JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE BIASED BBC

*
Tom Bradby, political editor at ITN, challenged Liam Fox over Lord Ashcroft on tonight's 6.30 News. He also challenged Lord Mandelson, quizzing him on Labour money-bags Sir Ronald Cohen. Is Sir Ronnie also a non-dom? "Labour ministers are desperate to keep this story going," said Tom, before adding "but not so good at answering their own questions." Given Labour's own poor record on dodgy donations in recent years and the ongoing questions about many of their present big-money donors, Tom noted that it was "a bit rich" for them to try and take the moral high-ground on this story. (Many Labour figures are shameless enough to do anything.) Tom added, "the Liberal Democrats are frankly not much better." The difference between this (questioning all sides) and the BBC's out-and-out side-taking is startling.
*
Lord Ashcroft has been cleared of wrong-doing today by the Electoral Commission.
*
This morning's Today paper reviews again only featured critics of Lord Ashcroft and the Conservatives from the press.
*
Indeed, being the pairing of James Naughtie and Justin Webb, a tally of mentions from the pick of the papers (over the three paper reviews of the day, at 6.10, 6.45 and 7.43) produces a predictable list:
*
The Guardian - 7 mentions
The Independent - 6 mentions
The Times - 4 mentions
The Daily Telegraph - 3 mentions
The Daily Mirror - 2 mentions
The Daily Mail - 2 mentions
The Sun - 1 mention
The Daily Express - 1 mention
*
That's the same total for The Guardian and The Independent as all the others put together!
*
Norman Smith, the BBC's Anti-Tory Affairs Correspondent, was back, chatting to Justin about Lord Ashcroft (of course). Accusations against the Conservatives were aired, questions were raised of Lord Ashcroft and the Conservative Party. At least Justin Webb asked about whether the Cabinet Office's full-knowledge of the deal let the Conservative Party off the hook. Norm said "only partially I think" (clearly meaning 'No!") and, without dwelling on the implications for Labour of Justin's question, simply went back to his job of putting the Labour case: "I think the reason it doesn't entirely get the party of the hook is that the view certainly among Labour politicians is that William Hague should have asked an awful lot more questions", he began. Then came the usual bit of outright spin, complete with Norm's characteristic hyperbole: "But as I say for the Tory Party, you know, they are it seems to me suffering now considerable collateral damage from this whole affair." No mention of Sir Ronnie Cohen there then, nor any questions for Labour.*
*
Later extended clips were played of past encounters on the issue between the BBC (Paxman, Marr and Lustig) and William Hague. If ever the day comes to question Harriet Harman about any of its donors, how many clips will the BBC be able to play back then? Any?
*
Nick Robinson again stressed the importance of the story at some length, adopting a high moral tone, despite the deficit and the war in Afghanistan. In contrast Tom Bradby on ITV News tonight expressed considerable scepticism about its importance. Nick again ignored any questions for Labour. He accused and raised questions only of the Tories. He speculated about how damaging it would be if the Electoral Commission found against Lord Ashcroft on the legality of his donations, saying it would be 'dynamite' if it judged his actions illegal. Well, it didn't and they aren't, so that's that!!
*
Norman Smith was on again as news broke of the Electoral Commission's judgement in favour of Lord Ashcroft. He discussed it with Martha Kearney on The World at One. Norm outlined the allegations against Lord Ashcroft and the Conservatives with some fervour before (and it must have choked him to say it!) conceding that the EC gave them a clean bill of health, and that it would be "a huge, huge relief" for the Conservative Party. From what Martin says on the Biased BBC blogsite Jon Sopel, interviewing Jenny Watson on the EC, was not so willing to concede anything to the Conservatives.
*
Martha then interviewed the man who brought the case to the Electoral Commission, Labour's John Mann. Now, all credit to her, she did ask him (briefly) about Labour donors. Conservative donor Lord Kalms was also interviewed and duly criticised Lord Ashcroft. Worst here was a disgraceful piece from a reporter called Bob Walker from the marginal of Loughborough. He staged an anti-Tory stunt to highlight what Lord Ashcroft's money is achieving (though, given the small amount he now gives to the Conservative Party, it quite likely not to have been his money at all). Some clever Conservative leaflets were held up to public contempt by the stentorian Mr Walker.
*
More questions came on PM from Ross Hawkins. Ross did hint that Labour and the Lib Dems were electioneering (as is the BBC!) and spoke to a former Conservative MP who is calling for Lord Ashcroft to resign, Barry Legg (who lost his seat in 1997). Carolyn Quinn then spoke to another former Conservative MP who is calling for Lord Ashcroft to resign, Elizabeth Peacock (who also lost her seat in 1997). They must be ringing around! Carolyn mentioned, very much in passing, that Labour had its own questionable donors. That she felt she had to mention it a few times suggests that the BBC now realises that it's been on dodgy ground in terms of bias so far on this story (to put it very mildly), but the fact that she only mentioned it very briefly in passing suggests that this is a cynical attempt to try and build a small database of quotes for the BBC to call upon should they be very seriously challenged by the Conservatives over this.
*
Carolyn Quinn then turned her odious attention to the question of how all this might play with the voters. Cue a pollster. Guess who? Yes, back after just a couple of days absence from Radio 4 was Lady Ashton's husband, Labour-supporting Peter Kellner of YouGov. His links were not mentioned, but then again they never are! If the Ashcroft story runs into next week, Mr Kellner said, "it might become very bad news for David Cameron." He mentioned "the old Watergate question, 'who knew what and when'".
*
Still to come is Question Time of course. And will Michael Crick make it four nights in a row on Newsnight?
*
Just another day at the biased BBC.
*

