Monthly Archives: October 2007

– even Matt Frei it seems. Well, up to a point. Maybe someday we might write Farewell sneerboy? “Even the most ardent Beeb-basher has to admit that Matt has evolved”, but don’t hold your breath!

. Early in July the BBC World Service began Monitoring the surge of US troops in Iraq, with BBC Views Online telling us:

The build-up of US troops in Iraq is now complete. The level of violence has not decreased, with attacks shifting away from places where US forces are concentrated…

Fast forward three months, with the BBC still Monitoring the surge:

The number of people killed in Iraq fell to 269 during the monitoring period of 5 to 12 September. This was down from 283 a week ago and 400 the week before that. It is the lowest figure reported since the surge began.

The numbers coincided with a report by the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who told Congress that violence had declined significantly since the operation started.

Good news you might think. But what’s this at the bottom of the page:

This is the final instalment of the weekly survey appearing on the BBC News website

…without so much as a by your leave or any further explanation. Now why would that be? This story is still worth covering isn’t it?

Hat tip: USS Neverdock.

discovered since the other fake Purnell photo hit the headlines. One thing not mentioned much in recent coverage is Purnell’s previous with an organisation with a growing reputation for fakery and deception – the BBC – where Purnell was head of corporate planning in the mid ’90s (well, that’s what his CV says). Now running with an even bigger gang of fakers and deceivers, Purnell was caught in action again at the BBC earlier this year. Apparently that was all a misunderstanding too.

Grauniad link via Iain Dale.

about an article, UK personal wealth at £6 trillion, featured on BBC Views Online over the weekend. The main point of complaint was the final section:

Other figures, published by HM Revenue and Customs, show how rising house prices have provided a tax bonanza for the government.

Stamp duty on residential property sales in the UK brought in £6.44bn for the chancellor in the last financial year, 2006-07.

That was more than double the level seen five years earlier in 2001-02, when this tax take stood at £2.69bn.

The basic rate of stamp duty is 1% on sales worth more than £125,000.

But higher rates were introduced in 1997, taxing sales above £250,000 at 3%, and those above £500,000 at 4%.

These rates have not changed since then, so with a quarter of all house sales now being valued at £250,000 or above, the government’s take from stamp duty is now booming.

Despite a hysterical campaign against inheritance tax in some quarters of the media, HMRC figures show it is not as onerous.

In 2006-07 it brought the government £3.5bn, up a relatively modest 50% during the previous five years.

In particular the use of the word hysterical (emphasised above). This is nothing but Beeboid opinion masquerading as news. Our two valiant complainers, David G. and Towcestarian, received similar responses:

Dear Mr. G,

Many thanks for your e-mail and for bringing this to my attention.

You are right, the word hysterical has no place in this news story, and
I have replaced it. I will also have a word with the author of the
piece.

Regards

AN Other Beeboid

Business Editor

BBC News Interactive

The word ‘hysterical’ was changed to ‘intense’. Even then, it’s still nothing but Beeboid opinion masquerading as news, even though the adjective is less obviously wrong.

There has been no intense (let alone hysterical) campaign against inheritance tax that I’ve noticed. That’s not to say that I notice everything, but there haven’t been series of front pages devoted to the subject or newspaper campaigns of the sort we see for a referendum on the EU Constitution, sorry, reform treaty. Certainly there have been a number of newspaper articles expressing legitimate public concern about the government’s stealthy extension of inheritance tax (by failing to increase the tax threshold in line with property values), but nothing terribly intense or hysterical as far as I can see.

To compound matters, our anonymous Beeboid reporter’s assertion that “HMRC figures show [inheritance tax] is not as onerous” is also dubious. It all depends on how you define onerous. If you take the Labour Party’s spin (as relayed by the BBC), that inheritance tax only affects 4% of estates, it does indeed appear to affect only a few people. But that misses the point entirely. The real extent of inheritance tax should be measured in terms of how many people it would affect if they died today. That figure is very much bigger than 4%. Many ordinary families with dependent children, living in relatively modest homes, would find their children hit by inheritance tax if the parents died suddenly.

