GREAT MINDS

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Didn't the Lib Dems do well? From the BBC's live election blog I mean. They gave their manifesto launch several anticipatory puffs and, unlike with the Conservatives yesterday (but like with Labour on Monday), the reports on the launch contained no snide asides from BBC reporters and no criticisms from 'outside forces'. Almost all the subsequent comments were favourable to the Lib Dems. I think the Lib Dems will be highly satisfied with this sort of coverage.
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And I don't think Vince Cable will mind this...
2048: Talk about a government of all the talents. Warwick University lecturer Angie Hobbs is asking Twitter and Facebook followers which great philosophers they would like to see in their fantasy cabinet. So far Plato and the UK's own Edmund Burke are in the lead. Wot, no Vince Cable???

DON'T DO IT NICK! PLEASE DON'T BACK THE TORIES!

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Just listen to the easy ride James Naughtie gave Nick Clegg on this morning's Today programme: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8565000/8565697.stm
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Mr Clegg's first answer, in which (at Naughtie's invitation) he listed his party's four main priorities, lasted 1 minute 15 seconds. It wasn't interrupted. Can you imagine James Naughtie allowing David Cameron such a soft start? Not in a million years! The whole interview lasted over 8 minutes, contained 4 interruptions and resulted in a low I.C. of 0.5.
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Naughtie is known for being a very biased interviewer and banged away at one point in particular: Why won't the Liberal Democrats rule out supporting a minority government after the election if the other party is committed to implementing 'masochistic' cuts this year? He meant, of course, the Conservative Party. Though the interview was generally friendly, a little warmth could be heard in Labour Jim's voice as he demanded to know the answer to this. It was blindingly obvious what answer he wanted to hear! He even returned to the same question after apparently having moved on to something else and even his last question was just another way of putting the same thing!
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I did have to laugh though at his hasty withdrawal from an attempted interruption (03.25 into the clip) at the very second when he realised that Nick Clegg was being mean about the Tories and clearly decided to let him go with the attack!
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STEARING US TOWARDS ONE SIDE

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Fairness was discussed at 7.19 on this morning's Today programme:

Who should pick up the bill if a mentally ill person is put in a care home outside the area where they live? That is the question that will be argued in the High Court today in a dispute between two local authorities: the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and Sutton Council. Colin Stears of Sutton Council outlines the issue.

The programme's treatment of the dispute, however, was far from fair. As you can see from the above blurb, only one side of the dispute was present. Councillor Stears, given a sympathetic hearing by John Humphrys, is a Lib Dem and Sutton is a Lib Dem council. Hammersmith & Fulham, however, is a Conservative council. Why was no-one from Hammersmith & Fulham invited on to give their side of the story?

UNIVERSAL VINCE

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The inconsistent drawl of Robert Peston is less in evidence these days, at least on the programmes I review. You are most likely to hear him on the Today programme (as today). Much more familiar, and regularly heard across the BBC's output, are the steady nasal tones of Vince Cable. When yesterday's The World at One discussed UKFI (the weakest link in the government's tripartite system of financial regulation), who did the programme turn to for expert advice? Vince, of course. This morning, when Barclays announced huge profits, who did Today turn to for expert advice? Vince, of course.
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Vince was the treasury spokesman missing from yesterday's Today programme, when an I.C. of 1.7 was scored against George Osborne, as compared to only 0.7 against Alistair Darling. How did Vince fare in comparison. His I.C. (from Evan Davis) was just 0.4 (2 interruption in just over 5 minutes).

LANSLEYS TO THE SLAUGHTER

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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.
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Justin Webb interviewed three politicians.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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
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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.
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The full, unredacted version of the programme can be heard here for the next seven days:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj9z

INEQUALITY IN THE 'TODAY' STUDIO

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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THE STRANGE CASE OF THE MISSING TORY

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Over to Not a Sheep here for more outrageous bias from Radio 5Live:

Denying the Conservative Party the 'oxygen of publicity'

BBC 5Live has been promoting the 'recession is over' and Conservative cuts would 'put the recovery at risk' all morning so when I heard that Gabby Logan was going to discuss this with MPs I was expecting her and the Labour and Lib Dem representatives to gang up on the Conservative MP. The reality was even more bizarre: Liam Byrne for Labour and Vince 'Saint' Cable able to pour scorn on Conservative economic policy, encouraged by Gaby Logan, and no Conservative there to respond.

