SpinWatch
Unlock Democracy
War on Want
World Development Movement

Yes, it's that sort of alliance! http://www.lobbyingtransparency.org/content/view/2/7/. Don't these groups lobby too?

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Prof Miller said, "I see yesterday the Labour Party said it was introducing a manifesto commitment so the question now is 'What would the other parties do?'" - which would have surely pleased any Labour Party people listening!

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The second predictable strand of the BBC's approach to this story (predicted by Cassandra on the Biased BBC blogsite as early as yesterday morning) was that it would try to say that all the political parties are at it, the Conservatives as much as Labour. Over the many, many months that the BBC pursued the Conservatives over Lord Ashcroft I don't recall hearing many BBC interviewers adopting this 'they're all as bad as each other' line - at least until they had too in the last couple of weeks! Only when Labour get caught in the mire do the likes of Justin Webb start pushing it to the fore.

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Here are two of Justin's question to Sir George Young:

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"There is a convenient distinction, isn't there though, that is made between advice that is given and lobbying? One of the things that Geoff Hoon appears to have said is that 'one of the challenges I'm really looking forward too', this is a direct quotation, 'is translating my knowledge and contacts about the international scene into something that frankly makes money'. Well that's what former ministers of both parties have done for decades. I mean Lady Thatcher became advisor to Philip Morris." (If in doubt blame Mrs Thatcher!!)

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"But just on the wider point though, a lot of people will see it only as a difference of degree. The fact is that a lot of former cabinet ministers of both parties (his emphasis) advise and have advised companies and what they're selling is access."

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And here's one he put to Nick Robinson:

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"I do wonder though whether the public really see much of a distinction between this issue of lobbying on specific issues, going to government, saying 'I on behalf of a company want you to do this, that and the other' and the sort of general advice that, as I was suggesting to Sir George Young, cabinet ministers and former cabinet ministers have done for decades."

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Justin Webb's interview with Sir George Young (Conservative) resulted in an interruption coefficient of 1.2. His interview with Labour's Kevin Brennan on the same subject resulted merely in an I.C. of 0.4. That's Justin Webb for you!

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The Today programme (and its website) was keen to stress throughout that the calls for an investigation into Stephen Byers were coming from the Conservative Party. This neglects the fact that the Lib Dems are also making those calls and risks falsely implanting in the public's mind the idea that this whole story is turning into a party-political point-scoring exercise by the Tories. Perish the thought that anyone at the BBC would think of trying to imply that!!

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UPDATE: The World at One, in fairness to the BBC, is leading with the Stephen Byers story and digging into his discussions with Lord Adonis. Martha Kearney interviewed a questioning Norman Baker of the Lib Dems (I.C. of 0), the BBC's favourite transport expert Christian Wolmar, who glossed things favourably for Lord Adonis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Wolmar), and Labour loyalist Tony 'Father of Ben' Wright MP (I.C. of 0), who will doubtless find his knighthood in the post soon after the general election and who kept trying to implicate the Conservatives.

JUST IN TIME

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The Advertising Standards Agency has given young Ed Miliband a red face by ruling that two government adverts using nursery rhymes exaggerated the threat posed to Britain by 'global warming'. This newsworthy story was reported in the Sunday papers:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7440664/Government-rebuked-over-global-warming-nursery-rhyme-adverts.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7061162.ece
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The BBC held off on the story for a few days before launching a series of defensive manoeuvres.
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Catch while you can Justin Webb's Today discussion with Torin Douglas (6.43am)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/b006qj9z/console
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Justin here spins the story to put Labour in the least embarrassing light possible: "So just in a few words Torin, this is sort of a score draw, isn't it, between the government and those who complained? Some of the adverts passed and a couple, on almost a technicality, not." Torin replied, "I think you're right on that. Yep."
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Justin returned to the subject later, first closely questioning Guy Parker of the ASA then very gently interviewing Ed Miliband himself. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8571000/8571728.stm
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Give Justin a Tory to interview and the interruptions will fly, but present him with a Labour Climate Change secretary and you'll hear very few interruptions (just one today). There were few questions and they were all bowled underarm.
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That belated BBC News website article on the story has already been relegated to the margins of the Science and Environment page. Look for 'Monkeys learn more from females' (actually much more my sort of story!) and go down two items: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/default.stm. It is also clinging precariously to the margins of the Politics Page after a short stay there too http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/default.stm).
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The links to other newspapers in the article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8571353.stm)
do not include either The Times or The Telegraph, which were running the story four days ago - doubtless for that very reason i.e. that they'd already covered it four days ago!! Fellow laggards like The Independent, however, do receive links. Mr Miliband's defence is quoted at length and his interview with Justin Webb is also linked too - though not the preceding interview with Mr Parker of the ASA for some (guessable) reason. One of the 'cleared' government ads is featured in full, so you can enjoy this public 'information' film at your own leisure!
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The BBC has grudgingly done its bit by covering the story (days late) and playing down its embarrassing aspects for Labour. Now it can move on and never mention it again.