IT'S TORY-HUNTING TIME, SO TALLY-HO!

*
The Labour farmer whistles and the BBC sheepdog comes running.
*
Hilary Benn, in a blatant bit of electioning, wrote an 'open letter' to David Cameron asking why he supported a repeal of the hunting ban. The Today programme heard its master's call and ran with the story throughout this morning's programme.
*
At 6.35 James Naughtie and Norman Smith (or Crick Jnr, as I call him) previewed the issue. Norm always points out the dangers for the Tories in whatever they're proposing, and today was no different: "There are I think risks for the Tories here because there is a danger that they find themselves pinned into a sort of core vote corner (as if Benn wasn't aiming at his core vote with this 'open letter'!) or enable Labour to accuse them of a core-vote strategy (which, thinking on his feet, you'll notice Smithie has already 'sort of' done) by saying, "Well look, well here you have the Tories, they're going on about fox-hunting and inheritance tax and marriage and Europe and so on" (and, if Labour doesn't say that, Norman Smith certainly will - as he did here). In other words they get up and running the 'same old Tories' argument. And there is also the very practical danger that if you have a Tory government do they really want to get bogged down in a row over fox-hunting..."
*
Like a good mini-me-Crick Smith used 'Tory/Tories' 9 times and 'Conservative/Conservatives' just once.
*
Then at At 7.34 Andrew Hosken presented a 'balanced report' on the subject. The report began by spending time with two 'monitors' from the League Against Cruel Sports. The 'monitors' spoke and Hosken didn't challenge them in any of his questions. The middle part of the report was spent at a hunt. Here Hosken talked to huntsmen (and ladies) but, unlike with the anti-hunt guys, he did ask challenging questions. The report then returned to the guys from the League.
*
Hosken did, however, point out that the Police said that there have been only three successful prosecutions under the act. This ran counter to claims by anti-hunting groups which Norman Smith was keen to mention in the earlier discussion, in a cack-handed attempt to weaken the Tory position: "The Conservatives view it as a grotesque waste of police time, though I have to say on the police prosecution side of things there's no agreement there either because while opponents (sic!!) of fox hunting say there's only been a handful of prosecutions, if you talk to the anti-hunting people (as Norm clearly has been) they say there's been more than a hundred successful prosecutions." Who's right? Norm's anti-hunting people, or the Conservatives and the police?
*
Then at 8.50 came the coup-de-grace - an interview with Hilary Benn himself, who was invited on to (as the Today programme website puts it) "explain the thinking behind his letter." We know what the thinking is. There's a general election coming. The interview was conducted by James 'When we win the election' Naughtie (I.C. of 0.8). "Fox-hunting is back on the political agenda", he said. Of course it is. The BBC is a very well-trained sheepdog.
*
*
*
The BBC News website also heard the call and immediately began rounding up the Tory sheep: 'Labour presses Cameron on plans to repeal hunting ban' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8521030.stm. This gives lifelong politician Hilary Benn and his supporters the fox's share of the article, even interrupting the closing section - where the Conservative pack is allowed a brief say - with yet more anti-hunt/anti-Tory opinion. And not for the first time there's a reminder of a Tory's past that's clearly planted in an attempt to undermine his position: "In October, shadow environment secretary Nick Herbert - who once worked for the British Field Sports Society - described the hunting ban as an "affront" to civil liberties and "completely unworkable"."
*
Norman Smith's young colleague Ross Hawkins also obeyed Labour's whistle. Here's his article on the BBC News website (yes, there's two today!!):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8521072.stm. At least he's fairer than his colleagues.
*

WHERE HAVE ALL THE RIGHTIES GONE?

