A GOLDIE MEDAL FOR BIAS TO THE BBC WEBSITE

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Oh that BBC News website! You've got to hand it to them, they have a real knack for thinking how best to rile the Tories!
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I'm still not devoting anywhere near enough time and energy to this far-too-widely-read source of BBC propaganda (for which more apologies, but the Biased BBC website and, of course, Not a sheep have their eagle eyes trained on it, so I don't feel too bad!). Even a cursory glance lands some prime BBC bias, as here:
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Goldie Hawn talks to Tories about setting up schools
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8514878.stm

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The sub-headlines are pure BBC anti-Tory cheek:
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*******'Creationism'
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*******Breathing exercises
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*******'Extra running costs'

The first two are designed to make the Conservatives look silly, the last is a quote from Labour's Vernon Coaker.

The Tory-hating Beeboid at the BBC News website is having a busy day (as am I!)

LABOUR IS MY DARLING

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Time for you all to flee to the fire exits because I'm going to talk about The Politics Show: Scotland again! You can come back soon though because I'll be very quick.
*
My amply-supported contention that presenter Glenn Campbell is soft on Labour received another boost today with an interview with Alistair Darling that contained only one (mild) interruption, and reminded this viewer of a historical painting of Socrates and his doting pupil. Its I.C. was a mere 0.2. Glenn's big interview with David Cameron was noticably less reverential, though I've seen far worse Glenn Campbell interviews with Tories than this one. The I.C. here was 0.6.
*

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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LANSLEYS TO THE SLAUGHTER AGAIN

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This lunchtime's Politics Show saw a real ding-dong that set Andrew Lansley for the Conservatives against Labour's Andy Burnham, Lib Dem Norman Lamb and presenter Jon Sopel. The issue was elderly care and Mr Lansley was ganged up on in a way that Conservative spokesmen seem to being ganged up on by the Lib-Lab pact and the BBC these days on a pretty regular basis. Andrew Lansley tried to give as good as he got, talking over everyone else in a clear attempt to stay afloat. He didn't win through though. Sopel's interruption coefficients here were 0.7 for Mr Burnham (5 interruptions), 0.8 for Mr Lamb (2 interruptions), and 2.1 for Mr Lansley (13 interruptions).
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This bust-up is reported on the BBC News website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8514762.stm
Here our biased Beeboid friends treat us to their highly partial take on the encounter. The views of Andy Burnham come first, then Norman Lamb and, thirdly, Andrew Lansley. Direct quotes from all three are given. Those of Mr Lamb are the most bountiful, followed by Mr Burnham with Mr Lansley predictably lagging in third place. The story is, thus, shaped for maximum anti-Tory effect.
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The language of the piece shows that it was written by an anti-Tory Beeboid: "But Mr Lansley admitted the "RIP" poster about Labour's plans had been based on a story in the Guardian newspaper, which had been denied by the government." (Fancy the BBC disrespecting its ideological soulmate The Guardian!)
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The article also features this passage, which scores a genuine bullseye against the Conservatives and suggests that its writer is not merely anti-Tory but also a Labour supporter: "And Shadow Education Secretary Michael Gove has also weighed in, with a personal attack on Andy Burnham. Mr Gove, who is two years younger than the health secretary and has been an MP for less time, told BBC One's Andrew Marr programme Mr Burnham was a "young politician, idealistic, but he has a lot to learn." That is the sort of thing I'd have liked to have written about Andy Burnham! Kudos to the Labour-supporting Beeboid for writing it! No kudos to the Labour-supporting Beeboid, however, for the anti-Tory bias of the report as a whole, as the BBC is supposed to be impartial!
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FEBRUARY FOOLS' DAY

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At exactly the same time as the two (or, with Andrew Marr, three) Lefties were reviewing the papers on The Andrew Marr Show, Radio 4's Broadcasting House was giving us its treatment of the elderly care story, first looking at the political squabble over the issue in a report from Norman Smith that cast the Tories in the worst light (what a surprise!).
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Then the programme turned to the issue itself with an essay on the subject by Philippa Stroud of the centre-right think tank The Centre for Social Justice, which argued that inheritance of wealth and property is no sin.
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Do you believe me? Or am I pulling that annoying stunt yet again where, in the spirit of April Fools' Day, I mislead you into thinking that the BBC has surprisingly gone against all its left-wing instincts when it in fact hasn't?
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Yes, I'm afraid that's exactly what I've done again. (I promise not to do it again, or it could become very tiresome!!)
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Philippa Stroud did not appear on the programme, not did anyone else from a centre-right think tank. Instead the essay on Broadcasting House was given by Richard Reeves of the centre-left think Demos, and he argued against the 'madness' of our favourable attitudes towards inheritance.
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No balancing voice was heard.
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I'm at the stage now where I don't really expect one anymore.
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A COSY CONSENSUS ON THE SOFA

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Andrew Marr was fair in his treatment of his interviewing of the two party politicians today, with Michael Gove earning him an I.C. of 0.7 and Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones earning him a 0.6.
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Not so fair was the paper review where Andy was joined by two left-wingers, liberal-to-her-elegant-fingertips Joan Bakewell and far-left 'comedian' Mark Thomas. Thomas attacked the Daily Mail, bankers and Lord Ashcroft (oh these predictable lefties!). Marr had reminded him to mention Lord Ashcroft and added himself "In politics there's nothing worse than not giving a clear answer to a story and getting closure". Try telling that to Gordon Brown, who hasn't given a clear answer to anything for years.
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Earlier Dame Joan discussed the row over elderly care and, prompted by Marr's "And those Conservative posters saying Gordon Brown wants £20,000 when you die?", denounced the use of the phrase 'death tax' (even though that's what it would be). She went on to list the virtue of Labour's proposal and said of that most understandable of human instincts, the wish to pass on the best possible future to your children, including your home, "I think there's no entitlement to that". Marr chimed in, "I always wonder whether it's the older people who are worried about this, or their children, who are hoping for the money." Mark said to this (with a left-wing comedian's typical superficiality of thought), "I think you're right. I mean when you're dead this is the one time the government can tax you actually, Surely that's when you're not going to feel the pinch, and that's the point of it." (Yeah, as if Mark Thomas doesn't think there aren't an almost infinite number of other times when the government can - and should - tax you!!) When Thomas joined in the criticism of the use of the word 'death' Marr said 'Yeah, absolutely!' So, all in all, a very cosy consensus in favour of the 'death tax' on Marr's sofa.
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In his introduction Andy had 'quipped' "Lots of people are represented on the sofa today". I think I can now 'quip' back, "Yes, but not a lot of different views".
*

HERE WE GO AGAIN

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My general complaint to the BBC is still ongoing. Here's all the correspondence so far, started with my latest missive (which uses my previous post as Exhibit A!). As you can see, so far it's been about as successful as most complaints to the BBC about bias!


Dear Jonathan,

Thank you for your considered reply.

I cannot accept, however, that the number of interruptions during an interview is irrelevant - if it forms part of a large survey of such interviews (which was my original point).

Surely if an interviewer interrupts representatives of one particular political party far more than he/she interrupts representatives on another political party, this is highly suggestive of bias. How else can it be accounted for?

When you say that it's not possible to judge an interview by the number of interruptions, you are surely right - but that's not my point. I don't consider individual interviews in isolation. I have surveyed ALL the interviews by that interviewer. If a strong trend emerges your argument loses all its power.

When you say somewhat dismissively say that "ultimately, our view is that impartiality cannot be judged solely on the number of times representatives of any party are interrupted during
interviews", I would say that my view is that it can.

