There’s been much already written about the difference in treatment the BBC has shown to the Conservative and Labour conferences, and it is a real contrast. Even less arguable, though, is the extent of the coverage. Look at the website, where this is easiest to evaluate. By this stage in the Labour conference last week, and in fact earlier than that, there wasn’t a single mention of the opposition parties on the politics page. Every one of the 40+ stories related to Labour – and most related to the conference. Now, with the Conservative conference ready to close, well less than half focus on them. And it’s not just the bank bailouts: strip away the stories relating to that and there’s still room for concerns about plans for 42 detention; the Ghurka’s battle to stay in the UK; the millions of young in poverty; Afghan talks; observations on Lembit Opik’s facebook page; and Cherie Blair’s relief she didn’t have to pose with Carla Bruni.
The point is not that these shouldn’t be covered (well, apart from the one about Cherie Blair), but to illustrate just how over-the-top the BBC’s enthusiasm and interest in Labour politics is and the extent to which this is never shared in its attitude to the official opposition.
Yes; the BBC’s treatment of the Conservative Party Conference event and issues is so pro-Labour in its political orientation, with Tory leaders comments so truncated or interrupted by the BBC interviewers, that a better place for a fuller, fairer coverage is at ‘epolitix’ site:
“Conservative Conference 2008”
http://www.epolitix.com/Conference/conservative/conservative-archive
Newsnight is bloody atrocious – Emily Maitliss is worse than a 5th form drama student – she interupts if the Tories have the temerity to not agree with her leading questions – it’s embarrasing.
On BBC an idiot said the reason for the ‘Brown bounce’ was his wife introducing him at the conference. Can you imagine anyone changing their voting intention because a wife says a few words. The naivety and deviousness of the BBC is unbelievable.
Every time BBC speak of the Tories they imply how Labour would do better.
Someone with some IT skills and a few hours to spare should be able to put together a ‘compare and contrast’ video, shouldn’t they?
The BBC have given up any pretence of impartiality and are pulling out all the stops to save the scumbag Brown and the own licence fee. Wouldn’t it just be fantastic if , in his speech today, Cameron announced its abolition ? ( the licence fee, that is. Well, and maybe Brown too. )
He should, at least, announce that the Tories will have no co-operation with the BBC from now on, leaving the BBC exposed for what it is, the propaganda wing of the Labour party, paid for by all of us.
Can you imagine anyone changing their voting intention because a wife says a few words.
Lemar | 01.10.08 – 10:27 am | #
I fear you overestimate the intelligence of the great British public.
Hugh
out of interest, can you remember what the plethora of Lab conf stories were about – apart from Mc Bean’s pretty 3rd rate speech, the rest of the week is just a vague haze to me.
This is all very well, and the cases of clear bias are convincing – but is there anybody who will actually DO anything about it ? Other than posting yet more comments, it seems not. In 5 years time we will still be reading about the BBC’s bias. Can anybody prepare a multi-page set of clear bullet point examples and ,say, post it to all Conservative MPs ? And all newspapers ? And other TV stations ? ( they would love it – “Independent group campaigning for impartial News Reporting Slams BBC” ), And BBC Governors ? Why no demonstrations outside BBC Centre ? Why no leafletting ? Why no ‘Press Releases’ ? Any body got any thoughts ?
PaulS: no, to be honest I can’t. And that would be McBean’s “well received speech” in current BBC parlance. Well received, that is, except by the vast majority of the press, public and, well, pretty much anyone outside the conference hall.
Why no demonstrations outside BBC Centre ? Why no leafletting ? Why no ‘Press Releases’ ? Any body got any thoughts ?
The problem here is that the BBC’s bias favours the left and the leftists favour the bias. Those opposed to the BBC’s bias are therefore to the right of those who favour it and tend to have jobs, families, important things to deal with etc. and not just be on some arts course waiting for the mobilisation call for a demo.
Agree with all these comments, but in particular with the proposal that something more organised and effective is done. In the years that BBBC has been operating, the bias has got worse. If Brown wins a fourth term, which is obviously the intention of the extraordinary machinations to promote Brown and denigrate Cameron’s Conservatives this conference season, our impotence will only grow with the bias. In fact bias is far too weak a word – this is systematic subversion of our democracy by an all powerful broadcaster in league with the state. As has been pointed out many times the BBC is now operating as the broadcasting arm of the Brown government.
It amazes me that the British public seem so apathetic in the face of such subversion and Brownite entryism into what is supposed to be an impartial and independent institution.
Unfortunatley it is political suicide for Cameron to announce he will abolish the BBC – and of course it would only alert the BBC to step up their efforts to ensure he never comes to power.