*
It's been a busy week this week, so apologies for the falling-off in the amount of blogging I've been able to do. A quick skim through the past 24 hours follows!
*
Tonight's PM discussed Obama's moves against bankers with...a Labour MP, John Mann. That's who you'd issue your only invitation to discuss Obama's moves with, isn't it? Thankfully Eddie Mair was on hand to insure that the sometimes excellent/sometimes deeply mistaken Mr Mann was made to work for his supper!
*
The other political section was given over to a report by Ross Hawkins on political caretakers, inspired by Arlene Foster's assumption of the DUP leadership. As well as (rightly) talking to Vince Cable and Margaret Beckett, the two most recent caretaker leaders, he also sought the advice of Sir Michael White of The Guardian. How typical of young Ross to seek wisdom from the likes of Sir Michael! This lunchtime's WATO sought the expertise of the Independent's former Latin American editor Colin Harding on Haiti. It's funny how often journalists from those two particular newspapers crop up on BBC programmes.
*
This tendency to tilt reports towards the Left is a common trait of BBC bias. Paul Moss's report on Irish emigration on last night's The World Tonight talked to Parias MacEnri, a lecturer in migration studies, and novelist Colm Toibin, but also to a politician, Senator Alex White (naturally) of the Labour Party. Similarly, Giles Dilnot's report on the future of the BBC, featured Peter Bazalgette, the man who brought us Big Brother, and someone introduced as Carole Tongue of the Citizen's Coalition for Public Service Broadcasting - an ominous-sounding organisation if I ever heard one!! She's a former Labour MEP, and like many a former Labour MP/MEP, has fingers in a huge number of pies.
*
John Humphrys returned this morning and his first political interview was with Sir Alan Beith (just before 7.00). The topic was prisons. Sir Alan, being a good liberal, is not keen on them. Neither, being a good leftie, is John Humphrys, so they got on together without a single interruption.
*
Voices from the Right-of-Centre have been conspicious by their absence.

A TALE OF THREE ARTICLES

*
This comment from Llew needs bumping up to post status, as it's an excellent piece of research:
*

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
*
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!).
*
*
*
************************CODA
*
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
*
So that's:
1. Alex Salmond (SNP)
2. Iain Gray (Labour)
3. Tavish Scott (Liberal Democrat)
4. Annabel Goldie (Conservative)
*
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
*
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
*
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.

CRAIG IS 'HARSH' ABOUT YOUNG ROSS HAWKINS

*
Last night's The World Tonight featured a sympathetic take on Gordon Brown's year from young Ross Hawkins, spotlighting praise for him from Barack Obama and emphasizing that the expenses scandal hit all parties - though adding that all the best stories were about Labour's political opponents! (What about the bell-tower? Balls's Remembrance Day wreath? Brown's downstairs toilet?).
*
There were three journalists as 'talking heads', and two of them were pro-Brown - George Parker of The Financial Times and Steve Richards of The Independent. The other was Iain Martin of The Wall Street Journal (Europe). He was not pro-Brown, and young Ross said (after the short clip of him speaking) that Mr Martin's words might sound "harsh". He didn't say later that Mr Richards's words might sound "generous" or "soft" of course!! To my centre-right ears (hope that doesn't conjure up an image of me as a figure in a Picasso painting!), Iain's words didn't sound harsh at all. They sounded spot on! Why did Ross Hawkins cast a critical judgement on the contribution made by a right-of-centre journalist, critical of the Great Leader? Anything to do with BBC bias?

BLINK AND YOU'LL MISS HIM!

**
Kirsty Wark's interview with Nigel Farage, following Crick's report, lasted all of 1 minute 34 seconds. Astonishing! With so much to ask Mr Farage about, especially his decision to stand down as leader of UKIP in the UK (which was not asked about), and with his party holding it's annual conference, you would have expected (and been right to expect) a longer interview.

Now, despite giving him only 1 minute 34 seconds of her precious time, Kirsty still went on to interrupt Nigel Farage! Her I.C. was 0.7.

Her questions were hostile in tone:

"Why not make this a fair fight if you want to be taken seriously for Westminster and go into a constituency where candidates actually campaign?"

"So basically it's a publicity stunt, as you've said." (As NF pointed out, he'd said no such thing.)

"Oh, but, but, if you look what UKIP did... 2 1/2% of the electorate supported UKIP last time round. You're never going to make a mark on that seat!"

Kirsty's "Thank you very much" at the end was abrupt and stern in tone. Her face was like thunder. Please watch it on the Newsnight website & you'll see what I mean!
*
P.S. As she also mentioned that Newsnight had tried to get John Bercow himself on (but that he wasn't available), I have a strong suspicion that Nigel Farage would not have received an invitation to appear at all had Bercow been prepared to appear.
**
***********************
*
Sadly not having the time to cover the BBC website as well (as I work full-time) I'm making a rare comment about it here. The Beeb's very young political correspondent Ross Hawkins reports on Nigel Farage's decision to step down as UKIP's domestic leader here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8237728.stm
It's a good piece, not at all hostile to UKIP. I enjoyed reading it. Well done, young man!
*
My congratulations most definitely don't extend to the piece's sub-headings (which would not be Ross's doing). These are ''Wild men'' and 'Tough'. Who the hell wrote these sub-headings? Why pick on two negatives? They are hardly representative of the piece itself. And why pick on two such irrelevant sub-headings? Truly bizarre - and another sign of the BBC's bias against the Right. Poor show, mystery sub-editor!