AN OWEN GOAL

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I thought I'd begin my listening experience of this morning's Today programme with Justin Webb's interview with shadow Northern Ireland secretary Owen Paterson over the UUP's attitude to the devolution of policing and justice. I chose it because I guessed there would be a fair few interruptions (knowing of the tried-and-tested scientific formula Justin Webb + Conservative spokesman = lots of interruptions).
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Still, even I was surprise at just how soon Justin Webb interrupted Mr Paterson. Please take a listen: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8557000/8557147.stm.
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4 seconds - that's how long it took for Webb to interrupt him. Eight more interruptions followed in an interview that lasted under 4 minutes. The initial frenzy ebbed as the interview neared its end but even so the resultant I.C. was a whopping 2.5.
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Talking of 'whopping', had I been Mr Paterson I'd have verbally whopped Justin Webb for carrying on in such a rude manner. Sadly he, Owen Paterson, did no such thing. He took it on the chin. They always take it on the chin. Compare that to Labour's Phil Hope (yesterday), who moaned after being interrupted just twice in four minutes!!
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If Conservative spokesmen don't go into the Today studio fired up to fire back at the slightest provocation they will always be treated like this. Some of the Today presenters are out to get them. They will, consequently, not get their case across and they'll lose the argument by default. The Tory Party will lose the election (and we'll all be lumbered with the Lib-Lab pact) if the likes of Owen Paterson don't take the fight to the likes of the biased presenters of the Today programme.
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It can be done, as DB points out on the Biased BBC blogsite (though note that it's done by a Tory backbencher. Promote that man!):

Conservative MP Graham Stuart appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire show this morning to discuss Lord Paul after the non-dom Labour peer had chickened out of an interview at the last minute. Stuart took the opportunity to have a bit of a go at the BBC (his segment begins approx 12.30 in - available for 7 days):

"Imagine a Tory donor who'd bought a company, run its pension fund into the ground, bought the assets back for pennies in the pound, who became a privy counsellor even though he wasn't qualified while personally funding the leader's leadership bid - they (sic) would be a massive story and yet somehow the BBC runs day after day on Lord Ashcroft, who as far as I can see has done nothing wrong, and gives Labour an easy ride. It takes me back to the tales we had of the champagne bottles in 1997 and I'm afraid the BBC remains biased and fails to ask the proper questions of those who are currently in power."
http://www.bbcbias.co.uk

JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE BIASED BBC

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Tom Bradby, political editor at ITN, challenged Liam Fox over Lord Ashcroft on tonight's 6.30 News. He also challenged Lord Mandelson, quizzing him on Labour money-bags Sir Ronald Cohen. Is Sir Ronnie also a non-dom? "Labour ministers are desperate to keep this story going," said Tom, before adding "but not so good at answering their own questions." Given Labour's own poor record on dodgy donations in recent years and the ongoing questions about many of their present big-money donors, Tom noted that it was "a bit rich" for them to try and take the moral high-ground on this story. (Many Labour figures are shameless enough to do anything.) Tom added, "the Liberal Democrats are frankly not much better." The difference between this (questioning all sides) and the BBC's out-and-out side-taking is startling.
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Lord Ashcroft has been cleared of wrong-doing today by the Electoral Commission.
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This morning's Today paper reviews again only featured critics of Lord Ashcroft and the Conservatives from the press.
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Indeed, being the pairing of James Naughtie and Justin Webb, a tally of mentions from the pick of the papers (over the three paper reviews of the day, at 6.10, 6.45 and 7.43) produces a predictable list:
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The Guardian - 7 mentions
The Independent - 6 mentions
The Times - 4 mentions
The Daily Telegraph - 3 mentions
The Daily Mirror - 2 mentions
The Daily Mail - 2 mentions
The Sun - 1 mention
The Daily Express - 1 mention
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That's the same total for The Guardian and The Independent as all the others put together!
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Norman Smith, the BBC's Anti-Tory Affairs Correspondent, was back, chatting to Justin about Lord Ashcroft (of course). Accusations against the Conservatives were aired, questions were raised of Lord Ashcroft and the Conservative Party. At least Justin Webb asked about whether the Cabinet Office's full-knowledge of the deal let the Conservative Party off the hook. Norm said "only partially I think" (clearly meaning 'No!") and, without dwelling on the implications for Labour of Justin's question, simply went back to his job of putting the Labour case: "I think the reason it doesn't entirely get the party of the hook is that the view certainly among Labour politicians is that William Hague should have asked an awful lot more questions", he began. Then came the usual bit of outright spin, complete with Norm's characteristic hyperbole: "But as I say for the Tory Party, you know, they are it seems to me suffering now considerable collateral damage from this whole affair." No mention of Sir Ronnie Cohen there then, nor any questions for Labour.*
*
Later extended clips were played of past encounters on the issue between the BBC (Paxman, Marr and Lustig) and William Hague. If ever the day comes to question Harriet Harman about any of its donors, how many clips will the BBC be able to play back then? Any?
*
Nick Robinson again stressed the importance of the story at some length, adopting a high moral tone, despite the deficit and the war in Afghanistan. In contrast Tom Bradby on ITV News tonight expressed considerable scepticism about its importance. Nick again ignored any questions for Labour. He accused and raised questions only of the Tories. He speculated about how damaging it would be if the Electoral Commission found against Lord Ashcroft on the legality of his donations, saying it would be 'dynamite' if it judged his actions illegal. Well, it didn't and they aren't, so that's that!!
*
Norman Smith was on again as news broke of the Electoral Commission's judgement in favour of Lord Ashcroft. He discussed it with Martha Kearney on The World at One. Norm outlined the allegations against Lord Ashcroft and the Conservatives with some fervour before (and it must have choked him to say it!) conceding that the EC gave them a clean bill of health, and that it would be "a huge, huge relief" for the Conservative Party. From what Martin says on the Biased BBC blogsite Jon Sopel, interviewing Jenny Watson on the EC, was not so willing to concede anything to the Conservatives.
*
Martha then interviewed the man who brought the case to the Electoral Commission, Labour's John Mann. Now, all credit to her, she did ask him (briefly) about Labour donors. Conservative donor Lord Kalms was also interviewed and duly criticised Lord Ashcroft. Worst here was a disgraceful piece from a reporter called Bob Walker from the marginal of Loughborough. He staged an anti-Tory stunt to highlight what Lord Ashcroft's money is achieving (though, given the small amount he now gives to the Conservative Party, it quite likely not to have been his money at all). Some clever Conservative leaflets were held up to public contempt by the stentorian Mr Walker.
*
More questions came on PM from Ross Hawkins. Ross did hint that Labour and the Lib Dems were electioneering (as is the BBC!) and spoke to a former Conservative MP who is calling for Lord Ashcroft to resign, Barry Legg (who lost his seat in 1997). Carolyn Quinn then spoke to another former Conservative MP who is calling for Lord Ashcroft to resign, Elizabeth Peacock (who also lost her seat in 1997). They must be ringing around! Carolyn mentioned, very much in passing, that Labour had its own questionable donors. That she felt she had to mention it a few times suggests that the BBC now realises that it's been on dodgy ground in terms of bias so far on this story (to put it very mildly), but the fact that she only mentioned it very briefly in passing suggests that this is a cynical attempt to try and build a small database of quotes for the BBC to call upon should they be very seriously challenged by the Conservatives over this.
*
Carolyn Quinn then turned her odious attention to the question of how all this might play with the voters. Cue a pollster. Guess who? Yes, back after just a couple of days absence from Radio 4 was Lady Ashton's husband, Labour-supporting Peter Kellner of YouGov. His links were not mentioned, but then again they never are! If the Ashcroft story runs into next week, Mr Kellner said, "it might become very bad news for David Cameron." He mentioned "the old Watergate question, 'who knew what and when'".
*
Still to come is Question Time of course. And will Michael Crick make it four nights in a row on Newsnight?
*
Just another day at the biased BBC.
*