Complaints about bias can be dismissed because they are usually subjective. An objective measure, such as the number of times an interviewee is interrupted by an interviewer/divided by the length of the interview, removes subjectivity. Were you to argue that bias is in the eye of the beholder, I could then counter that interruptions are interruptions and have very little to be with subjectivity.

If you don't accept this as a valid measure, what objective measure would you accept?

Here is a detailed example that proves the value of this sort of analysis.

I could complain that Shirin Wheeler on 'The Record Europe' tends to ask questions from a strongly pro-European position, or that she is rude to centre-right British politicians but respectful towards centre-left British politicians. You could reply that that's just my opinion.

Now if you calculate interruption coefficients (number of interruptions/length of interview) for all Shirin Wheeler's interviews with British politicians since, say, September last year you achieve this set of staggering clear results:

31/01/2010 Lord Dartmouth UKIP 2.4
21/09/2009 Timothy Kirkhope Conservative 1.9
11/10/2009 Timothy Kirkhope Conservative 1.5
06/12/2009 David Campbell-Bannerman UKIP 1.5
20/12/2009 Vicky Ford Conservative 1.5
14/02/2010 John Bufton UKIP 1.4
08/11/2009 Timothy Kirkhope Conservative 1.2
15/11/2009 Martha Andreasen UKIP 1.2
11/10/2009 Nigel Farage UKIP 0.9
14/02/2010 Timothy Kirkhope Conservative 0.9
01/11/2009 Paul Nuttall UKIP 0.7
08/11/2009 Charles Tannock Conservative 0.7
08/11/2009 Graham Watson Lib Dem 0.7
07/02/2010 Nirj Diva Conservative 0.7
08/11/2009 Derek Clarke UKIP 0.6
08/11/2009 Glenis Willmott Labour 0.5
06/12/2009 Lord Roper Lib Dem 0.4
17/01/2010 Glenis Willmott Labour 0.4
31/01/2010 Richard Howitt Labour 0.4
24/01/2010 Claude Moraes Labour 0.3
04/10/2009 Syed Kamall Conservative 0.3
06/12/2009 Richard Howitt Labour 0.3
20/12/2009 Arlene McCarthy Labour 0.3
17/01/2010 Geoffrey Van Orden Conservative 0.3
07/02/2010 Michael Cashman Labour 0.3
25/10/2009 Timothy Kirkhope Conservative 0.2
18/10/2009 Caroline Lucas Green 0
31/01/2010 Mary Honeyball Labour 0
22/11/2009 Cathy Ashton Labour 0
17/01/2010 Jean Lambert Green 0
31/01/2010 Kay Swinburne Conservative 0
04/10/2009 Graham Watson Lib Dem 0
11/10/2009 Fiona Hall Lib Dem 0
11/10/2009 Richard Howitt Labour 0
25/10/2009 Stephen Hughes Labour 0
20/12/2009 Sharon Bowles Lib Dem 0
06/12/2009 Michael Connarty Labour 0
20/12/2009 Chris Davies Lib Dem 0
04/10/2009 Arlene McCarthy Labour 0
25/10/2009 Chris Davies Lib Dem 0
15/11/2009 Derek Vaughan Labour 0
24/01/2010 Andrew Duff Lib Dem 0
15/11/2009 Vicky Ford Conservative 0
01/11/2009 Jean Lambert Green 0
07/02/2010 Richard Corbett Labour 0
14/02/2010 Stephen Hughes Labour 0

Working out average interruption coefficients for each party proves my point:

UKIP (7 interviews) - 1.24
Conservatives (12 interviews) - 0.77
Labour (16 interviews) - 0.16
Lib Dems (8 interviews) - 0.14
Greens (3 interviews) - 0.0

These figures show that politicians from UKIP and the Conservative Party are significantly more likely to be interrupted by Shirin Wheeler than politicians from the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green Parties.

How does this NOT show bias toward the (pro-European)parties of the Left and against the (Eurosceptic) parties of the Right? This is surely worthy of a QED!!

Shirin Wheeler is but one example I could have used.

All of this answers your other points too.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best wishes,
Craig





--- On Fri, 5/2/10, complaintresponse@bbc.co.uk wrote:


From: complaintresponse@bbc.co.uk
Subject: BBC Complaints
To:
Date: Friday, 5 February, 2010, 15:19


Dear Mr B

Thanks for your further e-mail. Please accept our apologies for the delay
in replying. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response and
we're sorry that you've had to wait on this occasion.

We note that you were unhappy with the response that you received to your
initial complaint of 1 November, in which you claimed ongoing bias against
particular political parties.

Whilst we appreciate your further concerns, Mr B, it's not possible
to judge an interview by the number of interruptions, nor by the
superficial tone of questioning. Different interviews demand different
approaches and while a direct ''no holds barred'' interview may
superficially appear more rigorous (and will sometimes be the appropriate
approach to take), sometimes a more discursive approach can be as revealing
and more difficult for a politician to handle.

In addition, presenters have their own style - without which the interviews
and discussions on our news programmes would quickly become predictable.

For example, it might be worth adding something that 'Today' presenter Evan
Davis said about his personal interviewing style in an interview:

''…what I'd like to think I do is give people the licence to admit the
difficulty of their position.....the hope is that by giving them the
licence to admit that it's been difficult, you might get them to admit what
they might not if you were too rigid with them…'

Ultimately, our view is that impartiality cannot be judged solely on the
number of times representatives of any party are interrupted during
interviews. However, we do appreciate your feedback and observations and we
can assure you that senior figures at BBC News have been made aware of them.

We'd also like to assure you that we've registered your additional
complaint on our audience log.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Regards

Jonathan C
BBC Complaints
________________________________________________
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/homepage/


------------Original Message---------------


{Complaint:} Dear Stefan,

Thanks for your reply. I'm glad you found my results interesting. You are
correct in understanding that my calculations have found there to be a bias
against Conservative MPs in our broadcasts. (Not just MPs mind you, and they
also showed bias against UKIP.)

Your statement about impartiality is as it should be and welcome. When you

say that "all BBC interviewers are careful to abide by well-established
interviewing guidelines that prescribe a scrupulously even-handed approach",
my findings demonstrate that this is sadly not true. Many of them
(including Andrew Marr, Carolyn Quinn, James Naughtie, John Humphrys, Adrian
Masters, Kirsty Wark, Anita Anand, Glenn Campbell, Shirin Wheeler, Gavin
Esler, Andrew Neil and Jo Coburn) do not - as my figures also clearly show.
I would have attached the speadsheet with the full list of interruption
coefficients since June, had the e-mail I received allowed me to reply. This
format does not permit it either.
For example, considering the 15 interviews with UK politicians conducted by
John Humphrys in October, these were the interruption coefficients:

03/10 Andrew Lansley Conservative 1.8
22/10 Ken Clarke Conservative 1.7
09/10 Greg Clark Conservative 1.6
13/10 Sir Patrick Cormack Conservative 1.6
24/10 George Osborne Conservative 1.3
28/10 Roger Gale Conservative 0.9
14/10 Harriet Harman Labour 0.9
28/10 Stuart Bell Labour 0.7
01/10 Norman Lamb Lib Dem 0.7
10/10 Bob Stewart Conservative 0.6
10/10 Peter Kilfoyle Labour 0.4
13/10 David Blunkett Labour 0.4
02/10 Rhodri Morgan Labour 0.3
13/10 Sir Stuart Bell Labour 0
14/10 Stephen Pound Labour 0

His averages for each political party therefore translate as:

Conservatives - 1.36
Lib Dems - 0.7
Labour - 0.39


Thus, a Conservative politician in October was more than 3 times as likelyto be interrupted by John Humphrys than a Labour politician.

I can now judge each interviewer over a 5-month period (and the survey is ongoing).