Under these circumstances, and given that Stamp Duty (in effect a tax on moving home) is a known quantity (up to 4% of a property’s value now) and to an extent avoidable (by not moving), it seems to me at least that Stamp Duty, though certainly a burden, is arguably much less onerous than inheritance tax at 40% on everything you own over £300,000 in total at some unknown point in the future. In other words, I think a very reasonable case can be made for disagreeing with the government spin that this Beeboid has reported as factual news.

But that’s only half of the story,

Our unidentified Business Editor’s reply rather implies it was a mere slip and that he will “have a word with the author”. That is simply not good enough. Surely material published on BBC Views Online isn’t supposed to go ‘live’ online without being checked by someone else? Surely a word like ‘hysterical’ (outside of a quote) in a supposedly impartial factual news piece should raise an eyebrow or two?

And yet, looking at the ever wonderful Newssniffer’s record of this BBC story, we see that it originally went live around 1am on Saturday morning, whereas the change from ‘hysterical’ to (the not quite so obviously wrong) ‘intense’ took place at 8.30am on Monday, some fifty-seven hours later – long after most of the damage was done! (To add insult to injury, the ‘Business Editor’ stealth-edited, his change, leaving the original timestamp unchanged).

Almost everyone who ever views that article will have seen the ‘hysterical’ version. It was featured across BBC Views Online throughout the weekend, on the top page until around noon on Saturday, moving over time to Business and then to Your Money, where it resided on Monday evening, before sinking into the Views Online archive little to be seen again.

BBC Views Online’s own Most Popular Now feature reveals that this flawed story was the most read business story on Saturday (29SEP) and the second most read business story on Sunday (30SEP), dropping out of the top five by Monday (select the date and then the Business section to see for yourself).

Where was our unidentified Business Editor whilst this story was going great guns over the weekend? Did no one else at BBC read it and spot the howling error? It seems not, otherwise such an obviously wrong article would have been changed quicker than the fifty-seven hours it eventually took.

This might seem like a lot of effort over just one adjective, but I hope I’ve shown why there’s more wrong with the article than just the word hysterical. Even if it is just the one word that “has no place in this news story”, it’s a good illustration of quality control, oversight and accountability failures at BBC Views Online.

Winston Churchill famously observed:

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on*

…as demonstrated time and again by BBC Views Online, sometimes unwittingly and inadvertantly, often without the truth even getting out of bed before the lie’s been all around the world and is back in the BBC Viewsroom, untroubled by the truth.

I’ve mentioned my favourite example of BBC Views Online’s stealth-editing, shoddy quality control and lack of accountability before – it was the article that, when most people read it, wrongly attributed a vile Princess Margaret quote to Margaret Thatcher – before the mistake was stealth edited away several days later (long after the damage was done to Margaret Thatcher’s reputation). When I mentioned this a year ago, a Beeboid, John Brunsdon, apparently confessed to the crime, saying:

Marvellous! I just stumbled across this blog entry on your ever-amusing front page, and was delighted to see the link to your favourite piece of BBC “stealth editing”.

I felt I had to reply as, reader, I am that BBC journalist! I wrote that piece, and made the change, and the time has come to ‘fess up.

I’m sorry but – a bit like Andrew George of Hilda Murrell infamy – my confession may pop a rather nice conspiracy theory bubble. Rather than a subliminal attempt to slur Maggie, it was just me being crap.
In my defence, I had been down the BBC bar at lunchtime – but I simply wrote the wrong name then noticed it, and put the story through without a new timestamp because I didn’t want the editor to see what a f***wit I had been. I reckoned without the eagle-eyed (and hare-brained) devotees of biased bbc!

This particular tin-foil-hat wearing piece of anti-beeb paranoia is made even more amusing by the fact that I, as any of my colleagues would gladly point out, have political views on most subjects somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan.