SELECTING LABOUR

*
Education lawyer Anita Chopra was one of the guests on the closing education debate on this morning's Today. She's unaligned to any political party (according to my very thorough Google search) and sounded studiously neutral on matters of politics throughout.
*
The other guest was a very different kettle of fish - Fiona Millar, 'chair' of Comprehensive Future and 'significant other' of chief-killer-of-decency-in-politics Alastair Campbell. Justin Webb, in introducing her, said she "campaigns for education provision for all". (Why did he simply parrot this completely vacuous cliche? Who isn't in favour of education provision for all? Nobody!!!!!!)

Ms Millar made attacks on selection and faith schools - and, you won't be too surprised to hear, on the Conservatives. This attack on the Conservatives came as the result of a generous-invitation-to-attack-the-Tories-disguised-as-a-question from Justin Webb. He allowed the all-too-inevitable attack to flow unabated and unchallenged. Job done for Labour, job done for Justin!
*
Justin sounded sniffy about the idea of choice in his introductory remarks and his questioning of the lawyer (who represents parents who are unhappy with the school they are offered) was noticeably more brusque than his questioning of the choice-hating La Campbell. Indeed, for all his interruptions (not that there were many), Justin didn't ask a single challenging question of Fiona Millar. He did, however, ask Anita "Anita Copra, is that a potential issue here, people just look, glance, at admissions tables, at league tables for exams, and actually make decisions that aren't really necessarily the best for their children?". So, the only substantial question of the entire segment comes from the Left perspective that opposes one of the few New Labour principles I enthusiastically agree with - proper measurement of schools performance (the practice of course is something else!!).
*
Justin questions from a Left perspective here. The programme's choice of guests is tilted towards the Labour Party. That's the Today programme for you! That's the BBC for you!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8542000/8542374.stm

!"2

Today didn't just speak to Labour supporters, it also talked to an ex-Labour-supporting novelist who left the Labour Party because, through its support for Bush and the Iraq War, he no longer found it left-wing enough, Hanif Kureishi. He followed straight on from 'civil rights leader' Jesse Jackson, who Justin Webb valued for his "friendly but critical analysis" of Barack Obama. All Justin's questions came from a stance pretty much identical to Rev. Jackson's, criticising Obama only from the Left. This was not good interviewing by Justin Webb ("some people say that he's been too timid in fighting back against those interests", "It's a reasonable point, isn't it, that Americans do have a strange view of the government - they both are involved it and yet dislike it, and yet his critics say, especially his critics on the Left, that actually he cold have punctured all of that if he'd been willing to go to Congress with a plan of his own early on and say back me.")

*

*

The Conservatives were not excluded, however, as the Today website makes clear: "Why are UK voters so unsure about the Tory party? They had a 26-point poll lead 18 months ago, but according to a YouGov Sunday Times poll, that lead is down to just two points. David Cameron addressed the Tory Spring Conference yesterday and himself admitted that his party faced a "real fight". John Strafford who runs the Conservative Campaign for Democracy, and Editor of Spectator Fraser Nelson, discuss what Cameron and his party have done to deserve such a drastic fall in support in the crucial run-up to the general election." Justin and Nick Robinson discussed the difficulties facing the Conservatives before John and Fraser did battle. Justin Webb interrupted them both, especially Mr Stafford. Together the conflicted Conservatives got just over 3 1/2 minutes of BBC airtime.
*
*
Council spending cuts and 'severe austerity', in Evan Davis's words, were the main story of the day. BBC reporters from Yorkshire and the Midlands reported the disapproving view of the unions before L.S.E. professor, Guardian columnist and long-standing BBC favourite Tony Travers, described as a 'local government expert', presented his opinions. He didn't single out the government for criticism. Later left-wing BBC Home Affairs editor Mark Easton also quoted the unions ("a dark period of rationalisation and savings, cuts to jobs and services as the unions prefer to describe it") before characteristically putting Labour's point of view (without balancing it with criticism of the government from the Conservatives'): "Central government is keen to avoid blame for damaging local services and makes the point that local budgets are already agreed till 2011." This is the 'to be fair' principle, easily applied to your friends.
*
Then came the big political interview of the day with Labour's communities' secretary John Denham, who immediately began by saying that Mark Easton was right.
*
Now came the redeeming feature of this typically biased edition of the programme: Evan Davis got tough with John Denham, strongly resisting his immediate attempts to attack David Cameron and forcefully and repeatedly pressing the Labour minister to come clean over his party's spending plans, even pointing out at one stage that Labour ministers seem incapable of answering such questions.This is something neither Marr nor Naughtie (nor most other BBC interviewers for that matter) would have pursued with anywhere near as much vigour (if at all) and this rebounds to Evan's credit. The I.C. was a high 1.8. There's still hope for the lad (despite recent lapses)!
*