Here for example, are James Naughtie's figures from June-October 2009 (with the number of interviews with each party in brackets):

Conservatives (16) - 0.84
Greens (1) - 0.7
Labour (34) - 0.43
SNP (2) - 0.4
UKIP (1) - 0.3
Lib Dems (6) - 0.07
DUP (1) - 0

This shows a strong anti-Conservative bias, with the Conservative Party
receiving almost double the number of interruptions (proportional to the
length of the interview) that the Labour Party received.

Time after time it is either the Conservatives or UKIP who come out with the
highest interruption coefficients. (There are exceptions, such as the
excellent Eddie Mair).

I know very well that many interviewees try to evade questions and push
their own agenda, but that's not revelant here. Nor is the likability of
particular interviewers of any relevance to the issue in hand. I actually
like most of them. I only wish they weren't biased.

So when you say that you "realise I may continue to feel there's a culture of institutional bias within the BBC", you are not mistaken!

I'm glad my complaint will be put on the audience log and might be read more
widely. I don't feel, however, that you have really answered any of my
concerns. I would be grateful for a more considered response.

Regards

Craig

--- On Sat, 7/11/09, complaintresponse@bbc.co.uk
wrote:


From: complaintresponse@bbc.co.uk
Subject: BBC Complaints [T2009110100K7S010Z6927411]
To: Date: Saturday, 7 November, 2009, 15:42


Dear Mr B

Thanks for your e-mail.

I was interested to read the findings of your survey. I understand that your
calculations have found there to be a bias against Conservative MPs in our
broadcasts.

Impartiality is the cornerstone of all our news and current affairs output

and we ensure all our correspondents and production teams are aware of this
to help us deliver fair and balanced coverage for all the stories we report.
We seek neither to denigrate nor promote any particular view, rather we
present the relevant facts and allow our audience to make up their own minds
based on them.

All BBC interviewers are careful to abide by well-established interviewing

guidelines that prescribe a scrupulously even-handed approach.

Many interviewees are very adept at evading questions and following their
own agenda when replying. It's part of a professional interviewer's role to
ensure that they're reminded, when appropriate, of the original question or
pressed on points that are of particular interest.

This being said, it's always difficult to find a presenter who will appeal

to all viewers/listeners and the attributes which appeal to some
viewers/listeners may sometimes strike others as wholly inappropriate.

I realise you may continue to feel there's a culture of institutional bias

within the BBC. Therefore, let me assure you I've registered your comments

on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that's
circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board,
channel controllers and other senior managers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape
decisions about future programming and content.

All feedback we receive, whether positive or negative, is always
appreciated.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us with your views.

Regards


Stefan C
BBC Complaints
__________________________________________
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/

-----Original Message-----

So far, since beginning my survey of BBC in June this year,
>I've reviewed 1129 interviews with UK politicians.
>
>My main tool is the Interruption Coefficient. Interruption Coefficients
>(I.C.s) are calculated by dividing the number of interruptions by the
length
> of the interview. This provides a measure of the aggressiveness of an
>interview. The higher the I.C. the tougher the interview (as a rule). I.C.s

>of 0 have contained no interruptions!
>
>I have covered every edition of the following programmes:
>
>Today
>The Daily Politics
>The World At One
>PM
>The World Tonight
>Newsnight
>The Andrew Marr Show
>Broadcasting House
>The Politics Show
>The World This Weekend
>The Politics Show: Scotland
>Dragon's Eye
>The Record: Europe
>Westminster Hour
>
>Simply by calculating a 'super-average' (i.e. adding all the interruption

>coefficients for each political party then dividing the total by the
number
> of interviews granted to each party) I have been able to derive a simple

>measure for each each political party.
>
>The results are revealing - and not a little damning. Of course the more
>interviews I've surveyed for each political party the firmer the evidence

of
> bias (so the figures for Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are
>very firm, and those for UKIP, the Greens and, above all, the SNP pretty
>compelling!).
>
>Here are the results for the whole period:
>
>UKIP (12 interviews) - 0.90
>Plaid Cymru (6 interviews) - 0.88
>Conservatives (312 interviews) - 0.84
>English Democrats (1 interview) - 0.8
>SNP (39 interviews) - 0.76
>Sinn Fein (2 interviews) - 0.75
>BNP (4 interviews) - 0.65
>Labour (557 interviews) - 0.57
>Liberal Democrats (167 interviews) - 0.41
>DUP (3 interviews) - 0.27
>Greens (9 interviews) - 0.24
>UUP (1 interview) - 0
>Alliance (1 interview) - 0
>SDLP (1 interview) - 0
>
>This show that Conservative politicians are substantially more likely to be

>interrupted by BBC interviewers than Labour or Liberal Democrat
politicians.
>
>Full details of all this are available on my blog:
>http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com
>
>I have full spreadsheets containing all the details for each interview.
>
>This seems to be a strong case of institutional bias, which needs urgent
>attention - especially as we near a general election.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/
This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically stated.
If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system.
Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in reliance on it and notify the sender immediately.
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Further communication will signify your consent to this.