I’m afraid that while the beeb can be crap, it can twist itself in knots trying to be impartial and end up just being hamstrung, and it can be wrong – it really isn’t biased.

To quote Margaret Thatcher (and it really is her this time) “Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides. “

Oh and another: “Of course it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story. “

Which is of course to miss the point entirely. My complaint was not that the misattribution was a conspiracy – even I don’t think Beeboids are that stupid – but the fact that something so clearly wrong, so clearly damaging, so clearly worth checking, went live on BBC Views Online and stayed live while it was featured on BBC Views Online’s index pages, only to be changed much later, quietly and stealthily, long after the damage was done and most people had read the wrong version.

It really is time for BBC Views Online to adopt a publicly visible Wikipedia-style edit history for each story on BBC Views Online, free from tampering by staff, showing a full automatic record of each and every change, as and when it is submitted, complete with enforced editorial review and approval as necessary.

If BBC Views Online is interested in honesty, truth and transparency in the news, as a supposedly impartial tax funded news service should be, there is no reason for Views Online not to do this. The same should go for BBC Views Online’s many index pages. Currently there is no proper record of these (barring a third-party developed beta system limited to the home page) – yet the selection, ordering, presentation and duration of news headlines is at least as important as the content of the news with regard to impartiality and truth.

It is now more than three years since Biased BBC first called for BBC Views Online to provide a Wikipedia-style document edit history. Has anyone yet come up with good solid reasons why the BBC shouldn’t provide tellytaxpayers with this straightforward information automatically?

* I’d always thought it was boots rather than pants, but a spot of Googling strongly favours pants over boots. Can any of you provide a definitive source for this great quote?

Update: Perusing Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (a book!), I found:

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 1834-92:

If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, ‘a lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on’.

Collected in Gems from Spurgeon (1859)

A BBC spokeswoman said the incident happened when two hours of Whiley’s usual three-hour show had to be pre-recorded, because the presenter was attending the opening by the Queen of the new Broadcasting House.

However, listeners were not informed that part of the show was pre-recorded.

“The show is always live,” the spokeswoman said. “This was an exceptional occasion.”

The BBC said the fact that the competition was pre-recorded did not mean that Whiley knew the winner was faked, as listeners telephoned Radio 1 all the time and one of them could have been asked to participate in the pre-record.

How plausible is: “…listeners telephone Radio 1 all the time and one of them could have been asked to participate”? It doesn’t say much for Jo Whiley that she didn’t think to at least ask the obvious question: how can a pre-recorded show feature a listener live on air?

The BBC spokeswoman confirmed that “more than two” staff members had been disciplined, although would not say whether they had been sacked.

It is thought their punishment is stronger than that meted out to other staff involved in previous fakery scandals because they did not come forward during the BBC’s trawl for audience deceptions.

“It didn’t come to light in the last trawl because no one told us about it,” the spokeswoman said. “We take that seriously.”

In other words: We’re afraid there’s a lot more could come out, and we’ll clobber you if it does, got that?

Perhaps we need an amnesty for BBC whistleblowers so that we tellytaxpayers can be sure nothing is being withheld that would otherwise come out…

Thank you to Biased BBC reader Gareth for the link.

You’re on the ropes on inheritance tax. You need to take over the news agenda. What do you do? Get your bruiser of a spin doctor to phone up Nick Robinson and tell him some troops might, at some indeterminate time in the future, just possibly, be pulled out of Iraq. Sure enough, it becomes the lead item on the BBC News bulletins with copious use of the phrase “The BBC has learned”. Strictly speaking that is true. But a more accurate way of putting it would be “The BBC has been spun a line and has fallen for it”

And he’s right about that damn phrase “The BBC has learned…”. Why can’t we have the news without constant BBC horn-tooting throughout?