Having said all this I fully recognise how hard it is to contest. It is a full time job in fact and without means and time who can really take this on? I think there should be mechanisms on this site however to start a more objective and systematic monitoring – there should still be space for letting off steam but after years of posting on this site I think it’s time to sharpen up our tactics.
On the Daily Politics, the BBC currently have Hesseltine commenting on Hague’s speech, particularly the bit about the EU. In fact, the interviewer lept straight to that. Now, I like Hesseltine, but I don’t share his views on Europe; an opinion shared by something like 95%+ of Conservative MPs and activists. So why do the BBC have him on? To make the Tories look split, and ignore the crux of Hague’s speech about Labour’s broken Referendum promise.
Forgive me breaking this post into sections but it won’t allow me to have too many carriage returns in my post and conveniently fails to tell me how many I may have! Bit hit and miss, hope it works and they appear in the right sequence…
These were the pro-labour and/or anti Tory links to articles & audio/video pieces on the BBC politics page on the last day of Labour’s conference:
1. Kelly to step down from cabinet
2. Labour conference at-a-glance
3. Kelly bids a fond farewell
4. Ruth Kelly on her resignation
5. Labour conference at-a-glance [again]
6. Harman hails Labour ‘fight back’
7. Kelly attacks Thames airport plan
8. Rumours won’t divert me – Brown
9. Milliband rejects speech ‘hearsay’
10. No time for a novice, says Brown
11. As it happened: Brown’s speech
12. Hardie is ‘greatest Labour hero’ (though MPs prefer Attlee)
13. Newsnight: Vote on the UK’s greatest and worst post-war prime ministers [with a picture of Brown]
14. Sarah ‘surprised me’, says Brown
15. Barnstorming Labour speeches of the past
16. Brown’s promise ‘to do better’
17. Politicians rate Labour leaders in ‘place that face’
18. Nick Robinson’s Blog : “I detected none of the buzz, none of the electricity, none of the raw anticipation necessary to inspire people to resign their ministerial jobs in order to depose a sitting prime minister”
19. From Politics in the past week Tuesday:No time for a novice, says Brown [again]
20. From Politics in the past week Monday:Darling pledges action on economy
21. From Politics in the past week Sunday:I will do better, Brown pledges [again]
22. From Politics in the past week Saturday:Potter author in £1m Labour gift
23. From Politics in the past week Friday:Blair gets serious on comedy show
24. Fond farewell. Departing Kelly avoids a Geoffrey Howe moment
25. Labour views, Has the conference boosted hopes of an election win?
26. In pictures, Images from Gordon Brown’s big Labour speech
27. Brown in free prescriptions vow
28. Middle Britain ‘key’ for Labour
29. I will do better, Brown pledges
30. Miliband urging Labour optimism
31. Darling pledges action [again]
32. Labour pressed over windfall tax
33. Energy security ‘vital’ – Hutton
34. Miliband moves to end leader talk
35. Economy needs a ‘new direction’ [despite headline story is all pro-labour]
36. Brown considers City bonus curb
37. Speaker falls ill at conference
38. Labour conference schedule
39. Brown reveals free childcare plan
40. Cruddas in 45% top rate tax call
41. Northern Ireland:Minister backs languages strategy
42. Who’s Who:Cabinet
43. In Depth:The Blair Years
Anti Labour:
1. Ministers knew of housing bubble [That’s it!]
Pro Tory:
1. In full:Shadow cabinet [not a story anyway!]
Pro Lib Dem:
1. Lib Dem front bench guide [not a story anyway!]
Possibly neutral or not applicable: (included for completeness)
1. Daily Politics conference
2. EDF agrees to buy British Energy [but littered with pro-labour snippets]
3. Floating voters evaluate leaders
4. Scotland:Child protection cases increase
5. Scotland:Brian Taylor’s political blog
6. Northern Ireland:Mark Devenport’s political blog
7. Wales:Bovine TB wipeout plan announced
8. Wales:Betsan Powys’s political blog
9. A-Z of Parliament
10. Inside Europe
11. Political Websites
12. Guide to Parliament
There you have it – last week there was not a single proper Tory story on their politics front page.
Compare that to pro-Tory stories on the same page right now, of which I can only spot 22 which are directly to do with the Conservatives or show the Conservatives positively, although most of them are still littered with Labour comments and put-downs, something that was missing from all the Labour stories of last week.
I dare any Beeboid to defend this. The BBC is running an all out war against the Tories and doing everything possible to bolster Labour. It’s sickening and I would love to see them shut down tomorrow and every single Labourite luvvie, champagne sipping socialist chucked out on the streets jobless by teatime.