When I blogged about the new 5Live schedules for this general election year, I predicted left-wing bias, it seems I was correct to do so.
http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/01/denying-conservative-party-oxygen-of.html

PAXO HAMMERS HAMMOND AGAIN

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Unlike Radio 4's The World Tonight, which characteristically discussed the economy with Vince Cable only, Newsnight gathered Lord Myners, Philip Hammond and, yes, Vince Cable to chew over banking reform. Jeremy Paxman's interruptions (as ever on such occasions) were not fairly distributed, as the interruption coefficients show very clearly:
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Philip Hammond - 10 interruptions, I.C of 3.2
Vince Cable - 3 interruptions, I.C. of 1.3
Lord Myners - 4 interruptions, I.C. of 1.2
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This had followed a bank-bashing report by Paul Mason, featuring a new BBC favourite, former high-flying banker and 'City Boy' author Geraint Anderson (son of Labour MP Donald Anderson), now a sharp critic of the bankers.
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MORE FROM THE NORMAN YOKE

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The previously-mentioned section on Westminster Hour was followed by the weekly politics panel. The Conservatives and Lib Dems have taken a turn in missing a go, so this week it was Labour's turn not to be there (though Kevin McGuire is Labour through and through). So it was Charles Walker for the Conservatives, Jeremy Browne for the Lib Dems and Lord Pearson, leader of UKIP (hurray!).
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Norman Smith began this section as he ended the last section: "Charles Walker, let me start with you and just pick up on that last point by Kevin McGuire. While it's probably true to say that the Iraq Inquiry is bad news for Labour, it's hard to see it as particularly good news for the Conservatives." Talk about a glass half-empty!
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Smith then asked two questions to Jeremy Brown, neither of which asked anything specifically about the Lib Dems. Mr Brown's uninterrupted answers lasted 1 minute 1 second and 37 seconds respectively. That matters because when Smith then turned to Lord Pearson, asking him a question specifically about UKIP of course (its opposition to the war), the UKIP leader was interrupted within 13 seconds!!
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Smith moved quickly onto Tuesday's expected announcement that we are out of recession & began Tory-bating again: "I was struck last week when the job figures were out and unemployment was down for the first time in 18 months, the difficult position it seemed to put many Tories in because, on the one hand, you obviously had to welcome the fall in unemployment but at the same time it causes you a little bit of a problem, doesn't it, if the economy starts to turn just in time for the election?"
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Smith's immediate rudeness towards Lord Pearson continued. His second answer was swiftly interrupted and criticized: "But the problem with that argument is that you can't simply get that money back by pressing a lever. If we were to withdraw it would take time. So what are your proposals short of full withdrawal, because that is obviously a long-term objective?" Then Smith cut off one of his later answers to ask Mr Walker another question.
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The subject then changed to the child torturers of Edlington & David Cameron's comments on it. Guess who Smith asked first about this. Yes, the Lib Dem. That was an invitation to aim at an open goal - an invitation Mr Brown took gleefully. Here's Norm's question: "Jeremy Brown, one of the other things which has been percolating around this weekend is this whole idea of Broken Britain, which a speech by the Conservative leader suggesting that it wasn't, the case in Doncaster, wasn't an isolated case but symptomatic of something with deeper roots and more widespread. Erm, do you think he's right and do you also think he was right to cite the Doncaster case?" Mr Brown's anti-Tory answer went on for 1 min 11 secs uninterrupted!
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Smith finally turned to the burqa and back to Lord Pearson. You can probably guess what followed: A hostile question, then a hostile interruption. This in turn was followed by the second instance of Norman Smith cutting Lord Pearson off, as he was attacking Islam: "Ok, well let me bring the others in." Guess who he brought in first? "Jeremy Brown, what are your thoughts." Jeremy did not approve, and Smith let him express his disapproval of UKIP's position for over a minute.
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The interruption coefficients are clear:
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Lord Pearson - 0.9
Charles Walker -0.2
Jeremy Browne -0.1
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The whole thing was a travesty of any idea of BBC impartiality. Norman Smith should be banned from Westminster Hour. I never thought I'd say this but 'Bring Back Carolyn Quinn!'
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UNDER THE NORMAN YOKE AGAIN