Update (7.20pm): I meant to add a great line from Biased BBC reader Ashley Pomeroy, commenting last night on BBC Views Online’s then top story, PM considers cut in Basra troops:

It’s bafflingly vague and limp – there’s no real story at all. It’s just a trailer for a possible announcement of something that might not happen. A cynic might think that the government has spun up some spurious nonsense in order to spoil the Conservative Party conference; and that the BBC, dazzled by having some insider information, has spun out the government’s spin. The more I think about Nick Robinson, the more I think of a little clockwork toy bashing its head into the sideboard, and rebounding, and bashing its head again, with a silly little grin over its face, wagging its tail etc.

Please use this thread for BBC-related comments and analysis. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not (and never has been) an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or use as a chat forum. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

When Dr Jerry Brotton, then an English lecturer at Royal Holloway department and now part of BBC favourite Lisa Jardine’s English department at Queen Mary’s London, came out two years ago with his “It’s The Turks Wot Won It” theory – that action by the Ottoman Empire at the request of Elizabeth’s spymaster Francis Walsingham had “fatally weakened” the Armada, the Guardian were quick to follow up, seemingly claiming in a rather garbled editorial that the incident strenghtened the case for Turkey’s accession to the EU.

I noted at the time that we were seeing a new liberal myth in embryo.

A couple of months later Trevor Phillips repeated Dr Brotton’s claims in a lecture delivered at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (he also name-checked the Islamic King Offa myth – I’m surprised the BBC haven’t picked that one up). The myth was starting to run.

Only one problem – the complete lack of evidence for the claim. For the theory to be tenable evidence for three things would be necessary :

1. That Walsingham had asked the ambassador to encourage Ottoman action against Spain
2. That Harborne, the ambassador, successfully induced the Turks to harass Spanish possessions or otherwise threaten Spain, over and above the existing semi-endemic warfare between them
3. That this had a decisive impact on the Armada

Unfortunately only the first of these – Walsingham’s letter to the ambassador at the Ottoman court – is supported by any evidence.

There is no evidence that the letter resulted in any movements by the Ottoman fleet or army – or by any Ottoman allies.

There is no evidence of any impact on the Armada.

I did mail Dr Brotton to ask if such evidence existed, but he didn’t reply. In the absence of any supporting evidence I can only conclude that Dr Brotton’s making it up as he goes along.

What’s this got to do with the BBC ? Because they’re repeating this myth.

British history should be rewritten to make it “more inclusive”, says Trevor Phillips, the head of the new human rights and equality commission.

He said Muslims were also part of the national story and “sometimes we have to go back into the tapestry and insert some threads that were lost”.

He quoted the example of the Spanish Armada, which was held up by the Turks at the request of Queen Elizabeth I.

No. The Armada was not ‘held up by the Turks’. The BBC are perpetuating an untruth. Don’t take my word for it :

Dr Simon Adams, co-author of “England, Spain and the Grand Armada” argues the Ottoman Turks were not threatening the Spanish in the Mediterranean.

“The Walsingham letter had been sent in 1584 or 1585 and although England might have hoped the Turks would cause the Spanish problems, nothing really happened,” he told Reuters.

“The Turks were not really doing anything (against Spain) in 1588. They were busy in the near east,” added the University of Strathclyde academic.

Adams said the Armada failed because the expedition was poorly planned and the English had an effective navy helped by favourable weather.

So Dr Adams thinks there’s no evidence for a theory the BBC are presenting as fact. And who’s he ? Well, he’s the guy who wrote the BBC History pages on the Armada.

Why is this so important ? Because the Armada story is a key component of our history – of the English national story, which still carries enormous cultural significance. As CLR James put it :

English people, for example, have a conception of themselves breathed from birth. Drake and mighty Nelson, Shakespeare, Waterloo, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the few who did so much for so many, the success of parliamentary democracy, those and such as those constitute a national tradition.

The motives of Dr Brotton and Trevor Phillips in seeking to present a politically correct travesty of a key moment in English history – an attack on the English national story – are outside the remit of this blog. But it is shameful that the BBC are repeating their claims as fact.

