WHAT DO YOU WANT DARLING?

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Alistair Darling hardly broke into a sweat during his interview with Jon Sopel. No wonder, as Sopel's questioning was temperate in character - in both style and content (I.C. of 0.9). The coming budget, spending cuts, defence, Iceland and Charlie Whelan were discussed. No time though for anything on Labour's donors of course. Had George Osborne been there instead of Mr Darling it's a pretty safe bet that time would have found to talk about Tory donors.

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The Politics Show's Max Cotton (the cocky one!) then trotted off to Buckingham to look at Speaker Bercow's challenge from Nigel Farage (go Nigel!!). Conflict within the Conservative Party over the challenge was Max's main concern. Problems for the Conservative Party are an obsession with the folk at The Politics Show. Lord Tebbit was one of the stars of the show (he always is). He dropped big hints that he would vote for Nigel, were he himself a constituent of Bercow's Buckingham seat. (As would I!). The BBC, as my I.C. survey has shown, dislikes UKIP and Max had a few digs here: "But Nigel Farage was perhaps too strident when he addressed the new president of the EU, Mr van Rumpuy in these terms..." (followed by a very short clip). "I asked the Speaker of the House of Commons what he thought of this outburst". In response Bercow accused Nigel of not behaving in a grown-up way and accused him of "simple, rabid personal abuse". He's also accused Nigel of campaigning in too many pubs. Nigel didn't get a chance in Max's report to defend himself over the van Rumpus over his speech in the Eurolandic parliament, but he did get a chance to defend himself over the "glorified pub crawl" allegation & did so with good sense and good humour: "So for him to make this comment , it's kind of a sneaky, backbiting way of operating. I don't work like that. I stab people in the front." Even Max liked that!

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Later Paola Buonadonna reported on 'What Women Want'. Her starting point was a survey by The Fawcett Society, a 'registered charity' and feminist organisation. We heard from Ceri Goddard of that left-wing pressure group, then three female candidates: Priti Patel (Conservative, pictured for some reason), Rushanara Ali (Labour) and Katy Gordon (Lib Dem). They discussed various issues, but the only one raised by Paola was the Tory policy on recognising marriage through the tax system, which prompted the inevitable ganging-up on Priti by the others. Isn't that typical!

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MAX AND NANCY

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He's a lark, isn't he, that Max Cotton? Down for The Politics Show in Somerset and Frome (home of Lib Dem MP David Heath, one of the few Lib Dem MPs to stick to his principles and hiselection pledge to support a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty/European Constitution) to assess the election battle between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, he talked to Mr Heath of course, and to the no-chance Labour candidate (who good-humouredly admitted as much) David Oakensen, who advised voters in the constituency to vote so as to keep the Conservatives out of power. Max asked neither of them any tough or silly questions. He also talked to Conservative candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg (pictured), a good-natured girl. Guess what? He asked her about how her name plays with the voters on the doorstep and asked her "You're not too posh them"? He did it jokingly and she took it in that spirit. Of course, we Beeb watchers know that such questions from a BBC reporter always have a serious underlying purpose - to paint her (and her party) as, indeed, too posh. The only voter he spoke too (a dairy farmer) said he was voting for Mr Heath. UKIP was not mentioned, though it scored a massive success in the area during last year's European elections. Bags of bias here.
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PLASTIC BAGS, NEANDERTHALS AND LANCASTER CANAL

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

HERE'S MAXY!!!

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Today's The Politics Show was back on the Conservatives' case again, sending cocky Max Cotton out to Prague to show off in front of the cameras and show up David Cameron. His immediate target was the excellent Czech president Vaclav Klaus, who holds what Max called "unorthodox" views on man-made global warming and European integration. "I've been racking my brains trying to think who he's like", he continued. His answer? "A sort of cross between Thatcher and Berlusconi, with a dash of Jack Nicholson" (before doing a cringe-making impersonation of the latter in 'The Shining').
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This is all well and good, but nothing much to do with bias. That begins to emerge when Max informs us that "I'm told that the BBC have requested ten separate interviews with Mr Klaus in the last few days". I wonder why they're so keen. Is it just because of Mr Klaus's delaying tactics over the Lisbon treaty, and the need to find an answer to the burning question of if or when he will ratify it? I suspect not - if Max's report is typical.
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Here was the point: "What has shocked pundits in the Czech Republic is David Cameron's intervention in what they see as their affairs." (What, all of them?!) He gathered a couple of people in a cafe to support his contention. One was the sociologist Jiri Pehe, advisor to former president Vaclav Havel (who had a very tense relationship with Mr Klaus), who focused his criticism of the letter sent by Mr Cameron to President Klaus on President Klaus. The other, Tom Clifford of The Prague Post, turned his fire on Mr Cameron - encouraged by Max Cotton:
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Max C: "And Tom, you think Cameron is making a mistake here?"
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Max C: "He doesn't understand the Czech Republic?"
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Tom Clifford criticized away before moving the story on to where the BBC is happiest: "Cameron and the Tories are allying themselves with far-right parties in Central and Middle Europe."
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Ah yes, we're back to those European allies again.
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After interviewing two critics of Klaus and Cameron, Cotton went on to interview a third - Dr Lubomir Zaoralek, labelled as the 'Shadow Foreign Minister'. He, looking him up on the internet, is a member of the Labour-aligned Czech Social Democrat Party.
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The simple question here is this: Why did Max Cotton interview 3 critics of President Klaus (and David Cameron), but no supporters? Is this balanced?
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THE AGE OF STUPID

Today's Politics Show began by tackling the topic of the Himalayan amounts of money being wasted in education spending, as highlighted by a government-backed report from the aptly-named Richard Handover.