David: Same here. Whenever the BBC want a sort Tory view on europe they wheel out Hesseltine or more often Ken Clarke.
Well done Llew, this is something I wanted to do but work got in the way. How can this analysis be presented to the BBC?
Radio 5 this morning was a joke. As I predicted the Victoria Derbyshire phone in was so one sided.
That jock pillock Duncan Ballantyne was on but refused to tell us how much money he gives to Nu Liebour.
Then we had the biggest joke of all of a caller who claimed he was a Tory party member, then preceeded to attack the Tories for everything. Even thicko Derbyshire saw through him “Are you sure you’re a Conservative?” she squealed.
“Oh yes” you could hear him snigger.
The whole phone in was a joke.
Needless to say my emails attacking the fat one eyed one were not read out whilst plenty of pro Broon ones were.
Why is it that the BBC seem to think people wanking on about black Wednesday and interest rates at 15% is OK, but that it’s wrong to blame Liebour for the dead not being buried and the winter of discontent?
In 1997 the economy was doing rather well. The fault of the Tories was to join the ERM. Oh and if Bliar had got his way we’d be in the euro right now and really stuffed.
NotaSheep: The BBC take no notice. I’ve got an inbox full of replies to my complaints about BBC bias.
The BBC simply spout the old line that their output is balanced.
However, what they won’t answer is HOW they know it’s balanced. How is political balance measured across the BBC?
It’s just an opinion they give in my view.
With Fox News for example, they will either interview a Repub and Dem at the same time or they will do one after the other. The BBC don’t do that, so it’s very hard to see if they are being balanced. We can see from their website output that they are not balanced, but TV and radio is far harder.
There used to be something called beebwatch a few years aback.
I and others have suggested here several times that there should be a thread specifically for posting BBC anti Tory output or links etc. If that thread is kept close to the top of the list, we can keep a rolling list of BBC bias rather than at the moment where it’s spread through all the threads.
We’d have to stop people posting general comments, but just keep to biased output.
Anyone got any other ideas on how to do this?
We can all do something very powerful right now. Rather than spend years pointlessly debating the subject. Just do not buy a tv license. It is that simple.
It’s even more odd given that this is the biggest and most prominent of the party conferences this year. At least it was nice to see Andrew Neil declare that the entire Daily Politics team will be voting Tory after being won over by their conference freebies.
Why is Roy Hattersley on talking with Neil and IDS? Was there a Tory on talking about Nu Liebour last week? I don’t remember seeing one.
Oh and more anti Sarah Palin rants on 5 live.
“She wants ot teach creationism” spouts one email. “I don’t want someone like that who thinks the worl dis 10,000 years old” spouts another.
Oh good. That means no Muslims in Parliament as well then?
Perhaps they gave the conservatives less attention because they thought that after the Labour conference, the Conservative conference would be like a repeat showing.
I don’t understand why anyone would bother standing up for the Conservatives to be honest – they are just as committed as Labour are to the race-replacement of white Britons.
On the BBC live-blog of David Cameron’s speech: “1439: By e-mail:”Even as a life-long Conservative voter I will not listen to Cameron’s “me too politics”. I am still recovering from his nauseating speech yesterday. He sounded more like a schoolboy demanding he be allowed to join in. We need a strong leader for the Conservatives, not someone who is dazzled by the headlights.” Bob, Bolton, UK”
Looks like this might be a coordinated campaign…
NotaSheep, there aren’t any life-long Conservative voters in Bolton, so we know that comment bollocks.
Robinson attacking the speech on the blog as well.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7644451.stm
Live blog, all three e-mails published are negative. Ridiculous.
43 seconds after he has finished it, Robinson is already calling it a “Daily Mail” speech. Trying to remind people of the bad things about Thatcher and saying this contrasts with what Cameron has said before; apparently forgetting how traditional Tory his speech was last year.
Again we have Hattersley talking about Camerons’ speech. Who from the tory party commented on the fat one eyed jocks speech last week on the Daily Politics?
I’m pretty sure they had IDS on the Daily Politics last week.
As regarding the anti-Tory emails, I do hope the BBC has been made aware of the Derek Draper offensive…
Tom, I wouldn’t be surprised if their staff were helping DD out in their lunch hours.
Oh boy. By way of balance…..cameron speech lead item on the bbc news, including the web. Pienaar on radio 5 very positive about the speech; a FT journalist interviewed less so. Comments on BBC website, the usual collection of nonsense, but broadly balanced. Robinson’s blog is fine for the Tories: he even remarked that Cameron sounded prime ministerial the other day. The reason the conservatives are getting less coverage than labour is presumably to do with: a) the acutness of the financial meltdown; b) labour’s was more newsworthy (Brown looked as if he would be punished if the speech didn’t cut the mustard); and c) until cameron’s speech, there was little new to report. It does not assist your hypothesis to see bias in everything the bbc does. In fact it weakens it.