UPDATE – surprise surprise – Dr Brotton is a Newsnight reviewer.

doesn’t mention the devastating article in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday quoting Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, a former BBC Governor, speaking about the BBC. I am sure this is just a simple oversight, so, ever helpful, I’ve sent them an ‘e-mail’ (as they put it) using the form on the BBC Editors Blog page:

Hello, I see from your BBC In The News section today that you’ve omitted the Mail on Sunday article quoting Dame Pauline Neville-Jones. Why is that? Surely the comments of a former BBC Governor speaking about the BBC count as BBC In The News?

Thank you, Andrew.

P.S. Let me know if you need the URL, or you can get it from the Biased BBC blog.

See this Biased BBC post from Saturday night for more details.

. Yesterday morning they started off a new [Don’t] Have Your Say thread with the following question:

Will this year’s Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool enable the Tories to regain support from Labour?

With rumours of a possible snap election, a poll for the Observer suggests that just 13% of voters view party leader David Cameron as the party leader most able to handle a crisis – compared to 60% for Gordon Brown.

However, Mr Cameron has told the BBC’s Andrew Marr that he is ready for a snap election.

At the start of the conference, the party has pledged to scrap stamp duty for first-time buyers on homes worth under £250,000 and offer tax breaks for families with children worth up to £2,000 a year.

Other items on today’s agenda include urban regeneration and a speech by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Can David Cameron regain public support? What would you like to see on the agenda? Are you attending this week’s conference?

Read the main story [Tories to make stamp duty pledge]

– a fairy typical BBC Views Online approach (i.e. from the left), for instance:

Paragraph 1: the presumption that increased support can only come from Labour voters – ignoring other parties and the biggest party of all: those who stay at home;

Paragraph 2: Yes, lets select and quote a poll that we like from the Observer;

Paragraph 5: Again, the presumption that Cameron does not have public support, i.e. that he has lost it, rather than the reality – that polls go up and down.

But that’s by the by. The real shocker is that having asked that question yesterday (and published hundreds of replies), BBC Views Online has changed the question completely today! The question is now:

Are Tory tax cuts a vote winner?

Shadow chancellor George Osborne has pledged to cut inheritance tax and stamp duty in a speech to the Conservative conference.

The Tories want to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1m and scrap stamp duty for first-time buyers on homes worth under £250,000.

The Conservatives would pay for the cuts by introducing a £25,000 levy on “non domiciles” – business people who register abroad for tax purposes.

With rumours of a possible snap election, a Observer poll suggests that just 13% of voters view David Cameron as the leader most able to handle a crisis – compared to 60% for Gordon Brown.

Are the tax cuts a good idea? Can the proposals boost support for the Tories? Does Mr Cameron have the right qualities to be PM?

Read the main story [Tories would cut inheritance tax]

…with all of the answers to yesterday’s question displayed under the new question – a question just as loaded as before. I expect if we wait a bit longer it’ll become Why have racist Tories lurched to the right?

Just for the full slippery BBC Views Online ‘stealth edit’ effect, one of the answers to yesterday’s question has been removed – it was the top answer, the one most recommended by readers, and by a big margin. That answer was:

Added: Sunday, 30 September, 2007, 08:45 GMT 09:45 UK

the BBC interviewed david cameron this sunday morning, asked clearly “you are behind in the polls! how are you going to change this?”

david cameron replied “polls go up and down, you should ask a polster about this, im here to present a real change for the british voter.”

he then went on to list policies and answer questions on the individual points.

at the end of the interview, the program went to latest news headlines, the first headline was read out, “david cameron has said he is worried and faces a big challenge to reverse his party’s poor showing in the polls!”

come on BBC, disgraceful reporting!

how can you tell us you are not pro labour biased when you report like this?

[denzil69]

That top answer was online for most of yesterday, and does not appear to contravene any of the BBC’s House Rules. How come it has gone now? On what grounds was it removed?

Same old Tories? More like same old BBC…

Thank you to Biased BBC reader Notasheep for preserving the complete text of the real top answer. You can verify that it has definitely gone by looking through the answers in chronological order: from the timestamps it should be somewhere around page 96 at the time of writing.