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Radio 4's Westminster Hour (as you may have noticed) is getting well beyond a joke.
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Following on from my last post, the programme began by reviewing and previewing the political scene with Kevin McGuire of the Daily Mirror. Unusually, the political journalist is interviewed alone, but this week he had company - the Lib Dem Mike Smithson of politicalbetting.com. To say that presenter Norman Smith's line of questioning was pro-Labour/pro-Lib-Dem in tone would merely be a statement of reality:
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"First I asked Mike Smithson if the polls showed any sign of Labour narrowing the Tory lead?"
"Mike, is there any sense that people are willing to re-appraise Gordon Brown because here at least he does seem to be performing better, certainly at Prime Minister's Questions, and on a few occasions seems to have wrong-footed David Cameron. Now that seems, I don't know, greater confidence in his own abilities but he does seem to be moving forward. Is that feeding through?"
"And presumably Kevin, from Labour's point of view, what they're really looking for is some turn-up in the economy and this week we get the growth figures and all the expectations are that we will be out of recession. Now how important is that to Labour's prospects?"
"And Kevin I suppose the wild-card in all this is the Lib Dems & there is a sense that Nick Clegg, after a relatively slow start as Lib Dem leader, actually is beginning to have much more impact now. There's a sense he's cutting through, isn't there?"
"I suppose on the plus side for Labour, Mike, they can draw comfort from the fact that probably most people have already formed up their views in their minds on Iraq?"
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He asked no questions that offered any 'plus sides' for the Conservatives.
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This man, like Jo Coburn, is one of the BBC's main political correspondents, reporting daily on the goings-on at Westminster. As with his performance on the programme last week, this pro-left line of questioning hardly fills me with confidence about this impartiality as a day-to-day reporter.
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CLEGG MAKES IT A DOUBLE

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Andrew Marr's interview with Nick Clegg lasted 18 minutes 30 seconds (as ever including the bits on the sofa at the end), contained 26 interruptions and scored the same I.C. as last week's against David Cameron - 1.4. (My prediction of 1.1 was an underestimate, though my prediction that it would be higher than Gordon Brown's 0.8 proved correct.) This is not an untypical figure: *
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17/1/10 Nick Clegg 1.4
20/9/09 Nick Clegg 1.3
22/11/09 Nick Clegg 1
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Marr remains a real Labour Party man, it seems.
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One obvious feature of the interview was the number of questions Marr asked about specific Conservative proposals - on marriage tax allowance and caps on immigration - and the way he let Nick Clegg attack the Tories without interruption (or extraneous noises) in his answers to those questions (see at 4.24 in from the start of the interview). In contrast, Marr asked only one question specifically about Labour (the possibly of reviving Paddy Ashdown's idea of a 'progressive' realignment of the Centre Left), but when this led to an attack on Labour's illiberalism he interrupted it within just 9 seconds and put a stop to it! Unlike the questions about the Conservatives, this one was not meant to result in such an attack!!
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All that said, well done to The Andrew Marr Show for inviting Peter Watt onto the programme, and allowing him to spill the beans on the disreputable behaviour of Gordon Brown. He may be a bitter man (Mr Watt that is, not Gordon Brown!), but this was pure gold. I for one was not expecting it to happen, given that the BBC had previously been playing the story down for all it was worth. But happen it did!
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WISE VOICES ON NEWSNIGHT

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Last night's Newsnight contained a scorching interview of Labour's Mike O'Brien by Jeremy Paxman on the NHS Out Of Hours service (I.C. of 3.2, the highest so far this month - one ahead of Philip Hammond on 3.1). This shows again that Paxo lands punches across the political spectrum - except on 'wise' Dr Vince Cable of course. Vince was on the programme discussing bank bonuses, and was (as so often) treated as an independent economist rather than as a Liberal Democrat politician. He was in discussion with the American author Janet Tavakoki. This followed a report on America and the bankers by 'former' Trot Paul Mason ("While Wall Street wallows in bonus billions here in the job centres there is real economic pain") and featured as his star witness Robert Kuttner, co-editor of the liberal American Prospect magazine. Later still Peter Taylor's report about Alki Ada in Yemen featured the ubiquitous (on the BBC) Michael Scheuer - the former CIA agent who wants the West to repudiate the Bush Administration's war on terror and adopt an approach centred on removing Moslem grievances, especially by getting very tough on Israel.

