It’s been a long day – having spent it in a sunny Dublin. Bumped into Andrew Neil who was over with his team covering the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty aka EU Constitution. On the way home, I tuned in to the PM programme on the BBC to catch their very special coverage of the Irish referendum. (Around 5.25pm) It’s pretty clear to just about everybody that the result is going to be close, with some polls suggesting a NO victory. The Irish political establishment, big business and trade unions all support a YES vote, and it was nice to see the BBC doing their best to help them. The vox pop that PM conducted in Dublin was unable to find anyone intending to vote No. What rotten luck. The BBC has no influence over how Irish voters will behave but it is so obvious that the BBC is overwhelmingly biased in favour of the implementation of this EU Constitution and it will be gobsmacked if Ireland says NO. It should also act as a warning to us all that should our UK political masters ever find the guts to grant us a vote on the EU constitution – the BBC will be to the fore to secure a Yes vote. It appears NO is not just in their vocabulary when Brussels beckons.
NEVER SAY NO.
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I heard a bit of that report on the World Service a little while ago. Apparently the voters are angry that “both sides” are reluctant to tell them what’s in the Treaty, and that’s why so many are still undecided. Are you finding that both sides are keeping the voters in the dark?
David: They played that clip on 5 lite as well. The reporter said that they didn’t come across many people who were going to vote no.
Of course not BBC. You probably just ignored them.
Good luck to the Irish unlike the spineless gits that run our Country they are getting a vote.
Back in the Daily Politics studio in London they wheeled out Dennis McShane, as usual, to give the pro-EU view. Eventually they allowed a Tory in to briefly give the opposing view.
Dennis McShane was sniggering during the interview.
He has no need to answer difficult questions posed on behalf of the little people.
He and the fruit of his loins seem to have a guarantee of a secure future.
He tried the ridiculous assertion that a UKIP agenda prevailed in Ireland.
When lamp posts are allocated may that of Dennis be near my house, for my convenience.
The BBC gives the Democrat party in America wall to wall coverage for 6 months, thats wall to wall coverage for something that’s not even the presidential election, just internal politics for the Democrat party. It’s not relevant to British people. Now compare this to the tiny amount of coverage they have given to the Irish EU referendum. The results of which will be very relevant to British people and have a direct impact on us.
If they gave it the same amount of coverage, they wouldn’t be able to say that the Lisbon Treaty is just about ‘tying up a few loose ends’ and not worth talking about.
Benny: You’d think the BBC might be more interested in why the EU accounts have not been signed off for years. Tidy up that little affair first me thinks.
The BBC is very much in favour of the European Project. Therefore those people working for it will do very little to damage the progression of ever closer union in Europe.
Benny makes a good point about the wall to wall coverage of the Democrat party in the past six months – far more coverage than the BBC gave to the Lisbon Treaty and campaign for a referendum in this country which is of far, far greater importance.
Chris: It will be interesting to see how many of Obama’s speeches are covered live and how many of McCain’s are on the BBC.
Having said that most of the US media is in love with Obama as well, as Hillary Clinton found out.
David,
Over the last month or so you have mentioned on many occasions that the BBC keeps mixing up stories relating to the Republic of Ireland and mentioning them on it’s Northern Ireland website.
Now it seems that you have also started to do the same, I doubt for one second that Irish voters will be swayed by a vox pop or any other gambit used by either the Yes or the No groups.
The Lisbon Treaty is IMHO a Constitution in all but name, however, I must point out that the BBC will not be the catalyst that either gets this referendum approved/rejected, it will instead be the amount of Irish voters who either give a YES or NO at the ballot box.
And that David is something that cannot be disputed unlike your article which shows bias where no bias exists.
Before I am attacked by some of the more rabid bloggers on this site, I am Irish, Conservative, Pro-Israel, Pro-USA and also Pro-Europe as I have lived for various amounts of time in different EU states, which at least allows me to make an educated choice on this referendum.
I remember in the run up to the Northern Ireland GFA vote BBC newsroom would contact SDLP political party in advance of a crew going out onto the streets so that party activists would be in place to act as “random” voters.
Accuracy, balance, journalistic integrity and even democracy are not issues that bother the BBC when there is propaganda to be dispensed.
Impartial
I’m glad to see you’re pro-Europe. So am I, as are probably most posters here, as we’d hate to see it abolished.
But many of us are anti-EU, and can tell which way the BBC leans on that one.
Impartial,
I`ve been driving an HGV round the EU, out of it into non EU countries and back into it for years and I`m anti EU because it`s not good for Britain.
Remember;
A member state can discriminate against its own citizens.
which is what the civil service here does.
Original Robin,
A well made point, I agree with you that certain aspects of the EU are not good for the UK, which is why I support the UK holding a referendum on this ‘treaty’ , I believe that the Treaty of Maastricht will be seen as the point where many UK citizens decided that giving up parts of each member states sovereignty was a step to far.
Even so, I feel that we are better in than out of Europe, and that the UK provides a vital service as a natural balance between the French and German plans to make themselves the senior states in the EU.
Did anyone hear the Newsnight reporter in Dublin quoting James Joyce from Ulysses “yes I said yes I will Yes”?
“Yessssssss! It’s No.”
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
Very good news. But I’m puzzled by the suggestion I’ve heard that since the government doesn’t like the result it can call another referendum to try to get the result it does like.