see this editorial from today’s Sun:
Anti Auntie
THE BBC’s coverage of Tory plans for £14bn cuts in red tape and bureaucracy was a mockery of impartial journalism.
Instead of examining John Redwood’s arguments, it made a joke of them by unearthing his garbled version of the Welsh anthem from a decade ago.
The caustic bulletins could have been scripted by Labour ministers.
Mr Redwood may be a colourful character. But few can match his understanding of the way Labour and the EU have tied our economy in knots with pointless regulation.
Certainly not the BBC — a bastion of smug, self-satisfied bureaucracy which rightly stands accused by its own watchdogs of being “institutionally biased”.
Following on from Sunday’s post about the BBC using that Redwood singing footage, again, since what’s good for the goose is sauce for the gander, have a listen to this – James Naughtie interviewing Neil (now Lord) Kinnock, Leader of the Opposition, would-be (and almost was) Prime Minister, back in 1989:
Click the play button to listen online:
codebase=”http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0″
width=”400″ height=”18″ > quality=”high” bgcolor=”#E6E6E6″ name=”xspf_player” allowscriptaccess=”allow”
type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”
data=”http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/228675_6sdax/xspf_player_slim.swf?playlist_url=http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/228676_daqpm/Biased_BBC_Kinnock_Kebabbed.xspf”
pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer”
align=”center” height=”18″ width=”400″>N.B. You might need to click play twice the first time.
To save yourself a copy:
Right-click on this link, Kinnock Kebabbed MP3, and select ‘Save As…‘, save it to your computer, and then play it using your own choice of media player.
This incident was covered up by the BBC for more than a decade until it was finally admitted to in 2000 in a Radio 4 series called, appropriately, Kebabbed:
But James Naughtie pressed Kinnock on the likely effectiveness of Labour’s alternatives.
What listeners heard was an abrupt pause in the conversation, followed by an explanation from Naughtie that the interview had been suspended when Kinnock objected to the line of questioning, before being resumed.
The tape recorders, however, whirred on to capture the unexpurgated exchange, never previously broadcast.
In it, Kinnock raged at Naughtie, telling him that he would not take part in “a WEA lecture” on Labour’s economic strategy any more than he was inclined to be “bloody kebabbed” by Naughtie.
We are grateful to Mr Kinnock for giving us the title for our series, along with permission to transmit the untransmitted material. Even across the passage of more than a decade, it makes your ears go pink.
Note the sickening thanks to Kinnock for permission to broadcast the full interview – as if the BBC would have waited a decade and asked for permission if a Conservative had given them such an explosive interview – it would have been on air the same day, leading every news bulletin!
Thank you to Biased BBC reader Dave T for link to The Sun. Thank you also to Hotlink Files for their excellent online file storage service.
There was a small glitch when trying to play the file online in Internet Explorer. I’ve fixed it now, though recommend that you consider switching to the Firefox browser anyway.
What is funny (or suspicious) is Naughtie then trying to help Kinnock explain his position after he lost his temper …. Kinnock sounds extremely contrite as he realised he’d made a serious mess up. Good job the Beeb didn’t run with it, eh!
It’s the standard BBC attack plan, that Paxman interview with Michael Howard, Cameron in coat and tails, Hague in a baseball hat, and so on.
James Naughtie almost tells the Welsh Windbag what to say.
It’s been raised elsewhere I know, but yesterday’s Newsnight article about the John Redwood red-tape reduction proposals is worth highlighting. In a sneeringly, derogatory pre-recorded article prior to the Redwood-Wark interview, Robin Brandt described Conservative voters as “the blue rinse brigade”.
Of course Brandt has form as a Conservative basher, having come up with this classic of unbiased journalism on Today earlier this year:
“Most of them are over sixty. They’re white, they’re middle class. I was thinking earlier perhaps half of them can’t hear without the aid of something mechanical.”
Wow. I can maybe understand them not broadcasting Kinnock exploding (although I agree they wouldnt do the same for Michael Howard, or Cameron or even Blair), but not Naughtie basically scripting the rest of the interview for Kinnock so that when they go back on air he knows exactly what to expect and exactly what to say.
This bit from the very end pretty much sums up why Naughtie did it:
Kinnock: They’re making such a balls of [the economy].
Naughtie: Yeah, yeah. I can understand that.
Bias isn’t a strong enough word. Collusion/conspiracy might be.
MDC has the right of it. Can you keep this file somewhere prominent on the front page?
Astonishing! Are sure it’s real? It’s not an early Rory Bremner/Spitting Image recording?
If the Conservative leader had exploded into an expletive-filled hysterical rant like that it would have been all over the news within 10 minutes. Nothing shows the pro-Labour bias of the BBC, and Naughtie in particular, than that shabby cover-up.