AN OLD FRIENDS RETURNS TO 'NEWSNIGHT'

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Last night's Newsnight was like a walk down memory lane. The main topic was the Iraq Inquiry, and the evidence of Alistair Campbell (the man who did so much to destroy the idea of decency in government, with a little help from his friends.) On hand, as throughout the Iraq War itself, was Sir Ming Campbell. He joined Jeremy Paxman in a 'shock and awe' attack on Lord Falconer. Ah happy days, when Sir Ming acted as the Beeb's chief foreign affairs correspondent, present on every single programme that discussed the Iraq War (or so it seemed), always being treated like an independent foreign affairs expert rather than a partisan Lib Dem politician - just because he shared the BBC's antipathy towards the conflict! Last night's I.C.s? 2 against his lordship, and 0 against Sir Ming. Takes you back, doesn't it?

SHAUN LEYBOUR

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The whole of the second half of today's The World at One (14 minutes-worth of airtime) was devoted to a politicians' panel discussion on public spending cuts, presented by Shaun Ley. The three politicians interviewed were Eric Joyce, Patricia Hewitt and Charles Clarke. Yes, three Labour MPs!! Their interruption coefficients were 0.2, 0.2 and 0 respectively.
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Shaun's on-air justification was that as Labour have been in power for the last 12 years, it would be good to hear from three politicians with recent experience of cutting public spending. Yes, that really was his justification for excluding all opposition politicians!!
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As I've recorded every interview Shaun Ley has conducted on Radio 4 since June of this year I can now reveal that he has conducted the following number of interviews with politicians of each UK political party:

Labour - 49
Conservatives - 18
Lib Dems - 10
DUP - 1
Sinn Fein - 1
UUP - 1
UKIP - 1
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In other words, he's interviewed more Labour MPs than all the politicians from all the other political parties put together (and by some margin, 49-32). Of course, because Labour is in power it is right that it in particular is held to account by journalists. (Tell that to Michael Crick!)So, if that's the reason why Labour dominates The World at One, you might expect to find that Shaun Ley interrupts Labour MPs more than those from the opposition parties. Not so, his average interruption coefficient against Labour is 0.37, whereas his average interruption coefficient against the Conservatives is higher at 0.45 - though for the Lib Dems it is a mere 0.14. (His figure against UKIP is higher still, at 0.5).
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Shaun Ley is by no means the worst offender at the BBC - or anywhere near it -, but he is an offender nonetheless.

A TALE OF THREE ARTICLES

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This comment from Llew needs bumping up to post status, as it's an excellent piece of research:
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All 3 main parties have a page each reporting their New Year's message.

Labour's, as you say, is quite long. The Tories do get 3 little
paragraphs at the end for a little dig at Labour. There's no dig from the Lib
Dems. The side bar from correspondent Ross Hawkins gets another dig in against
the Tories even though they weren't mentioned by name by Gordon.

The Tories page is a bit shorter, naturally. Unlike Labour, there's no side bar
section where a correspondent highlights a bit of David Cameron's message or
knocks Labour's message, naturally. There are 7 paragraphs at the end knocking
the Tories from both Labour and the Lib Dems, naturally.

The Lib Dems page is of course even shorter. There's no knocking from either Labour or the Tories but of course there is a bit of knocking of the Tories. They do get a side bar, unlike the Tories, but theirs is of course a tiny snippet when
compared with the larger sidebar on Labour's page.

3 main parties. 3 completely different levels of coverage. Balanced? I think not.

Here are the links to each article on the BBC News website:
For Cameron: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8431899.stm
For Clegg: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8433904.stm
For Brown: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8434137.stm
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I note since yesterday (http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/12/bbc-fairly-reports-browns-great-new.html) that the 'Throw of Dice' subheading on the Brown article (relating to a comment by Conservative Chris Grayling) has now been cut, replaced instead by more words from Brown: 'Go for growth'. (At least, unlike Fairly Shared - which has survived the re-write - the webpage editor has put this in inverted commas!).
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************************CODA
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On a related matter, take a look at this BBC News website article, Scotland's politicians outline aims for 2010, and look at the order in which Scotland's leaders are placed:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8433859.stm
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So that's:
1. Alex Salmond (SNP)
2. Iain Gray (Labour)
3. Tavish Scott (Liberal Democrat)
4. Annabel Goldie (Conservative)
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This, however, is how Scottish voters (at the last Holyrood election in 2007) have ranked the parties:
1. SNP
2. Labour
3. Conservative
4. Liberal Democrat
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Have the Conservatives been dumped below the Lib Dems because of their share of the vote/number of seats won at the 2005 general election? Is this why the article ranked the parties as it did? Possibly - or possibly not, as this was the result in 2005:
1. Labour
2. Liberal Democrat
3. SNP
4. Conservative
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So why place the Scottish Tories fourth in the pecking order, rather than the Lib Dems? Not a major point of course, but revealing nonetheless.

