LIZ MCKEAN'S VERY BIASED REPORT & GAVIN ESLER TOO

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Last night's Newsnight presented one of the most biased reports I've seen in a while.
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Liz McKean fronted a report that focused on tensions between Nicholas Sarkozy and David Cameron. A clip of Sarko praising the Great Gordo was played before Liz turned her fire where her fire was intended.
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She talked of Sarko's fury at Cameron's decision to withdraw the Conservative Party from the federalist EPP group in Europe. "To hear how furious I came to Notting Hill, home of the Cameroons. Working at the UK embassy in France, Nick Allan witnessed the very first meeting between the new leader of the opposition and the soon-to-be-leader of France." Nick Allan, labelled as "Former press secretary, British embassy, Paris", spilled the beans. An interesting fact about Mr Allan that Liz didn't let her viewers know is that he is about to become the new head of communications at Guardian News and Media. That suggests, does it not, that he's not quite the disinterested diplomat viewers were led to believe?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/feb/22/nick-allan-gmg
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A joke by George Osborne about standing on a Sarkozy box did not go down well with the pint-sized French president (I can say that, being pint-sized myself. I need to stand on a chest of drawers even to shake hands with people.) Liz said "the French didn't share his little joke" - and the way she said the words 'little joke' (with a tone of utter disdain) suggest that she didn't share it either. "A serving diplomatic source" 'exclusively' told Newsnight that the French have raised the matter with the British government about the joke, though she added (more quietly) that it wasn't a formal complaint. They were also "very unhappy about a newspaper interview with David Cameron last year in which he appeared to refer to the French president... (dramatic pause from Liz) ... as a dwarf ". (And what a serious look she wore as she said it!). A "scathing" (personal) attack on George Osborne from Le monde was then quoted.
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Guess who turned up next? Yes, it was Gavin Esler's left-wing pal from Dateline London (and one of the BBC's two preferred expert on all things francais - the other was to come later!), husky-voiced French lovely Agnes Poirier. I have never yet heard her say anything nice about the Conservatives on any of her many appearances on Dateline. She's complimented Gordon Brown though on more than one occasion.
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Worse was to come.
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Liz went on to report the latest meeting between M Sarkozy and Mr Cameron, which sounded more cordial - though there remains a bone of contention. Sarko is pressing for Britain to be at the heart of a common European defence policy. Which 'expert' did Liz call on here? Alexandra Pardal of the Labour-aligned Foreign Policy Centre. This think tank was set up by Tony Blair and Robin Cook and its current director is Stephen Twigg MP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Policy_Centre. Alexandra herself belongs to the Party of the European Socialists http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/blog/2007/11/june-2009-european-elections-will-be.html. Of course, nothing about the political alignment of either Miss Pardal or the FPC was mentioned by Liz McKean. Every unsuspecting viewer would have been led inevitably just to think that she's another disinterested party and that the FPC is a non-partisan research institute. That's a very strong sign of bias on the part of a reporter.
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The other French expert beloved by the BBC and friend of Gavin Esler on Dateline , Marc Roche of Le monde, was one of the guests in the following studio discussion with Esler and Conservative MEP Charles Tannock. M Roche was the man who wrote that personal attack on George Osborne. Like Agnes, he always attacks the Tories on Dateline and is openly for Labour. Mr Tannock said that M Roche "would say that" and that Le monde is "the Guardian-equivalent in France" (which it indeed is).
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Esler did exactly what I expected him to do. He joined Marc Roche in attacking Mr Tannock, interrupting him five times. Mr Tannock only got 2 1/2 minutes to speak (hardly any time to reasonably rebut all the anti-Tory nonsense that had gone before - especially when he was under bombardment for most of the time). The interruption coefficient here was a very high 2.2.
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So a soon-to-be-top-Guardianista (not labelled as such), a left-wing French journalist (not labelled as such), a socialist from a Labour-aligned think tank (not labelled as such) and, finally, another left-wing French journalist (not labelled as such, until Charles Tannock outed him as such) were all lined up by Newsnight to make mischief for the Conservatives. Moreover, Charles Tannock was not allowed to respond at an appropriate length and, on top of all that, faced bloody Gavin Esler barging in, again and again, and asking questions like this: "But George Osborne's joke about Sarkozy's box and all this kind of niggling stuff, that's just not serious politics is it? I mean, this is somebody who could be running the British economy and he makes silly jokes about the height of the French president". (And what a 'drama queen' performance he made of asking it too!). Mr Tannock replied by saying "Well we all have a sense of humour and..." but got no further before Elser, adopting gestures of incredulity and disapproval, butted in again and asked 'So you think that's a funny joke?!"
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This programme was a joke, and certainly not a funny one.
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Before it we had Michael Crick and what the ubiquitous Chris Huhne rightly called a "non story" about the Lib Dems. After it we had some fluff, with Esler talking about Samantha Cameron with Matthew D'Ancona of the Sunday Telegraph and Rachel (sister of Boris) Johnson, editor of The Lady. At the beginning of the programme, Esler had played a clip from her interview with Sir Trevor McDonald and sarcastically described her comments as "profundities".