Thank God Kinnock never became PM. Not only was he an idiot, but if he completely loses his rag after the mildest of questions from someone who supports his party, what would he have done in a national crisis?
Rob,
you might thank god we never got Kinnock, but if we had we would probably never have got Blair, or Brown……..
4 years of Kinnock would probably have buried the Labour Party for good, but only for the same reasons no one voted for him at the time.
What you might also consider, was why Kinnock felt he could explode like that in the first place? Yes, it could have been that he was too stupid to realise how bad that sounded, but surely, even the Welsh windbag, might have seen that that type of outburst could have buried him if it had been made public? Did he realise that it wouldn’t have been made public in the first place, because he knew he was amongst friends? Unless he was so drunk that he just let himself go! If he didn’t realise that the Naughtie and colleagues would be so obliging, he would have been shitting himself for months, but I suspect they reassured him afterwards, that it wouldn’t see the light of day and he knew they would say that!
Not only do we have the cover-up but Kinnock must have known that the BBC was so tight with Labour, that he could get away with it.
As a Tory voter may I point out I’ve got silver hair and have never had a blue rinse in my life!
I think he just got really angry, Geezer. People don’t think straight when they’re angry. If he was perfectly calm but did it anyway because he thought the BBC would do what it did… well, it’s possible, but I doubt anyone would take such a massive gamble for really no reason at all.
Isn’t there something awfully sixth form about the BBC? It never needs to worry about cash, but is very opinionated.
“you might thank god we never got Kinnock, ….”
Oh yes we did!! Despite being rejected three times by the electorate, he went on to become one of the most powerful men in the EU.
How many dozens of times have I seen that Michael Howard interview with Paxman?
And how many times I have ever heard this Kinnock interview before?
Nope – wrong about that – Kinnock thing was big at the time – Tabloids like Daily Mail led with it – all v embarressing for Mr Kinnock – especially since they alluded to content rather than actually saying what it was – actually making it seem much worse than it was. This is the first time I have read any of your blog – are you a bit anti BBC – I’m really not sure why – its a far from perfect organisation, but the alternatives don’t even bare thinking about.
I have to agree with Lord Wednesday here, you’re wrong on this one. The World At One incident was reported all over the place when it happened – I can remember watching a TV news report on it at the time, which means it was either BBC News or, possibly, Channel 4.
The reason why it doesn’t get wheeled out every time someone mentions Kinnock and wants a cheap laugh is because it’s radio so not very visual but more importantly, there are plenty of visual examples of Kinnock ballsing it up. Indeed, I’d bet that either of the comparable Kinnock going “well alright… well alright” or falling over on the beach has been shown more times than the Redwood singing clip.
are you a bit anti BBC
Lord Wednesday | 17.08.07 – 7:24 am
Is the earth spherical?
“its a far from perfect organisation, but the alternatives don’t even bare thinking about.”
Yeah, those crazy right wingers with their “free press”. What a bunch of fruitcakes. Something like that could never work for news… well except all the newspapers that are already run like that of course… and those commercial radio stations… oh yeah and Sky… and all the blogs…
Its not just the Tories that get it from the BBC.
The interview, about Blair’s visit to Libia with Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond by Kirsty Wark on Newsnight was a disgrace. She should never have been allowed to interview him in the first place, as it was well known that she is a family friend of the previous Labour First Minister, and he had in fact holidayed with her at her villa in France.
A very grudging apology(not shown on TV, where it happened) was subsequently made by the BBC to Salmond’s office.
“its a far from perfect organisation, but the alternatives don’t even bare thinking about.”
Yes, imagine a terrible world where I’m not forced to fund My Family, Strictly Come Dancing, Eastenders, Jonathan Ross and a left-wing news service.
Wait… that’s supposed to be bad?
>every time someone mentions Kinnock and wants a cheap laugh is because it’s radio so not very visual but more importantly, there are plenty of visual examples of Kinnock ballsing it up
So you claim that these are shown by BBC news? Really?
This ‘site’ is terribly addictive! I might just add that Naughtie used an Anglo-Saxon swear word which could demonstrate that he had soon realised that the interview was unlikely to be repeated. I do however, remember it being reported at the time.
Unfortunately I cannot recall whether the BBC was involved.
P.S. Thank you for the e-mail Andrew, I hope to contribute in future. It would be as Rex, not ‘Unbelievable’, which was in fact my miffed reaction to the Wickipedia story.
And it should never be forgotten that one can in no way expect the reporting in the The Sun newspaper to be impartial or fair with regard to news stories concerning the BBC, since its owner is News Corporation, a major stockholder in B$kyB, and therefore has significant commercial interest in discrediting of and if possible, the destruction of the BBC.