SPECIFICALLY ABOUT CAROLYN

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Tonight's PM, again hosted by Carolyn Quinn (pictured right), followed the lead set by every other BBC Radio 4 current affairs programme so far & discussed the Chinese execution of 'bipolar Brit' Akmal Shaikh with a Left-Liberal type - in this case the foggy-minded Nick Clegg of the Left-Liberal Democrats (I.C. of 0.3).

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Afghanistan was discussed with two military men - Col. Wayne Shanks, the public affairs officer with US and NATO forces (a short interview, during which all Carolyn's questions could be summed up with the words 'Woe,woe and thrice woe!') and Alasdair Ross of 2 Rifles (a very sympathetic 7-minute interview). The interview with Col. Shanks was brisk and business-like, whereas the interview with Mr Ross (who's also a Labour councillor in Ipswich) was leisurely and involving.

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A remarkable report from Terry Stiasny followed. Terry returned to a school in Islington to see what echoes lingered of the Countenance Divine whose sainted feet trod on England's mountains green last April - i.e. Michelle Obama. She recalled "the first lady's hugs and spontaneity", and pressed a student to "go back, if you're in need of a bit of inspiration" to recall that great day when She walked among us. The pupils may have needed a little prodding to wax lyrical. Not so Terry Stiasny.

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Much of the final part of PM today was devoted to an end-of-year round-up of the political scene, compered by Carolyn herself, between Labour's John Cruddas (I.C. of 0.2), Lib Dem Ed Davey (I.C. of 0.3) and Conservative Andrew Pirie (I.C. of 0.3). The interruption coefficients here are much of a muchness. Considering my (inferior) side measure, the questions coefficient, though and you will get a sense that things weren't quite as balanced as those figures suggest - 0.9 for Mr Davey, 1.2 for Mr Cruddas but 2.4 for Mr Pirie.

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And so clearly was Carolyn Quinn aiming most of her specific questions at Mr Pirie that I can introduce a fresh measure here - the specific/general questions ratio. Under specific questions come ones that ask about the interviewee's party in particular - or his own personal responsibilities. These are, naturally, tougher questions. Under general questions, however, come questions unrelated to the interviewee's own political party, or his personal responsibilities (eg. questions about the BNP, or how all the political parties have been hit by the expenses scandal, or about Lords reform, etc). Looked at in this way, here's how things pan out:

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Interviewee****General questions*** Specific questions

John Cruddas*********** 3***********************1

Andrew Pirie************3***********************5

Ed Davey*************** 3********************** 1

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The single specific question aimed at Mr Cruddas concerned his earlier comments about Gordon Brown's prospects, whereas the single specific question aimed at Mr Davey was a typical Carolyn Quinn-style question: "And of course your party's got a problem because it...(sic)...not that many women, no ethnic minorities in the Commons at the moment." There were, as you can see, five specific questions aimed at Mr Pirie, including the interruption "David Cameron's got a presidential style has he?", as well as "What is the Conservative view of that?", " So you didn't go far enough?", "You've got David Cameron trying to force through all-women shortlists & coming up against quite a lot of opposition from the party", & "Where do you think the Conservatives are left then because sealing the deal is something David Cameron recognises hasn't been done yet?" All Carolyn Quinn's recent politics panels on 'Westminster Hour' have followed a similar pattern, boxing the Conservative guest in with specific questions but allowing the left-of-centre politicians much more open questions and, therefore, a freer scope and an easier time.