HITTING THE BUFTONS

*
Much as I'd love to be sending Shirin Wheeler, presenter of The Record Europe, a Valentine's Day card today (and getting one back), I'm afraid I'm going to have to throw another brickbat at the lady instead. She was, yet again, on severely biased form again this week.
*
The first topic was the approval of the latest European Commission by the European Parliament. In Shirin's introductory report she played us back-to-back clips of the reactions of the leaders of the European Liberals, Socialists and the federalist EPP. Then her voice returned to lead us to the next clip from the parliamentary chamber, saying with a definite note of weariness, "In some quarters the opposition was predictable". Cue Nigel Farage (on fantastic form).
*
The usual studio discussion followed, with the usual results. I'll list the statistics first:
*
John Bufton (UKIP) - 3 interruptions, I.C. of 1.4
Timothy Kirkhope (Conservative) - 2 interruptions, I.C. of 0.9
Corlen Wortman Kool (EPP) - 0 interruptions, I.C. of 0
Alex Lambsdorf (German Liberal) - 0 interruptions, I.C. of 0
Stephen Hughes (Labour) - 0 interruptions, I.C. of 0
*
These results are pure Shirin Wheeler.
*
Stephen Hughes, like all her Labour guests, was not probed about Labour policy, was treated with friendly respect and was not interrupted.
*
Mr Kirkhope, who nearly always fares badly at the lovely hands of Shirin, was accused of 'sitting on the fence' and 'not standing up', was interrupted and contradicted over his support for President Barossa and later cut off again before he could finish his point.
*
Still, he fared a great deal better than John Bufton of UKIP, who got the full Shirin treatment.
*
Her first question to him was pretty extraordinary in itself, being laden with bias: "Now that for members of your party John (i.e. the idea of more 'leadership' from the Commission) is not going to come as great news. Mind you, nothing much does here. Nigel Farage, you know, had what some would say was a pretty extraordinary outburst about this. Do you agree with him?"
*
John's answer lasted just 19 seconds before the first interruption came. The interruption was the sort of interruption only Shirin's right-of-centre guests ever seem to be on the receiving end of - a telling-off: "But leave the labels aside and the, you know, emotive terms aside for a moment." Ouch! The question that followed was said v e r y s l o w l y , as if she were speaking to a dim child: "Isn't this about finding solutions to concrete problems that effect people's lives, like losing their jobs and things like that?"
*
In answer he complained that the people had not been consulted in a referendum, which brought Shirin crashing back in after just 13 seconds with her second interruption. This was a contradiction, delivered with a grin/grimace: "Well they do have a say because they elected you and that's fair enough!" 'Fair enough'? That's big of her! At least she doesn't want UKIP banned!!
*
John's answer to this was also interrupted (after 35 seconds) with another telling-off: "Oh let's not get bogged down by domestic politics!" she exclaimed.
*
In a later exchange between Mr Bufton and Mrs Worman Kool, where the former made the point that the European Commission are unelected and the latter started to quibble, Shirin intervened to disagree with him again, snapping "They went through a thorough hearing process as well. Let's hear from Alex now."
*
A classic Shirin Wheeler performance all round.
*
No set of interruption coefficients is more damning in its proof of left-wing bias than hers:
*
31/01/2010 Lord Dartmouth UKIP 2.4
21/09/2009 Timothy Kirkhope Conservative 1.9
11/10/2009 Timothy Kirkhope Conservative 1.5
06/12/2009 David Campbell-Bannerman UKIP 1.5
20/12/2009 Vicky Ford Conservative 1.5
14/02/2010 John Bufton UKIP 1.4
08/11/2009 Timothy Kirkhope Conservative 1.2
15/11/2009 Martha Andreasen UKIP 1.2
11/10/2009 Nigel Farage UKIP 0.9
14/02/2010 Timothy Kirkhope Conservative 0.9
01/11/2009 Paul Nuttall UKIP 0.7
08/11/2009 Charles Tannock Conservative 0.7
08/11/2009 Graham Watson Lib Dem 0.7
07/02/2010 Nirj Diva Conservative 0.7
08/11/2009 Derek Clarke UKIP 0.6
08/11/2009 Glenis Willmott Labour 0.5
06/12/2009 Lord Roper Lib Dem 0.4
17/01/2010 Glenis Willmott Labour 0.4
31/01/2010 Richard Howitt Labour 0.4
24/01/2010 Claude Moraes Labour 0.3
04/10/2009 Syed Kamall Conservative 0.3
06/12/2009 Richard Howitt Labour 0.3
20/12/2009 Arlene McCarthy Labour 0.3
17/01/2010 Geoffrey Van Orden Conservative 0.3
07/02/2010 Michael Cashman Labour 0.3
25/10/2009 Timothy Kirkhope Conservative 0.2
18/10/2009 Caroline Lucas Green 0
31/01/2010 Mary Honeyball Labour 0
22/11/2009 Cathy Ashton Labour 0
17/01/2010 Jean Lambert Green 0
31/01/2010 Kay Swinburne Conservative 0
04/10/2009 Graham Watson Lib Dem 0
11/10/2009 Fiona Hall Lib Dem 0
11/10/2009 Richard Howitt Labour 0
25/10/2009 Stephen Hughes Labour 0
20/12/2009 Sharon Bowles Lib Dem 0
06/12/2009 Michael Connarty Labour 0
20/12/2009 Chris Davies Lib Dem 0
04/10/2009 Arlene McCarthy Labour 0
25/10/2009 Chris Davies Lib Dem 0
15/11/2009 Derek Vaughan Labour 0
24/01/2010 Andrew Duff Lib Dem 0
15/11/2009 Vicky Ford Conservative 0
01/11/2009 Jean Lambert Green 0
07/02/2010 Richard Corbett Labour 0
14/02/2010 Stephen Hughes Labour 0
*
Her averages say it all:
*
UKIP (7 interviews) - 1.24
Conservatives (12 interviews) - 0.77
Labour (16 interviews) - 0.16
Lib Dems (8 interviews) - 0.14
Greens (3 interviews) - 0.0
*
Pretty extraordinary, wouldn't you say?
*

GIFTING THE GREEKS

*
Combine the usual left-liberal bias of The World Tonight with its habitual Europhilia and put Jonty Bloom in charge and you'll get the sort of biased discussion of the EU summit on Greece that we heard on Thursday's edition of the programme. There were three interviewees, all of them firm Europhiles.

First up was Quentin Peel of the Financial Times. Mr Peel seems to share Jonty's preference for the French integrationalist model of Europe, "a coordinated economic policy", over the somewhat more cautious German approach. "But the consequence of what's been happening today in Brussels", said Bloom, "would seem to be that the people who said you couldn't have a Eurozone without that political co-operation, with the financial ministers getting together and having a common policy were right." Prudent Germany's understandable reluctance to make its hard-pressed taxpayers pay for Greece's disgraceful and reckless behaviour was discounted. Germany must help Greece and save the sacred Euro was the clear assumption here: "But Germany will, when push comes to shove, stand behind the Eurozone and that means standing behind Greece eventually?"
*
Next up was French finance minister Christine Lagarde. Jonty's Mason-like opposition to sort of remedies needed to tackle an insane level of deficit were apparent here: "But doesn't this also mean that there is a very real danger of Greece going into an even worse recession because it is having to slash spending so much?" You can imagine our Labour politicians blessing Bloom for asking that such a question. All elephants in every room were ignored here.
*
The final guest was, perhaps, the most inevitable of all. There just had to be someone from a Europhile think tank. This was arch-Europhile Simon Tilford chief economist of the Centre for European Reform. (For a sample of his thinking see http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/05/european-union-eurosceptic-britain-membership). Jonty and Simon got on like a house on fire.
*
Have you heard anyone from a Eurosceptic think tank on the BBC recently? There's certainly been no-one on any of the programmes I review. This is hardly democratic.
*

PAUSE

*
I suspect I've probably overloaded my blog today! But, as I said before, there's been so much BBC bias to catch up on this week. There's much more over at the Biased BBC website of course. And I've still lots more I am itching to blog about, and have highlighted in my notebook (but I think a break for some music is needed)! I'm in no doubt that the Beeb's campaign against the Right is only going to get a lot lot worse as the general election nears.
*

GLEES GETS CLUBBED BY LUSTIG

*

I'm still catching up from last week!

*

Wednesday's The World Tonight began by discussing the case of Ethopian pain-in-the-bottom Binyam Mohamed (and he may, or may not, have received some pain there himself). What was surprising here was drippingly-liberal presenter Robin Lustig's unusually aggressive interviewing of an academic. The academics usually invited onto The World Tonight, generally being a left-liberal lot, are rarely interrupted. What did Professor Anthony Glees, Professor of Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingam, do to deserve three feisty interruptions from Robin Lustig? He condemned judges for being harsh on the security forces and condemned Liberty (whose Guardian girl Corinna Ferguson (pictured) had just been given the gentle treatment from Lusty Robin). Lustig was clearly aghast.

*

Tapping 'Anthony Glees' into my search engine brings up, first of all, a site called SpinProfiles that calls the professor "a right-wing British academic considered an expert on terrorism and radicalism" - and it doesn't mean that as a term of praise!

*

Anthony Glees, the first 'right-wing' academic invited onto The World Tonight for some time, is given the full interruption treatment from Robin Lustig. That kind of says it all really.

*

In fact, Professor Glees was completely reasonable and spot-on in what he said. Reasonable commentary is clearly not what the BBC wants to hear about its favourite Ethopian.

*

*

*

Talking of the Binman, Friday's Daily Politics (the edition without Andrew Neil) discussed the issue with, of all people, sleazy Labour MP Keith Vaz. Pouting Jo Coburn's interruption coefficient here was a teeny-weeny 0.2.

*

THE THIRTY-NINE CRICKS

*
Last night's Newsnight ended with another report from Michael Crick, who has been unusually busy this week. Crick launched a serious investigation into the Labour Party's problems with non-doms (thrusting a microphone into the face of Labour donor Lord Paul), adopting a sarcastic tone with Lord Mandelson and featuring Eric Pickles as his main 'talking head'.
*
As if!!!!!
*
No, Crick (of course!) did no such thing. He went Tory-chasing instead, this time pursuing them (like a German spy after Richard Hannay) through the heather and bracken to their annual Scottish conference.
*
I won't dwell on this report (because it doesn't deserve the attention) beyond saying that, whether it's on his blog or on Newsnight proper, ol' Crick has been Tory-hunting - and only Tory-hunting - all week long. He's always Tory-hunting of course, but there's an election soon and he's clearly stepping up a gear.
*
He'll fight, fight and fight again for the party he loves.
*

POLICY OR COMPETITIVENESS?

