OF TORY MILLIONAIRES AND MAGNATES

*
The Politics Show's series of pre-election reports from the marginal Stourbridge constituency of Labour's Lynda Waltho have made frequent reference to the fact that Ms Waltho's Conservative opponent Margot James is a "millionaire businesswoman". Friday's Daily Politics featured an Adam Fleming report from Cannock Chase, constituency of the retiring Labour MP Tony Wright. The Conservative candidate there, one Andrew Bridgen, was called a "potato magnate", perhaps to enable young Adam to make a bad pun, but just as likely to allow him to highlight the Tory's high social position/wealth. No descriptions of any kind were applied to the Labour or Lib Dem candidates. Gordon Brown's attempts to play the 'class' card seem to be finding an echo at the BBC.
*

HARKIN' ONLY TO THE LEFT

*
The Conservatives are courting 'the wisdom of crowds', or 'crowd sourcing' in the jargon. (Please hand me my revolver!) This idea, of pooling many minds to find new solutions, was discussed on today's The Daily Politics, beginning with a report by young Adam Fleming. His 'talking heads' were Lib Dem activist 'Gez' Smith of Delib, former Blair advisor Dr David Halpern of the Institute for Government (fresh from his appearance on yesterday's Today programme) and blogospere-loathing leftie James Harkin from the Guardian and New Statesman. Jo Coburn then discussed the issue with Hugh Flouch of social networking organisation Networked Neighbourhoods. Un'sourced' in this particular 'crowd' were any Conservatives, or anyone else from the political Right. The likelihood of any actual wisdom, therefore, was significantly reduced!!
*

JO COBURN DOES A NAUGHTIE

*
Jim Naughtie's crimes against impartiality are nothing new really. The BBC political correspondent Jo Coburn is, of course, also a co-presenter on The Daily Politics & she's been proving again that, when the cat's away (i.e. Andrew Neil) and she's in charge, she likes to play at pouncing on Conservatives. Her crimes against impartiality (as an interviewer) are becoming ever clearer as she becomes more prominent on the show.
*
Yesterday saw Stephen Timm for Labour, Grant Shapps for the Conservatives and Danny Alexander for the Lib Dems gathering to discuss the election campaign. Here are the interruption coefficients scored for each by Jo Coburn:
*
Stephen Timms - 0.9
Grant Shapps - 2.5
Danny Alexander - 1.5
*
This is not new as far as Jo is concerned. There was this classic instance from October:
http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/10/justine-faces-two-pronged-attack.html
There the Conservative Justine Greening scored 2.8 against 0.9 for Labour's Geoffrey Robinson.
*
Back to yesterday & a comparison between Jo's interruptions against Mr Timms and Mr Shapps (ignoring the Lib Dem!):
*
Here's how long it took for the interruptions to come during each answer given:
*
The interruptions against Timms:
I1: after 7 seconds
I2: after 23 seconds
I3: after 5 seconds
*
The interruptions against Shapps:
I1: after 2 seconds
I2: after 17 seconds
I3: after 3 seconds
I4: after 8 seconds
I5: after 2 seconds
I6: after 8 seconds
*
Jo's manner was noticably more assertive (with a particularly mocking grin at one stage) against Grant Shapps and she was far more excitable when interviewing him. (It's probably left-wing blood lust). She also asked Mr Shapps a higher proportion of specific questions (about Tory plans to cut the deficit) as opposed to general questions, of which Mr Timms got three (two of them about how a long election campaign could tire the public). We could be seeing much more of this now that Anita Anand has gone on maternity leave.
*
*
*

CODA

*
For trivia collectors, the same edition of the programme saw BBC political correspondent Ben 'Son of Tony' Wright discussing the election campaign and using the word 'Tories' three times and the word 'Conservatives' not even once.
*
Also there was a report on the 'leader debates' by young Adam Fleming, which featured as its only talking heads Ric Bailey, chief political advisor of the BBC (and executive editor of Question Time, so should that really be Ric Bailey - for fans of my colour-coordination?), and David (formerly Dave) Hill, former Labour spin doctor (who reminds me a little of the uptight spin doctor Steve Fleming (played wonderfully by David Haig) in The Thick Of It.) Again, no non-Labour politicos were featured in this report.
*

TACKLING CHOCOLATE BARS

*
A couple of vignettes from this week's largely enjoyable editions of The Daily Politics, where it's usually the reports you've got to be vigilant about.
*
On Wednesday Adam Fleming was out and about discussing a potential American takeover of Cadburys. Besides the vox-pops, the only talking heads were Len McClusky, the Unite union hardliner, and the ubiquitous Will Hutton of The Work Foundation. Now there's a broad spectrum of left-wing opinion for you!
*
Then on Tuesday we had Giles Dilnot talking about 'tackling extremism' and whether the Muslim community was feeling upset. He talked to Khayyam Ghafoor of the Waltham Forest Young Leaders Programme (as he was billed by the BBC, though the organisation is actually called the Waltham Forest Young Muslim Leaders Programme), who was both a Muslim and upset, and to a Labour minister David Hansen (never heard of him before) and a Labour councillor Marie Pye.
*

IS THE BBC ALSO BIASED AGAINST THE SNP?

*
The Scots Nats have a real bee in their bonnet about bias at the BBC. (That's rich, coming from me!!) Witness today's entertaining tussle between Alex Salmond and Anita Anand on The Daily Politics, following a piece by news reporter Adam Fleming.
*
The report featured (as usual) the pro-SNP singer Pat Kane (of Hue and Cry fame), as well as an anti-independence businessman and a skeptical academic. What particularly got Big Al's goat though was the straw poll young Adam conducted in a carriage on the Glasgow underground. Less than a third supported independence, and when the show of hands came for those in support of the union, Adam Fleming cried "Ooh, a big majority don't want independence in this carriage!"
*
Alex Salmond was at his most sarcastic in the exchanges that followed, describing the straw poll as "highly scientific" and began his interview with the words "Wow! The usual impartiality of the British Brainwashing Corporation at its best!"
*
Tell us about it Alex!
*
*

*UPDATE

*

The sparring between the SNP and the BBC continued on Sunday 18th October's The Politics Show: Scotland, when Alex Salmond reacted to a report from the lovely Catriona Renton with these words: "Quite a remarkable report. You'd almost think it were a Labour councillor reporting from our conference!"

*

Tell us about it Alex!