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A CONSENSUS ON GREATER EU POWERS

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A short catch-up with this week's 'The Record Europe'.
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The main feature this week was the forthcoming EU legislation on financial regulation. The European Commission is proposing new EU-wide powers to interfere in the affairs of London - legislation which no individual EU country (i.e. the UK) will be allowed to veto. Discussing the issue with Shirin Wheeler were 5 MEPs - all of whom (including the British Conservative) supported these moves. There were no opposing voices - e.g. no member of UKIP or their parliamentary grouping. Why?
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The guests were a French socialist, a British Labour MEP, a German Liberal, a British Lib Dem and that British Conservative. Hardly a balanced panel.
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That the British Conservative was broadly supportive of the legislation, though having some reservations - unlike any of the other guests -, might have secured her a lower I.C. than a centre-right panelist usually gets from Shirin. Not a bit of it. Here are the eerily typical I.C.s for the UK politicians on the panel:
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Vicky Ford (Conservative) - 1.5 (5 interruptions)
Arlene McCarthy (Labour) - 0.3 (1 interruption)
Sharon Bowles (Lib Dem) - 0 (0 interruptions)
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Shirin Wheeler just can't stop interrupting guests from the British centre-right (or, given the treatment Elmar Brok of the German CDU got later (0.9) as against Chris Davies of the Lib Dems (0), any country's centre-right!)
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THE WORLD ALMOST OF ONE MIND

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Today's edition of The World at One was heavy with lefties. The resignation of somebody at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen prompted interviews with Sergio Serra, Brazil's chief negotiator, left-wing loudmouth Bianca Jagger (getting her dates all mixed up, unnoticed by Martha Kearney) and Ed Miliband. The issue of an early general election was discussed with a Labour MP Gordon Banks and the Labour-supporting pollster Peter Kellner. The politics panel today consisted of Labour's Jim Knight, Lord Chris Rennard of the Liberal Democrats and the programme's only guest from the centre-right Theresa May.
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The questions asked of Martha's guests on the politics panel show a certain degree of bias too, in that both of the left-of-centre panellists go four goes, whereas Mrs May only got three such opportunities.
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Lord Rennard, the Lib Dem, was asked to comment on the Lord Ashcroft story (giving him a clear run at goal), on unemployment being a lagging indicator, on whether an early election would be good from Labour's perspective (!) and whether general elections are different these days - i.e. nothing specific to the Lib Dems. He had no defending to do and could attack at will.
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Jim Knight was asked about Lord Paul (Labour's own dodgy donor) and about the date of the election, but Martha Kearney also asked him about unemployment in a way that positively invited him to attack the Conservatives - which he duly did - by citing the words of Labour and the Beeb's favourite economist, Danny Blanchflower, who has recently been sharply attacking the Tories (of unemployment as a lagging indicator, Martha asked "This is something that has happened, hasn't it, in previous recessions, the economist Danny Blanchflower has been warning about?") and later invited him to have another go at them (which he duly did, attacking Lord Ashcroft again): "One of the arguments (in favour of an early election) is that the Conservatives would have less money to spend if you went for a shorter election campaign."
He got a bit of defending to do, but not much and had plenty of open goals provided by his interviewer. (He didn't bother defending however. He just ignored the point about Lord Paul & went on the attack against Zak Goldsmith instead!).
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Theresa May, on the other hand, was asked questions either about specific Conservative issues ("Doesn't Lord Ashcroft, Theresa May, have to now clarify his position? It's becoming a political embarrassment to you." "Do you think there is a certain amount of tactics here. I mean I know a lot of Conservatives are talking about the idea of an early election because I guess then it reaches the stage if he, Gordon Brown, doesn't call one you can say he's frightened of going to the country?") or about Labour's glorious 'achievements' ("Just to put Harriet Harman's point to you. She's saying that there's beginning to see a slowing down of the rate of increase in unemployment. Doesn't that show that government figures, that the government measures have got it right when it comes to tackling unemployment?"). Theresa May had to be a defender throughout.
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NAUGHTIE UNBOUND

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Here's how the Today website introduced this morning's remarkable bout between Phillip Hammond and James Naughtie (with Chris Huhne of the Lib Dems acting throughout as Naughtie's second.)

All MPs and peers would have to pay taxes
in the UK under legislation that would be rushed through if he became prime
minister, David Cameron has said. Shadow chief secretary to the treasury Philip
Hammond discusses the proposal with Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman
Chris Huhne.