*

The left-wing business correspondent of The World Tonight Jonty Bloom has his counterpart, of course, on Newsnight - 'former' Trotskyite Paul Mason. Mason, like Bloom, approves of government action. On last night's programme, when discussing the serious difficulties facing the economies of the Eurozone (which the BBC used to assure us wouldn't happen thanks to the miracle of the Euro), Paul (dressed down for Friday) made this point about why some countries are recovering more slowly than others, very emphatically: "Where there is growth at all it is mainly down to policy." Amusingly, his supportive 'talking head', banker babe Janet Henry (pictured left), Chief European Economist at HSBC, wasn't as supportive as he thought: "The main differences are policy and competitiveness", she said. Note that this adds something Paul Mason didn't mention, competitiveness. She went on "But the main difference... (is) very much to do with competitiveness." So, whereas he says its mainly policy, she says it's mainly competitiveness. He's a Leftie, she's not.

*

Mason went on to plug the government line, also very emphatically: "This slow-down will make it harder for countries to do austerity, because it's a fragile recovery and early withdrawal of stimulus could kill it off."

**

BUT TO BE FAIR...

*
Ah, Janet Daley was this week's Brit on Dateline London. The Left's long run is broken, probably for one week only.
*
Also atrocious Abdul Bari Atwan, whose ignorance of anything outside the Middle East shows up week after week, notched up yet another appearance (despite that ignorance), extending his substantial lead as the programme's 'most invited guest'. He attacked Israel. He always attacks Israel. It's a wonder he hasn't accused Israel of being behind the hacking of the e-mails at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit! (Still, at least he didn't accuse Israel of harvesting organs in Haiti. He left that to an even bigger extremist.)
*
Gavin's 'to be fairs' were much in evidence. When he's calling for fairness, it's usually a call for fairness to someone on the Left. One 'to be fair' today was a typical 'but to be fair to Obama' (before going on to praise the president for some 'sophisticated' strategy or other) but another was directed at Greece's socialist government: "But to be fair to the new Greek government, they didn't create this mess. They inherited a huge mess..." Now, as you will doubtless have read, heard and seen in recent days, Greece's self-induced economic catastrophe has been building for decades, with governments of all stripes building up disaster by refusing to do their duty and take on the communist trade unions and all the other vested interests and create the space for a clean, vibrant market economy and a responsible society to thrive. That doesn't sway Gavin Esler away from his instinctive solidarity-with-the-Left, so he'll 'be fair' to PASOK and heap all the blame on the outgoing conservative New Democracy government. All Greek governments have inherited a mess and handed the mess on to their successors. This mess just happens to be a MASSIVE mess, but it's a MASSIVE mess that is simply the sum of all the preceding messes - including, of course, the biggest mess-up of all, which saw an unsuitable country being allowed to join the European common currency for purely political reasons).
*
Gavin also, in all sincerity, called businessman and philanthropist Warren Buffett "the great Warren Buffett". Now, what's the betting Mr Buffett's strong backing for Barack Obama helped warm Gav's enthusiasm for him?
*

EUROPHILES RE-UNITED

*
Screaming Europhile (and fellow university chancellor and opponent of university funding cuts) Lord Chris Patten is one of the very few Conservatives you might guess that Jim Naughtie would interview without displaying total contempt. I guessed before listening that things would go well between them - and they did. They supported each other's Europhile statements and laughed at each other's jokes. Even so, Naughtie just couldn't resist a dig at the Tories, even here:
*
Patten: "...and Britain plods along this lonely furrow, still terrified that Europe is creating this superstate which is, of course, not happening at all..."
Naughtie: "And that terror, of course, would be identified (sic) if your party, which you will be out supporting in the election, becomes the government on May 7th".
*

JIM AND JEZ HAVE A CHAT

*
James Naughtie was up to his usual tricks this morning, discussing social care for the elderly with Sir Jeremy Beecham, Labour vice-chair of the Local Government Association (LGA).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8513000/8513886.stm
*
The interview's style was civilized and friendly (with a supportive 'yes' here and an 'mmm' of agreement there, as well as an amiable joke), and the whole thing sounded like two old pals in slippers chatting over a warm glass of mulled wine.
*
Naughtie was careful to report Brown's attack on Cameron ("The prime minister has accused the Conservatives of a disgraceful advertisement featuring a gravestone speaking of Labour's death tax") before quietly and with a straight face (or straight voice) saying "There is, of course, a government personal care bill before parliament which ministers say is going to help 400,000 people in different ways". Gratuitously, he later dropped in a reference to Justin Webb's disgraceful (but to Naughtie 'interesting') interview with Andrew Lansley, who he said "had to admit on this programme that David Cameron didn't know he was taking part".
*
Jim Naughtie, ponderous master of pro-Labour spin, strikes again!
*

LET'S ALL SING AND DANCE AND BE HAPPY!

*
There was another story on this morning's Today prompted by a report from a left-wing think tank, this time the hippy, drippy New Economics Foundation:

A 21-hour working week could be "inevitable", according to a New Economics Foundation think tank report. It argues that a much shorter working week could help to tackle overwork, unemployment, inequalities, and cut carbon emissions. Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute for Economic Affairs, and Anna Coote, head of social policy at New Economics Foundation, debate the pros and cons of a shorter working week.

The ever-excellent free-marketeer Mr Littlewood - the sort of Lib Dem I like! - called it 'fantasy' and 'total madness'.
*

CLIVE OF BROADCASTING HOUSE

*
Does Clive Stafford Smith lodge with Gavin Esler, or do they merely car-share?
*
As you know, the ubiquitous Mr Stafford Smith of Reprieve also acts as lawyer for that lovable Ethiopian scamp Binman Mohammed and is hardly ever off Newsnight (a slight exaggeration perhaps!). He certainly seems to get to chat to Gav on a pretty regular basis. Last night's Newsnight reported on MI5's denial of involvement in collusion with torture. Ol' Clive was in debate with Colonel Richard Kemp, formerly of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Esler only ever interrupted Colonel Kemp.
*