LANSLEYS TO THE SLAUGHTER

*
This morning's Today programme was in full campaigning mode. The presenters were the Gruesome Twosome, James Naughtie and Justin Webb, and, as so often when this left-wing pair are left in charge of the programme, the bias was palpable.
*
Justin Webb interviewed three politicians.
*
The first was Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb. He was interrupted three times, resulting in an I.C. of 0.9, though only one of these interruptions contained a note of challenge (asking whether the Lib Dems had been naive), the others being fact-finding questions (aimed at digging up dirt on the Tories). Mr Lamb would doubtless have come away pleased from this interview.
*
Justin's second politician was Labour's Kim Howells. The tone here was, as it so often is, thoughtful and civilised in tone. The Today website truncates the interview, which actually lasted some six minutes. Webb only interrupted Mr Howells once (and then so gently that you might not have noticed), so the I.C. was a puny 0.2.
*
Lastly came the Conservative, shadow health spokesman Andrew Lansley. He was on the receiving end of a very different kind of interview from either of the others. Gone were the fact-finding questions and the thoughtful, gentle discussion. In their place came aggressive questioning and bags of interruptions - 14 in all. These interruptions were designed to disrupt Mr Lansley's case and began early and continued throughout. Within a couple of minutes, Mr Lansley complained that Webb hadn't given him the chance to explain - and he was dead right about that. That didn't stop the barracking. The interruption coefficient was 2.0 (ten times that of Kim Howells).
*
Here are the three interviews for comparison:
Lamb: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8511000/8511983.stm
Howells: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8512000/8512056.stm
Lansley: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8512000/8512097.stm
*
This story has been spotted by Umbongo on the Biased BBC website, & he notes something you also won't find on the Today website: Naughtie's post-Lansley comment that the interview was 'interesting' (http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/02/open-thread_12.html#comments). That ultra-biased Labour luvvie Naughtie would find such a disgraceful interview 'interesting' tells you all you need to know about it.
*
The full, unredacted version of the programme can be heard here for the next seven days:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj9z

UNJUSTIN

*
Justin Webb betrayed himself again this morning in his interview with Nick Clegg, when he affected a credulous tone with the Lib Dem leader and said "A billion from streamlining quangos? That sounds...people accuse the Conservatives of being over-ambitious, don't they, in their claims for what could come from efficiency savings!..." So a dig at the Conservatives from Justin (with no Conservatives present to defend themselves against it), an unspecific use of the word "people" and no acknowledgement from him that Labour can also be accused of "being over-ambitious in their claims for efficiency saving!"
*

'TODAY' TICKS ONLY THE BOXES MARKED 'LEFT WING'

*
The left-liberal bias of the BBC is seemingly bottomless, and that of the Today programme in particular is a virtual black hole from which no right-winger can escape.
*
Following on my my last post (and nearly all my others!), this morning's Today programme discussed the use of tick-boxes - a story prompted by a report from a left-wing think tank. It's usually the Labour-aligned Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), and today was no exception.
*
That's not all. Who was this discussed with? Someone from the Left and someone from the Right? Of course not. It was discussed with one of the report's authors, the left-wing comedian Simon Fanshawe and Claude Moraes, a Labour MEP. Justin Webb fitted in perfectly.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/news/8484708.stm