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The statistics tell a lot of the story. Phillip Hammond was interrupted 16 times by Naughtie (an extremely high I.C of 3.5), Chris Huhne only once (I.C. of only 0.4) - and even that interruption was not aimed at Huhne but made so that the over-excited Naughtie could have yet another go at Mr Hammond. Hammond was subjected to an inquisition, especially over the Left's bête noire Lord Ashcroft, while Huhne was only asked just one question in over 8 minutes. If that isn't proof of bias I don't know what is.
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Here's how the interview went:
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0.34 Question 1 (to Phillip Hammond): "Let's try and be as clear as we can about this Mr Hammond because it's a confusing matter to many people. (Is it really Jim?) Is this proposal one which will mean that if you sit in the Lords and the Commons you cannot be a so-called non-dom?"
00.49 A1 (PH)
1.o3 Q2 (to PH): "Does that mean that you couldn't have a fortune elsewhere on which you paid taxes outside this country?"
1.08 A2 (PH)
2.02 Q3 (to Chris Huhne): "Right Chris Huhne, is that clear?" (That was the only question Huhne was asked!! A toughie, eh?!)
2.03 A3 (CH, speaking uninterrupted for a minute)
3.04 PH answers CH
3.25 CH interrupts and takes over again (again speaking uninterrupted for a minute)
4.24 Q4 (to PH): "Is that your view Phillip Hammond?"
4.26 A4 (PH)
4.29 Interruption 1 (after just 3 seconds of Hammond's answer!!)/Q5: "Because the problem you've got here with Lord Ashcroft, a deputy chairman of your party, is, I quote him from his website, "If home is where the heart is then Belize is my home." (Should Naughtie have asserted this this is a problem?)
4.41 A5 (PH)
4.43 Interruption 2 (this time just 2 seconds of Hammond's answer!!!): "It's not sentimental, it's a business statement." (The end of Naughtie's hostile interruption is unintelligible because Chris Huhne chips in to agree with Naughtie and Phillip Hammond struggles on.)
4.52 a quiet "OK" from Naughtie (signalling that Huhne can interrupt again? Whatever, Huhne begins to interrupt here)
4.55 a louder "OK" from Naughtie (Huhne's interruption becomes stronger)
5.00 Naughie helps Huhne take over. Huhne alone.
5.12 Hammond begins to interrupt back (with Naughtie's backing, "Phillip Hammond, quickly!" )
5.21 PH takes over fully after Huhne has finished his point
5.35 Abortive interruption, "Let me.."
5.41 Interruption 3/Q6 (to PH): "Let me ask you one question. Mr Hammond, let me ask you a question about Lord Ashcroft (you've already one Jim!!), because he is a deputy chairman of your party (as you've already mentioned Jim!!) and one of it's big backers. Is he a non-dom?"
5.50 A6 (PH)
5.54 Interruption 4 (after only 4 seconds of Hammond's answer)/Q7 to PH: "You don't know? Do you know?"
5.55 A7 (PH)
5.56 Interruption 5 (after only 1 second of Hammond's answer)/Q8 to PH (with an over-emphatic tone of voice): "You don't know whether the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, who sits in the House of Lords, is a non-dom or not?"
6.01 A8 (PH)
6.11 Interruption 6 (after 10 seconds)/Q9 (sternly) to PH: "And what exactly were those commitments, just remind us?"
6.14 PH struggles on gamely
6.16 Interruption 7 (after 2 seconds)/Q10 (loudly) to PH: "Have been, have been met, aren't going to be met, have been met, you're saying?"
6.20 A9 (PH)
6.24 Interruption 8 (after 4 seconds)/Q11 to PH: "What were the commitments that were made?"
6.26 PH struggles on gamely
6.31 Interruption 9 (after 5 seconds)/Q12 to PH: "And what were they?"
6.32 PH gives up
6.34 Q13 to PH: "So when you and others say, in a phrase that Mr Hague and others have used, is (sic) fulfills the obligations that were imposed on him at the time he became a peer, (emphatically:) you don't know what those obligations were. (Brusquely:) Is that correct?"
6.46 A10 (PH)
6.47 Interruption 10 (after 1 second)/Q13 to PH: "Does Mr Cameron know?"
6.48 PH struggles on gamely
6.54 Interruption 11 (after 6 seconds)/Q14 to PH: "So Mr Hague will know whether he's a non-dom or not?"
6.56 PH struggles on gamely
7.01 Interruption 12 (after 5 seconds)/Q15 to PH: "But hang on, you see, you...the problem is David Cameron's saying he wants..."
7.06 PH struggles on gamely
(7.07 "Well")
7.12 Interruption 13 (after 5 seconds)/Q16 to PH: "But not before the election?"
7.13 PH struggles on gamely
7.21 Interruption 14 (after 8 seconds. What took him so long??!!)/Q17 to PH: "But to be clear since you can't legislate from in opposition..."
7.24 PH struggles on gamely
7.26 Interruption 15 (after 2 seconds), "No, well.." (at which Chris Huhne interrupts and takes over).
7.27 Chris Huhne alone
7.42 Interruption 16 (against Chris Huhne!!!!!)/Q18 to PH:"What you're saying..hang on, Mr Hammond, just to be finally clear about one thing, we won't know what Lord Ashcroft's tax position is until after the election, is that correct, because you can't legislate?"
7.54 A11 (PH)
8.11 Interruption 17: "Phillip Hammond, Chris Huhne, thank you both." (There was no need, other than sheer rudeness, to cut Mr Hammond off here so abruptly.)