LIZ IS TOO MACKEEN TO ATTACK THE TORIES

*
On the same edition of Newsnight, the Swedish model for independent schools, and their supporter here, the British Conservative Party, came under attack from Liz MacKean on Newsnight.
*
The report did make some efforts at fairness, featuring Bo Nyberg, headmaster of one of the new schools, children and parents who go to the new schools and Anders Hultin, former advisor to the Swewish School Ministry, who helped establish the system. Mr Hulton criticised the Tories for not allowing the profit motive into the scheme. This, he argued (doubtless correctly) might mean that the scheme won't take off as it should.
*
The overall tenor of the report, however, was critical and hostile. Though we heard early on from Lena Jendi, headmistress of an old state school who is unhappy with the new schools , the report's onslaught against the Conservatives really kicked in at 33.50 on the BBC i-Player. Of the Conservatives' argument that standards have risen in Sweden, Lizzie was emphatic: "That's not what we've been told." She went on, "A few years ago it was notice that in fact standards across all schools in Sweden were slipping. International comparative studies, as well as national research, confirmed the decline. It's not known why (but that didn't stop Liz from speculating...) that the slide began at about the time the schools were introduced." (Aha! Cause and effect, or pure coincidence? No smoke without fire?) Her star witness in 'confirming' this decline was bureaucrat Per Thulberg, Director General of the Swedish National Agency for Education. "So overall results are down," she continued, "and there are strong indications of increased social segregation inside the school system." "It won't be what the Conservatives want to hear", she gloated. "They even told me that their view that competition improves all schools was based on a hunch. So what does the Swedish experience really tell us?" For her answer (which the Conservatives also wouldn't want to hear) it as straight back to the leftie bureaucrat.
*
"Swedish politicians are now having a re-think," we were then told, before Liz reached her conclusions: "The new schools remain popular but they're likely to face more inspections and more rigorous testing. After a period of freedom, it's time to introduce more ground rules."
*
Much of this is strongly disputed, from the statement that Swedish politicians are having a re-think to the whole idea that standards really have declined. Michael Gove certainly disputed it, saying "I enjoyed Liz's report but there were no facts in there". Emily Maitlis, who conducted this interview, was not too happy with this and later interrupted (as he was in the middle of making an interesting point to counter the 'increasing segregation' argument) to say "Let me just give you a hard fact because you wanted one." Guess what the source of the 'hard fact' was? "The Treasury is estimating that the running costs of 250,000 extra places - which is what you want - would be £1.8 billion. From where?". She soon butted in again to repeat this 'hard fact' from the oh-so-very-honest Treasury: "These are extra places. £1.8 billion pounds for those extra places to create the choice...". Well might Mr Gove have commented, "Those are figures that have been produced by the Treasury. What they do in that report is they deliberately misunderstand our policy". Who'd have thought that of this government!!" He added "It's a Labour Party document" as Emily pressed him further. 'Hard fact' indeed!
*
Here's the whole of a post on ConservativeHome from Harry Phibbs:

Swedish school choice is working

There is a consensus in Sweden that their policy of school choice, introduced in 1992, has driven up standards. This has been the result of the expansion of independent schools from covering 1% to 10% of pupils. It is not just that the new schools have achieved good results but they have pulled up the results of the state schools competing with them.

However there is not unanimity in Sweden. Newsnight are pleased with themselves as they have got the top education bureaucrat in Sweden, a man called Per Thulberg, to tell them that the whole thing is a failure. But reading his paper, What influences education achievement in Swedish schools, upon which Newsnight based their report, one finds plenty of left wing assertions but not much in the way of solid evidence. There are general references to "research" showing this and that but no solid data. For instance the report says streaming in schools is a mistake because it has " a stigmatising effect."

Anyway the Burning out Money blog has done a very good rebuttal although I thought he was a bit unfair saying Michael Gove was "back-footed" by the BC attack. I thought old Govey did pretty well. If he had tried to quote the facts then Emily Maitlis would have thought he was very boring and shut him up.

BOM points out that the Swedish free schools get a Grade Point Average that is 20 points higher than the state schools.

What of the evidence of standards being driven up elsewhere?

A study by Anders Bohlmark and Mikael Lindahl of Stokholm University found that an increase in the percentage of free schools in an area increased pupil performance across all schools. Most of this increase was due to competition in the school sector, forcing all schools to improve their quality. Åsa Ahlin of Uppsala University found that a ten per cent increase in the number of children attending free schools led to a five per cent increase in Mathematics performance across the area.

See also this Bergstrom and Sandstrom study.

UPDATE.

Maria Rankka of the Swedish think tank Timbro emails to say:

"Per Thulberg is wrong. There have been academic evaluations of the school voucher reform and the fact is that schools in geographical areas where competition exists are performing better than schools in areas where there still is no competition."

The Swedish Association of Independent Schools have more details on their website. What helps comparisons is that not everywhere in Sweden has the free schools system:

The proportion of students in independent schools has grown considerably since the beginning of the 90s, although the sector is still very small. In school year 1990-91, about 0.9 per cent of all
Swedish pupils in compulsory education (ages 6-15, approximately) were enrolled in independent schools, whereas in 2007-08 the figure had grown to about 9 per cent. The same trend may be observed in secondary education (ages 16-18, approximately), where the share has grown from 1.5 per cent to 17 per cent during the same period.

In about 210 of the 290 local councils in Sweden, independent schools “compete” with public schools run by locally elected school boards; as yet there are no independent schools in the other local councils. The urbanized areas of south and middle Sweden, in particular in the Greater Stockholm area, have the highest concentration of independent schools.

That makes it possible to judge the impact the free schools have on standards in the state schools.

Critics said that it is highly motivated parents who opt to take their children out of local council schools, thus leaving those schools with disadvantaged children, or that independent schools impose financial burdens on the school boards by disrupting their planning.

Where comparisons have been possible, independent schools have performed better in terms of knowledge and skills than local council schools, and have achieved this at a lower cost. This has inspired some local community schools to improve their organisation and teaching in order to improve results.

More can be found here at Burning Our Money:
http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2010/02/does-swedish-model-actually-work.html

CHASING CRICK BACK TO MONDAY

*
Back to Monday...

Monday's Newsnight began by discussing David Cameron's attack on Gordon Brown over Brown's lamentable record on the issue of parliamentary expenses. It featured the first of the week's Tory-focused reports from our old friend Michael Crick. "'We can't go on like this' David Cameron's famous poster declared at the start of last month and indeed the Tories didn't go on as buoyantly as they did last year. January was a poor month for Mr Cameron's party, especially on the economy (was it that good for Labour either, with that worrying 0.1% growth figure which so deflated their much-built-up-to crowing campaign?) , so today he moved to what seemed much firmer ground after recent events with a very personal attack on Gordon Brown (as if Brown and his cronies haven't been continually making very personal attacks on 'superficial salesman' Cameron for years) for his handling of MPs' expenses and parliamentary reform."
*
Crick then noted than Speaker Bercow had warned MPs not to discuss the cases of the three Labour MPs being prosecuted for fraud. A I'm no fan of BBC reporter Norman Smith but even he put this in context on that evening's PM: "Well initially a lot of us thought he was rapping David Cameron over the knuckles because Mr Cameron has made a lot of the running today with very personal and inflamed language..." (and I bet anti-Tory Smith was all over News 24 saying as much for some hours afterwards!), but Smith went on to report that the Speaker's office had subsequently made it plain that it was potentially prejudicial comments from Alan Johnson not David Cameron that provoked Bercow's intervention. The ever-biased Crick did not provide any such context, even though he is a senior political editor at the BBC and must surely have known it. It wouldn't do to embarrass Alan Johnson though. Much better to leave Bercow's statement hanging, context-free, in the air for Newsnight viewers to draw the false conclusion that Cameron was getting his knuckles rapped by the Squeaker. That's Crick's 'honest' reporting all over!
*
At least Crick allowed a Conservative, former MP Michael Brown of The Independent, to say some supportive things about the hated Cameron, though Mr Brown also voiced some strong criticisms too - or he wouldn't have been on!! -, though he also featured an attack from Nick Clegg (who attacked Lord Ashcroft, which would have pleased Crick). Crick also very briefly mentioned that the Labour Party had dropped the lawyer who is representing the three fraud-accused Labour MPs.
*
The next exhibit in this post's case against Michael Crick is this characteristic sentence: "Tomorrow MPs vote on the government's plans for a referendum to change our voting system to the Alternative Vote, which some people say would be fairer." Who says that exactly? Who are these 'some people'? Labour Party strategists? That is a biased way of putting it, glossing it in a favourable way for the government. Crick could just have easilly have said, "Tomorrow MPs vote on the government's plans for a referendum to change our voting system to the Alternative Vote, which some people say would favour the Labour Party electorally and could help Labour cling to power with Lib Dem support in the event of a hung parliament."
*
Professor Robert Hazell of UCL was the academic of the day. This left-leaning prof (see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/staff/hazell.htm and http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2007/06/gordonsgo/) criticized the Conservatives on the basis of newspaper reports that they were 'wobbling' over the Wright reforms. His contribution amounted to nothing more than that.

