IMPARTIALITY MY POSTERIOR!

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It's all about the Tories!
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Martha Kearney begins today's election coverage on The World At One with a clip from Alistair Darling attacking the Tories on NI, then plays a clip of Nick Clegg attacking the Tories on NI. She then mentions the extra businessmen backing the Conservatives but fails to include a clip of one doing so, or a clip of a Conservative attacking either Labour or the Lib Dems over the matter. Who does she then turn to to discuss the matter? Former Labour advisor Matthew Taylor.
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Matthew, who is always worth a listen, simultaneously tried to undermine the idea that we should listen to these businessmen and attacked his own party for sucking up to such people for so long (a concession with a purpose) before saying that his own party might be onto something and that attacking the Conservatives on NI is worth doing after all. So, this turned out to be a third attack on the Tories after all. A similar pattern followed in the second part of this interview.
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Martha then turned to the Engineering Employers' Federation - the only group who isn't backing the Conservatives over the issue of national insurance. A representative from that organisation was then interviewed.
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Professor Colin Talbot from Manchester University, a BBC regular, was up next. He was asked about Conservative plans for efficiency savings. Hugh Pym might well be turning to him because he didn't think much of them - to put it mildly. He also described the effect a rise in NI would have as "pretty marginal".
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After all this negative coverage, Philip Hammond, the Conservative treasury spokesman, was then interviewed - but he was interviewed in tandem with his Labour opposite number Liam Byrne, which, I'm sure you'll agree, was - in the circumstances - hardly fair.
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Martha began with Philip Hammond, of course, and straight away put to him the criticism of Prof Talbot, who she made sure to say is "an expert in public spending" (so a man you must believe). BBC impartiality (ha!) ensured that she went on to press both interviewees, but she was very specific in her questioning of the Conservatives - interrupting Mr Hammond to quote a former Tory efficiency advisor to undermine one of the current Tory efficiency advisers and a Times opinion poll on the credibility of George Osborne - but much more vague (and far less potentially damaging) in her pressing of Mr Byrne.
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Was this enough for The World at One? Of course not.
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The Conservatives' plan for a National Citizens' Service was up next. Martha pointed out that the Tories are "going to pay for their new scheme by cutting the government's Prevent strategy...spent on trying to prevent radicalization among young Muslims." I bet you can guess who she interviewed next! Someone who benefits from the money received from the government's Prevent strategy, Hanif Qadir of the Active Change Foundation, who thinks the Prevent strategy has been "very successful". He wasn't as critical of the Conservative plan though as was hoped so Martha swiftly 'left it there'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rrbcm#synopsis
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Time to trot out that putative new catchphrase I mooted a while back: "Have they no shame?"