This belligerent questioning of a Conservative contrasted not only with Naughtie's treatment of the Liberal Democrat in this same interview (including two long, uninterrupted answers) but with another Liberal Democrat David Laws in an earlier interview. This lasted nearly 3 1/2 minutes but contained only 2 questions and no interruptions (I.C. of 0). Law's first uninterrupted answer lasted 54 seconds, his second uninterrupted answer no less than 1 min and 40 seconds! Naughtie's tone was as thoughtful and gentle as could be.
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A Labour councillor, David Sparkes, was also interviewed by Biased Jim - 3 questions, no interruptions (I.C. of 0).
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Naughtie should be ashamed of himself. A complaint will be sent, with full details of Naughtie's many previous crimes against impartiality.*
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Afterthought (as of 9.15 pm): Will Michael Crick be able to resist talking about this on tonight's Newsnight? I bet he's begging the programme's producer to ditch some important story or other & let him present a (biased) report on the issue. Will he get his way? Or will the British Airways strike, Copenhagen and a host of other bigger stories put a dampener on Crick's Tory-bashing aspirations? We'll see.
Update: The answer was 'no'. So much for my powers of prediction!

OCH, THAT'S NAE FAIR

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For anyone who doesn't watch BBC 1 in Scotland, or the BBC's Parliament Channel, The Politics Show: Scotland is available on the BBC i-player. Today's edition confirmed many of the points I have made (intermittently) on this blog about the programme's various biases. I have suggested that the show's presenter Glenn Campbell is a leftie sympathetic to Labour and the Liberal Democrats while being unsympathetic to the Conservatives and SNP.
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The Pre-Budget Report of Alistair Darling and the coming Scottish S.N.P. Budget was discussed in a joint interview between the Scottish government's finance secretary John Swinney (of the SNP) and Labour's Andy Kerr. The interview could not have been less evenly handled! Though Mr Swinney got a little bit longer to speak (4 minutes 40 seconds to Mr Kerr's 4 minutes), he was interrupted 5 times while Mr Kerr was not interrupted at all. The I.C.s work out as 1.1 against John Swinney and 0 against Andy Kerr. Kerr was allowed to ramble along to the very end of his answers (with no great coherence at times) while Swinney was badgered throughout. Case proved I'd say as regards anti-SNP/pro-Labour bias. (I, naturally, don't care for either party!)
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The issue was also discussed with Tavish Scott, affable leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. Here there was only one interruption, resulting in a small I.C. of 0.3. Further proof!
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There were no Conservative on the programme. The nearest we got to a Conservative was Iain McMillan of the Scottish C.B.I., described (in typical left-wing terminology) by Glenn Campbell as "the bosses' organisation". This interview resulted in the day's highest I.C. of 1.3 (with 9 interruptions). During the interview Campbell called public-private initiatives "a rip-off" and spoke up for the public sector. This may be a questioner's stance, but it's not a surprising one for this interviewer (who is now appearing nationally as an occassional presenter on Radio 4's PM.)
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