It wouldn't be a Crick report without at least some attempt to spotlight Tory 'splits'. Here's today's example: "Activists grumble Cameron has already centralised his party in dozens of ways. Candidates complain party HQ now insists on vetting and redrafting everything they write".(what everything??).
*
Crick needs to go now.
*

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

*
Talking of favoured newspapers, here are a list of all the rags mentioned this week, in the order they were mentioned, during the headlines preview at the end of each edition of Newsnight. Do you spot any favoured papers here?
*
Fri 12/2 - Gavin Esler
1. Guardian
2. FT
3. Independent

Thurs 11/2 - Gavin Esler
1. Guardian
2. FT
3. Telegraph
4. Independent

Wed 10/2 - Gavin Esler
1. Guardian
2. Mail
3. Telegraph
4. Independent
5. FT

Tue 9/2 - Emily Maitlis
1. FT
2. Guardian

Mon 8/2 - Emily Maitlis
No time for papers

BLOOM AND THE BABY BOOMERS

*
I blogged a couple of weeks ago about a certain BBC reporter:

Whenever I listen to a Jonty Bloom report on 'The World Tonight' I start to feel anxious about my wallet. Jonty's always after more public spending, and that means he's after my money.

Well he was at it again on tonight's programme.
*
The topic was the 'unfairness' of the disparity in wealth between the baby boomer generation and the younger generation and Bloom was back on some of his favourite themes. As ever he had a leftie professor to back him up, this time John Hills of the L.S.E. (more about whom can be found here http://www2.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/Experts/j.hills@lse.ac.uk).
*
"Much of that unfairness will be sorted out over time", said Jonty. "Many young people will inherit a lot of money when their parents die; however that won't be evenly or fairly spread around, says Professor Hills" (as indeed he does).
*
Bloom goes on. "Such inequalities between the generations and in coming years between those who inherit and those who don't can, of course, be sorted out by government action". Bloom is always after more government action (see http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-wallet-trembles.html and http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/12/pre-budget-bias.html).
*
What does he mean? Well, we know Jonty likes Inheritance Tax and is not ashamed to let us know about it (even though most of us don't agree, according to polls that the BBC doesn't like) - see http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-bloomin-bias.html - so he continues, "by, for instance, making baby boomers pay more inheritance tax or capital gains tax on their homes, work longer or have smaller pensions".
*
"You might think it would be a brave government that suggested such things," he says, "but John Pawsey and Janet Galley (who he meets in a West End hotel) would be willing to help others". Indeed (they say) they would, Janet adding "I don't have a problem with using taxation to support the population generally." How lucky for Jonty to have met a couple who (say they) support his love of taxes (more about which please see http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/10/bloomin-bias.html). Of course, people always say this sort of thing & we all know hardly any of them really mean it!! People tend to be in favour of other people paying taxes. (How cynical of me!)

After this piece of naked left-wing propaganda came a political discussion on the same subjected, hosted by Ritula Shah. It featured David Willetts for the Tories, Kitty Ussher for Labour and Stephen Williams for the Lib Dems. Mr Willetts was asked 5 questions and interrupted twice, Kitty was asked 3 questions and interrupted once, Mr Williams was asked 3 questions and not interrupted at all.
*

WORK IN PROGRESS

*
I once tried out an over-elaborate system to try and track the Today paper review's perceived tendency to name-check certain (left-wing) newspapers in preference to other (right-wing) papers. For a few weeks now I've been trying again, this time with a far simpler system - just recording which newpapers are mentioned in every paper review, and by whom. I will give it a few more weeks before counting them all up, but the trends are becoming clear. Certain days see more mentions of The Guardian, The Independent and even The Mirror than others. Those days tend to feature a certain James Naughtie. (Things seem worst when he teams up with Justin Webb). The statistical significance of this is getting sharper by the week. The other Today presenters are less clear-cut (so far) and John Humphrys is proving highly, surprisingly and commendably unpredictable, some days going big on The Guardian, other days not. Another month or two will provide enough evidence for a clearer overview to be provided.
*

HOT AIR BLOWS IN FROM THE LEFT

*
Today's World at One saw the return of Shaun Ley (after a long absence). With him came a deluge of left-liberal opinion.
*
Eurostar's difficulties with the snow were discussed with Tunde Olatunji of the government's subsidy-supporting rail watchdog Passenger Focus and critical Labour MP Louise Ellman (I.C. of 0.3).
*
MI5's robust defence of itself over allegations of collusion in torture was discussed with the government's terrorism tsar and Lib Dem lord Alex Carlile, who said exactly what you'd expect him to say (I.C. of 0).
*
The row over elderly care (see previous post) was discussed with Dame Joan Bakewell, who Shaun said "was appointed by ministers to champion the interests of older people, but stresses she's independent of government". (The whole programme was full of people of whom that could also have been said!). Joan is, of course, about as left-liberal as left-liberals get. She attacked the Tory R.I.P. poster as "grotesque" and "an insult to everybody".
*
The final slab of the programme turned to the issue of the 'recovery' and announced its intention of looking at the topic of growth areas for jobs over the coming months. On the day that the 0.5% growth figure came out I noted that both Michael Buchanon on the World at One and Jonty Bloom on The World Tonight concentrated on renewable energy companies, especially wind turbines, in their respective reports on the 'recovery'. The BBC's pushing of wind turbines is relentless. Today, when the topic re-surfaced (after going quiet for a while), guess what? Sometime-Tory-basher Ray Furlong trotted northwards to look at how wind-turbine companies could lead us out of recovery. We heard from various directors of various wind-turbine companies and just one other person..."Chris Goodall, writer, environmentalist and Green Party candidate for parliament."
*

LANSLEYS TO THE SLAUGHTER

*
This morning's Today programme was in full campaigning mode. The presenters were the Gruesome Twosome, James Naughtie and Justin Webb, and, as so often when this left-wing pair are left in charge of the programme, the bias was palpable.
*
Justin Webb interviewed three politicians.
*
The first was Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb. He was interrupted three times, resulting in an I.C. of 0.9, though only one of these interruptions contained a note of challenge (asking whether the Lib Dems had been naive), the others being fact-finding questions (aimed at digging up dirt on the Tories). Mr Lamb would doubtless have come away pleased from this interview.
*
Justin's second politician was Labour's Kim Howells. The tone here was, as it so often is, thoughtful and civilised in tone. The Today website truncates the interview, which actually lasted some six minutes. Webb only interrupted Mr Howells once (and then so gently that you might not have noticed), so the I.C. was a puny 0.2.
*
Lastly came the Conservative, shadow health spokesman Andrew Lansley. He was on the receiving end of a very different kind of interview from either of the others. Gone were the fact-finding questions and the thoughtful, gentle discussion. In their place came aggressive questioning and bags of interruptions - 14 in all. These interruptions were designed to disrupt Mr Lansley's case and began early and continued throughout. Within a couple of minutes, Mr Lansley complained that Webb hadn't given him the chance to explain - and he was dead right about that. That didn't stop the barracking. The interruption coefficient was 2.0 (ten times that of Kim Howells).
*
Here are the three interviews for comparison:
Lamb: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8511000/8511983.stm
Howells: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8512000/8512056.stm
Lansley: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8512000/8512097.stm
*
This story has been spotted by Umbongo on the Biased BBC website, & he notes something you also won't find on the Today website: Naughtie's post-Lansley comment that the interview was 'interesting' (http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/02/open-thread_12.html#comments). That ultra-biased Labour luvvie Naughtie would find such a disgraceful interview 'interesting' tells you all you need to know about it.
*
The full, unredacted version of the programme can be heard here for the next seven days:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj9z

