Commenter Lee Moore may have got the BBC’s attention.. His comment here said:
The BBC’s 2006 party conference page is well up to the usual standard. The first thing I noticed was that the zone at the bottom has specially titled sections leading you to more stories about Labour, the Conservatives, the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, and Respect.
Curiously, there are no slots for more stories about UKIP or the BNP. At the last general election UKIP got more than twice as many votes as the Greens. The BNP got nearly three times as many votes as Respect. And as far as regional parties go, the DUP got about 40% more votes than Plaid Cymru, and as many seats as the SNP and Plaid Cymru put together.
The second thing I noticed was that while the stories on Labour and the Conservatives had a mix of positive and negative headlines, all the headlines about the Lib Dems were positive.
And last but not least, the links to Have Your Says are to Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens. No link to the UKIP Have Your Say.I suspect that this isn’t somebody deliberately saying to themselves, let’s not link to stuff about the right wing fringe and regional parties (well maybe as far as the BNP is concerned.) It’s more likely that the Beeboid who is in charge of the page just naturally thinks “UKIP, BNP = fringe”; “Greens, Respect = small, but serious, parties”.
His comment here says:
And whaddya know – within 24 hours they’ve added a slot for extra stories about UKIP ! Yo, Beeboid ! How about that link to the UKIP DHYS ?
Rod Liddle described himself in his own newspaper column as a “liberal”. Just because he’s pissed off about the Muslims demanding preferential treatment does not make him right wing. Andrew Neil is fairly central (though I suppose that makes him right-wing compared to the rest, though it is conspicuous that he usually sits somewhere between the very liberal Tory Portillo and the very Brownite Abbott on This Week), Robin Aitken and Jeff Randall are gone now from the BBC, relics of a glorious bygone age where their journalism was truly recognised as the gold standard. And Nick “Blair” Robinson. How you can describe him as right wing God only knows; you must be thinking of a different Nick Robinson to the smug one with he quasi-trendy glasses that I have to endure most days.
How the BBC needs more Andrew Neills and Robin Aitkens now to balance the likes of Paxman, Wark, Edwards, Plett, Simpson, Bowen, Frei and many more.
So we have one BBC presenter (Neill), who may or may not be right of centre. Is that the best you can do?
What, the former chairman of Young Conservatives doesn’t class as discernibly to the right any more?
But Paxman et al are all left wing on your say so?
Different Anon writes:
“”why don’t you furnish us with, let’s say just three, senior BBC news figures whose views are detectably to the Right?”
Nick Robinson, Andrew Neil, Jeff Randall, Robin Aitken, Rod Liddle.”
Pathetic. Andrew “token” Neil I’d already cited as the example that proves the rule, while Liddle and Randall don’t even work for the BBC.
Moreover, both Randall and Liddle have justified my general point since being forced out!
As for the other two, if you seriously think either Robinson or Aitken are to the Right, you must be George Galloway, in which case I hereby claim my five pounds in the Spot The Marxist Loonie competition.
Does the BBC socially engineer its recruitment policy?
Well apparently Paxman seemed to think so. Around 1999 he wrote an article for the Telegraph weekend magazine and in that article Paxman stated: That when some years earlier I applied for a position with the BBC, in my letter of application I mentioned that I was a socialist.
Now I submit that Paxman must have thought it would help his chances of success in his job application. No fool our Paxman he knew his way around, and would have his ear close to the ground.
Off the top of my head, I can think of two former BBC journos who are now Conservative shadow ministers (Michael Gove and Damian Green) but only one Labour minister (Ben Bradshaw).
Andrew Neil a couple of years after 97:
I voted Labour in the last election and will probably do so in the next.
DifferentAnon:
“What, the former chairman of Young Conservatives doesn’t class as discernibly to the right any more?
But Paxman et al are all left wing on your say so?”
No it doesn’t necessarily mean discernibly to the right. Right-wing would be an arch-capitalist who cared little for social development. Of the last 3 Conservative Prime Ministers only Margaret Thatcher would remotely fit into that category. John Major and Edward Heath were very centrist conservatives – Major, in particular, is not right-wing in any way. Cameron is also a very centrist, some would even say centre-left, conservative. Not all Tories are right wing. By the same token, Blair is not left-wing, and I would say Reid and Blunkett both have fairly right-wing tendencies on some issues. Old Labourites would be classed as left-wing.
Paxman is left wing on his own say-so, as the post above illustrates – socialists are undoubtedly left of centre.
John Reith:
“Off the top of my head, I can think of two former BBC journos who are now Conservative shadow ministers (Michael Gove and Damian Green) but only one Labour minister (Ben Bradshaw).”
Fair point, but we are not disputing that once the BBC was a relatively unbiased broadcaster, that is not what this site is for, it is its problems now. The BBC’s last political editor used to be a Labour adviser. And the editor is no mere “journo”.
John Reith writes:
“Off the top of my head, I can think of two former BBC journos who are now Conservative shadow ministers (Michael Gove and Damian Green) but only one Labour minister (Ben Bradshaw).”
See your Michael Gove and raise you Lance Price, Martin Sixsmith, Celia Barlow, Geoffrey Norris, Phillip Bassett…
Reith, old chap, are you really sure you want to play this gane of ‘spot the ex-BBC now ZaNuLabour stooge’?
Sorry – I suddenly became anonymous.
Perish the thought!
See your Martin Sixsmith and raise you a Pauline Neville Jones.
Different Anon:
“See your Martin Sixsmith and raise you a Pauline Neville Jones.”
You’re really staggering around, flailing wildly, like a blindman beset by wasps.
Dame Pauline’s only connection with the BBC was that she was a BBC governor between 1998 and 2004.
Not quite up to the two notable Labour supporters (Birt and Dyke) who ran the miserable corporation, is it?
Be off wit’ ya!
Six years as a governor and sufficient engagement to try to intervene in the Hutton affair seems reasonable enough.
While our Pauline may or may not be up with Birt and Dyke, what about Marmaduke Hussey, appointed by Maggie to help lean the corporation to the right?
Different Anon:
“what about Marmaduke Hussey, appointed by Maggie to help lean the corporation to the right?”
Alternatively, in a doomed attempt to counteract the BBC’s biases – as pronounced then as now.
Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for you to counter my (far from complete) list of currently active, ZaNuLabour stooges, drawn fresh from the ranks of your beloved corporation.
Looks like I’ll be in for a long wait, doesn’t t?
Well, on your rules, Martin Sixsmith is out. So is Lance Price.
How about Chris Grayling, Shadow transport secretary, Roger Gayle (Thanert North), Lord Taylor, Lord Ryder, Richard Drax, ex-BBC – now conservative candidate in Dorset,
I see some Respect woman is on Question Time representing 0.3% of the vote a lot less than the BNP scum.
“why don’t you furnish us with, let’s say just three, senior BBC news figures whose views are detectably to the Right?”
Nick Robinson, Andrew Neil, Jeff Randall, Robin Aitken, Rod Liddle.
DifferentAnon
From the horse’s mouth, Liddle’s column in the current Spectator
as an increasingly distracted leftie
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/25827/no-funds-for-the-english-music-festival.thtml
Nick Robinson is an Islington luvvie. ANdrew Neil is very much a social and cultural liberal.