INEQUALITY IN THE 'TODAY' STUDIO

*
Today's Today was driven by a report on inequality from the National Equality Panel, set up in 2008 by Harriet Harman. This organisation is headed by John Hills, Professor of Social Policy at the BBC's beloved London School of Economics.
*
There was certainly a great deal of inequality about the amount of time each of the political parties got to make their cases on the issue. Theresa May (pictured left and right) for the Conservatives got least (3 minutes 42 seconds). David Laws for the Lib Dems did slightly better (4 minutes 8 seconds). Taking the lion's share, however, (and some of the leopard's too), was Labour's Harriet Harman (7 minutes 5 seconds), getting almost twice as long to wow the nation as Mrs May.
*
You might have expected that Harriet Harman would have been given a rougher ride, if only to balance out this inherent unfairness. Not a bit of it. The respective interruption coefficients for the three politicians were 0.6, 0.5 and 0.6.
*
Sarah Montague did the interview with Theresa May. Here's one of her questions: "But what's clear from this report is that it's been a problem of the last forty years, that at the time when the Conservatives were in power, it rose, the gap between top and bottom, from 3 times earnings in the '70s, rose to 4 times in the '80s, and the report makes it clear that there are things that the Labour government have done which have made a difference, they just haven't on the scale required." Mrs May's attempt to answer this was soon interrupted by an "OK, what would you do?". Theresa bridled a little at this, saying "Well, that's what I'm just about to come onto, thankyou." A lot more of that attitude is needed! She then began to list what the Conservatives would do but was interrupted again with another abrupt question, "And the abolition of inheritance tax?" As Theresa May immediately pointed out (and how can Sarah Montague really not have known this?), "Well, nobody's abolishing inheritance tax. We will be raising the threshhold on inheritance tax." That was a pretty simple error for a top interviewer to have made - if error it be.
*
Neither Harriet Harman nor David Laws had to face anything like that. They were interviewed by Justin Webb. Both got to attack the Tories - and were not interrupted while they did so.
*

THE FLAGSHIP TILTS TO PORT (AS EVER)

*
A Conservative politician and a Labour politician appeared on this morning's Today programme. The Conservative (George Osborne) faced Justin Webb and was determinedly interrupted (9 times, resulting in a I.C. of 1.3), whereas the Labour Party spokesman (Phil Woolas) faced James Naughtie and was not interrupted at all (I.C of 0).
*
Just another day at Radio 4's left-wing flagship.
*

WHILE TWEEDLEDEE'S AWAY...

*
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.
*
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.
*
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?
*

JUSTIN TIME TO DEFEND OBAMA

*
It's intriguing how certain commentators keep cropping up on the BBC.
*
Last night's The World Tonight featured Michael Scheuer, the former CIA officer who launched the Extraordinary Rendition programme back in 1995 under the Clinton administration, discussing Barack Obama and the Nigerian plane bomber. This was not Mr Scheuer's first appearance on the programme. (His last appearance was on 1oth December, discussing Osama Bin Laden).
*
Then, tuning in to the Today programme this morning, he was there again (introduced by Justin Webb as "one of the architects of America's rendition programme"). This is not necessarily a bad thing of course. Mr Scheuer is an interesting if controversial guy, and author of the influential Imperial Hubris. He was a strong critic of American foreign policy under the Bush Administration, but is far from uncritical of President Obama.
*
Voicing criticism of Barack Obama was virtually guaranteed to bring Obama-worshipper Justin Webb crashing in, not just to put the president's point of view, but to defend it too: "Yeah but...on that point, that it should have been passed on, what President Obama (..all praise President Obama!..) says is that this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community. In other words, having received the information from the father in Nigeria it appears to have gone further but then says it was not effectively distributed so as to get the suspect's name onto a no-fly list. Now, that does actually fit the president's description, doesn't it, of a systemic failure?"*

A MORE BALANCED SPLASH

*
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.
*
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!)
*
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). *
*

HANGING ON THEIR EVERY WORD

*
Any debate on capital punishment hosted by Justin Webb is likely to be biased against the death penalty, so it's really no surprise that this morning's double-interview on Today between Labour's Charles Clarke (anti) and Conservative Philip Davies (pro) saw an interruption coefficient of 0.9 against Mr Davies (3 interruptions within a short space of time) and an I.C. of 0 against Mr Clarke (no interruptions whatsoever).
*