DIMBLEDATA FROM NORTHERN IRELAND

*
This week's Question Time came from Northern Ireland - though that didn't make the audience any less weird or skewed!
*
Here is the Dimbledata for the programme:
*
*
11th February 2010
*
*
Who got most time to speak?
*
1. Shaun Woodward (Labour) - 11 minutes 20 seconds
2. Sammy Wilson (DUP) - 9 minutes 1 second
3. David Trimble (Conservative and Unionist) - 7 minutes 2 seconds
4. Gerry Kelly (Sinn Fein) - 6 minutes 55 seconds
5. Jim Allister (TUV) - 6 minutes 38 seconds
6. Margaret Ritchie (SDLP) - 5 minutes 26 seconds
*
*
Who received the most interruptions from David Dimbleby?
*
1. Jim Allister (TUV) - 9
2. Sammy Wilson (DUP) - 9
3. Shaun Woodward (Labour) - 7
4. Margaret Ritchie (SDLP) - 5
5. David Trimble (Conservatie and Unionist) - 5
6. Gerry Kelly (Sinn Fein) - 3
*
**
Who scored the highest interruption coefficient?
*
1. Jim Allister (TUV) - 1.4
2. Sammy Wilson (DUP) - 1
3. Margaret Ritchie (SDLP) - 1
4. David Trimble (Conservative and Unionist) - 0.7
5. Shaun Woodward (Labour) - 0.6
6. Gerry Kelly (Sinn Fein) - 0.5
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Who was asked the most supplementary questions by David Dimbleby?
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1. Sammy Wilson (DUP) - 8
2. Shaun Woodward (Labour) - 8
3. Margaret Ritchie (SDLP) - 6
4. David Trimble (Conservative and Unionist) - 6
5. Jim Allister (TUV) - 2
6. Gerry Kelly (Sinn Fein) - 2
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A tough night out for Mr Allister, a comfortable night out for Mr Woodward and an easy ride for Mr Kelly of the IRA.
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'RIGHT'...

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I've been bogged down with work this week, so I must apologize for the stingy number of posts I've been able to write over the last few days. Things will return to normal next week (as I grab back some flexitime)! I've recorded all the interruption coefficients though and, of course, heard lots of biased BBC reporting. I just haven't had the time to sound off about it all. I will catch up with some of the worst examples this weekend (there are many to choose from).
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In lieu of my own posts, here is another fine post from Not a sheep's blog. Here he nails Evan Davis in the act of 'moving the story on' when in becomes too embarrassing for Gordon Brown:
http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/02/bbc-just-see-almost-everything-from.html

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Have a listen to the interview and you'll hear that Not a sheep is spot on:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8509000/8509875.stm

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I have a soft spot for Lord Krebs. I used to love his textbook on behavioural ecology and he talks good sense on such things as 'organic' food.

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CRICK GOES POP!

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There's a reason why Not a sheep is my favourite blogger. Following on from my previous post (prompted by a mean-spirited piece on the plight of Tory PPC Joanne Cash, gratuitously pictured left), he absolutely nails Michael Crick's latest blog-attack on the Tories in two brilliant posts today. Please have a read of them:
http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/02/michael-crick-demonstrating-his.html
http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/02/michael-crick-demonstrating-his_11.html
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Not a sheep proves at best incompetence on Crick's part (which is not unlikely), at worst naked bias (which is very likely). He ends with a call I wholly support:

So I hereby call for Michael Crick to either resign from his position as Newsnight's political editor or be sacked by the BBC whether for incompetence or bias.

CRICK GOES CUTIE HUNTING

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It's one of the recurrent complaints of this blog that Newsnight's Labour-supporting political editor Michael Crick uses his influential position to further his endless vendetta against the Tories, picking up on any story that might embarrass them and running with it furiously. (If you click on the label CRICK and follow things from the beginning - if you have a spare hour or two! - you'll see sackloads of evidence to back this up).The most familiar sight we see of him on Newsnight is him chasing Tories around various constituencies and sticking oversized microphones right up their noses. And he's allowed to get away with it!! If there are splits, or rows, or whiffs of scandal, or policy u-turns, anything really, you can pretty much guarantee that David Grossman will be elbowed out of the way and Crick himself will present the report on the story. He does not do any of this sort of thing with the Labour Party. That's bias.

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Last night he was in Westminster North, reporting on the 'bust-up' over 'Cameron cutie' Joanne Cash (naturally pictured above!) thrusting a microphone towards a Tory party official, pointing up 'ironies' for David Cameron, generally enjoying himself.

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When there so much to say about this tatty Labour government, why does a BBC political editor spend so much of his time and energy gunning for the main opposition? He could have investigated the government's role in the collusion in abuse of terror suspects, Brown's 'reign of terror' at Downing Street according to Labour's Lance Price, Labour's row with its own councillors over social care for the elderly,

or the secret document released because of an FOI request from Migration Watch that suggests that Labour was far from passive in allowing the megawave of immigration to hit our shores after 1997. So much to choose from. He chose instead to chase Tories.

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He's been at it for years of course, even when the Conservatives were no real threat to his beloved Labour Party. Everyone, including the Conservatives, seems to accept this without complaint, as if 'Michael will be Michael'. Why?

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BENLEY WILLSHAW ON 'THE DAILY POLITICS'

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The main guests throughout today's The Daily Politics - the big Prime Minister's Questions edition - were Ben Bradshaw and Shirley Williams. The closeness of their views on most matters, with Shirl the Girl (as Andrew likes to call her) saying how right she thinks the Labour Government is on issue after issue, offered the viewers a very restricted range of opinion. Both lost no opportunity to bash the Tories either. David Willetts appeared briefly for the Conservatives (getting just under 3 minutes to speak). Still, I'm sure this imbalance will be redressed next Wednesday when, say, Eric Pickles and Nigel Farage share the limelight on the programme, with Labour's Ed Balls appearing briefly for Labour (and getting just under 3 minutes to speak). Somehow though I doubt that's going to happen. No BBC programme would allow that, not even The Daily Politics.
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NEATHER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET? OH YES THEY WILL!

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According to an article on the BBC News website by David Goodhart of the centre-left Prospect magazine (based on his Analysis broadcast, 8/2) the extraordinary levels of immigration in the earlier years of this Labour government came about mostly by accident:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8494275.stm
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You will doubtless recall the comments of former Labour advisor Andrew Neather, who let the cat out of the bag last year when he said that mass immigration was engineered by Labour to rub the Conservatives' nose in diversity - i.e. that it was no accident. They were dismissed by Labour and downplayed by the BBC (after being ignored for days). Now, thanks to Migration Watch's efforts and a Freedom of Information Request, a draft cabinet paper has been released that confirms what Mr Neather said:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249797/Labour-threw-open-doors-mass-migration-secret-plot-make-multicultural-UK.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1249823/SIR-ANDREW-GREEN-Paying-price-decade-deception-Migrationwatch.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/7198329/Labours-secret-plan-to-lure-migrants.html
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There's nothing yet on the BBC News website about this scandal. Will there by later today?
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Not a sheep has more detail on this exasperating story:
http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2010/02/correct-that-government-has-both.html
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************UPDATE: THERE'S NO UPDATE***
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Needless to say, having come home from work and re-checked the BBC News website, this story is still missing-in-action. It will stay missing-in-action unless it grows too big for even the BBC to ignore. The BBC will be the last to report it.
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Here are some more rewarding articles on this story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-1250096/Using-immigration-turn-Britain-nation-Labour-voters-shameful-I-hardly-believe-it.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/normantebbit/100025676/immigration-and-labour-voters-the-most-cynical-act-of-vote-rigging-in-our-history/