The report by Gillian Hargreaves discussed several of the criticisms contained in the study, some of which are aimed at the government itself, and even Ed Balls (with his many initiatives). So a balanced report, not betraying any pro-Left sympathies? Well, we can perhaps forgive Gillian for beginning the piece with a paean to Labour's 'largesse' and the 'good times', with spending having 'almost doubled under this government' and her saying that schools had 'never had it so good'. And for presenting a school and a headteacher who were grateful for this 'generosity'. Less easy to condone is the use of a single 'talking head' - and that talking head being Christine Blower of the N.U.T. (She had several bites of the cherry). Why, when the BBC presents these sort of education reports, are comments largely directed from the Left?

Jon Sopel then interviewed the Labour education minister Vernon Coaker for over 8 minutes (I.C. of 2) and the Conservative treasury spokesman Philip Hammond for 4 minutes (I.C. of 1.5) - both on this subject. Both were tough interviews, the one with Coaker being slightly tougher - though he did get more than twice as long to speak than Mr Hammond, which shifted the balance back towards him.

The next segment discussed the Conservatives and the Lisbon Treaty, in light of next week's second Irish referendum. It took the form of a short debate between my favourite Conservative MEP, Dan Hannan, and the BBC's favourite ex-Conservative MEP, Edward McMillan Scott. E.M.S. is becoming a bit of a regular on the Beeb at the moment - leading up to and following his expulsion from the Conservative Party after his slurs against Michel Kaminski and other European allies of the party (see throughout this blog!). The BBC remains over-keen on this story, and has done plenty of slurring itself. It also loves to paint the Tories as split on Europe. So the ensuing ding-dong gave them just what they wanted, in spades. Note though how Dan Hannan was interrupted four times by Jon Sopel, but E.M.S. only once. The BBC's agenda was plain for all to see, and confirmed by Sopel's question: "Just how damaging is it for the Conservative Party to have this rearing its head just as you go to your party conference a few months ahead of a general election?"

David Thompson's latest piece from the Stourbridge constituency featured the incumbent Labour MP, the very unimpressive-seeming Lynda Waltho, talking mostly to former Labour supporters in a men's barber's shop. It ended on a positive note for her, with one such voter saying if she held more such meetings, he'd vote for her again. An easily pleased man, that one! We'll see if next week, when it should be the Tory candidate's turn, he gets to talk to former Tory voters.

Max Cotton's closing piece featured John Prescott, special representative for the Council of Europe on Climate Change (what!!??!!). This showed Two Jags propagandising for his views on the subject (and showing Franny Armstrong's The Age of Stupid) in schools and enjoying himself on this 'genuine crusade' of his (as Cotton put it. Is the word 'crusade' allowed at the BBC?). All Cotton's questions to the man he calls 'John' came from an environmentalist's stance. "Are you fighting the good fight? Does that feel good?" was his first question, before Cotton questioned Heathrow expansion, and then asked three questions calling for the 'stick' of further legislation. It was a good-natured, friendly piece, featuring no other voices than his and Prescott's.

All in another Sunday's biased work at the Politics Show.

SUNDAY TRADING RESUMES

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The Politics Show was back today, with Jon Sopel as puppet-like as ever. It was like it had never been away!
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It opened with two complementary interviews, one with David Frost of the British Chamber of Commerce (calling for public spending cuts) and the other with Brendan Barber of the T.U.C. (calling for increased taxes on high earners). Mr Frost got 3 minutes 36 seconds, whereas Mr Barber got 5 minutes 32 seconds. The socialist got two minutes more. That's BBC bias for you!
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Then came a soft interview with Labour's Alan Johnson. The Home Secretary's interview lasted 9 minutes 43 seconds, and but only contained 2 interruptions. Johnson's long and repeated attacks on the Tories were allowed to flow on, undammed. The Interruption Coefficient was a tiny o.2.

Max Cotton's report on MPs' lack of a contract of employment somewhat redressed the pro-left tendency of the programme by using Labour's Margaret Moran (Luton South) as its example of bad behaviour - though it did not label her as a Labour MP (which was a little bit naughty) - and gave Esther Rantzen and the seat's prospective Conservative candidate, Nigel Huddleston, a soundbite each. This redressing of the balance was somewhat undermined though by having two Labour MPs commenting on what MPs should do next, with Max having a friendly chat with the ubiquitous Stephen Pound and getting an earnest soundbite from the almost-as-ubiquitous John Mann.

Biased business as usual at The Politics Show.
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CODA: A SPOT OF TIFFIN WITH UKIP'S PAUL NUTTALL
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I won't be including the local bit of The Politics Show in my ongoing study, but it is worth noting that the North West edition with the delectable Annabel Tiffin featured an interview with UKIP's Paul Nuttall which, in typical Beeb style, lasted less than three minutes but contained no less than 6 interruptions, giving it a whopping I.C. of 2.4. It concentrated on "a couple of resignations"!