PS David USA – that racism you said didn’t exist on this site: there’s a good example above, at 3:20
It’s clear that NuLab have a team of people who’ve been e-mailing BBC programmes all week, starting their messages with ‘ I’ve been a Tory for 40 years…..’ and then going on to be critical of Cameron.
Either the beeboids are too stupid to spot the scam and weed these messages out (in which case they shouldn’t be in their jobs) or they’re complicit in this fakery (in which case they should be fired from their jobs).
I’d like an enquiry into every show that’s broadcast these transparent fakes this week.
I never thought it would happen, but I have just managed to get a comment (moan) about the BBC’s bias shown on their own Ceefax letters page! Wonders will never cease!
http://www.ceefax.tv/
or an analogue TV. Page 145.
I expect Labour will be straight onto them demanding answers.
Whitewineliberal
a) the acutness of the financial meltdown: I dealt with that in the post
b) labour’s was more newsworthy (Brown looked as if he would be punished if the speech didn’t cut the mustard): And Cameron looks like he’ll be next PM
c) until cameron’s speech, there was little new to report:unlike the brilliant stories during the Labour conference – Miliband urging Labour optimism; Darling ‘pledges action’; Harman hails Labour ‘fight back’; Brown – my wife surprised me.
Cameron likely to be next pm is not news! Brown could be out on his arse depending on how speech goes is.
Cut and pasting the conference headlines currently on the BBC, i see your examples and raise you”
Cameron: I am a man with a plan
Hague repeats treaty vote pledge
BA criticises Tory Heathrow plan
Tories ‘to help have-a-go heroes’
Party to offer marriage advice
Redwood urges interest rate cut
Flabby copy filling nonsense for sure. But on a par with what accompanied the labour conference.
whitewineliberal: Raise me with what? Have you seen the dozens of stories listed comprehensively above? Or do you not bother reading the comments before dismissing them.
Hugh – There’s no compelling evidence of anything i can see. Your comment about “well received” being just a bbc confection? That’s just not true is it? There’s been a slight (and probably shortlived) bounce in the polls. And i remember most of the papers the following day had a similar view. he’s not out on his arse (yet), so all told, the bbc’s assessment seems right. Llew’s list? Heaven knows what that shows. And the BBC/Draper/Labour “as a tory” conspiracy? If you can nail that story, you’ll win yourself a pullitzer.
Llew | 01.10.08 – 1:05 pm |
Excellent job! I suggest that this be made into an official post on the main page, hopefully with links. This seems like good archive material.
The Beeboids always told us to look at the big picture, the overall coverage. Seems you’ve done that, and gave them rope to hang themselves.
David Vance, another bit for the book, perhaps? If that’s still even being planned?
whitewineliberal: “heaven knows what that shows”:
It shows the pap the BBC filed to entirely fill their politics page with Labour press releases last week.
whitewineliberal | 01.10.08 – 4:43 pm |
PS David USA – that racism you said didn’t exist on this site: there’s a good example above, at 3:20
I know why you think that’s a racist statement. That’s the epithet your kind wants to tar anyone with as a way of stifling any debate about immigration. We get that in the US as an excuse to stifle debate about massive illegal immigration, so I’ve seen it and seen it.
If you want me to accept that Jason’s statement is racist, you’ll first have to tell me you believe that the Navajo are also racist. They complained that the white people have tried to come in, settle the area, and supplant their culture. Are they racist for saying that?
Largely pap for sure; but what do the following demonstrate
1. Kelly to step down from cabinet
2. Labour conference at-a-glance
5. Labour conference at-a-glance
9. Milliband rejects speech ‘hearsay’
11. As it happened: Brown’s speech
12. Hardie is ‘greatest Labour hero’ (though MPs prefer Attlee)
13. Newsnight: Vote on the UK’s greatest and worst post-war prime ministers [with a picture of Brown]
18. Nick Robinson’s Blog : “I detected none of the buzz, none of the electricity, none of the raw anticipation necessary to inspire people to resign their ministerial jobs in order to depose a sitting prime ministe
23. From Politics in the past week Friday:Blair gets serious on comedy show
26. In pictures, Images from Gordon Brown’s big Labour speech
28. Middle Britain ‘key’ for Labour
32. Labour pressed over windfall tax
34. Miliband moves to end leader talk
35. Economy needs a ‘new direction’
37. Speaker falls ill at conference
38. Labour conference schedule
40. Cruddas in 45% top rate tax call
42. Who’s Who:Cabinet
43. In Depth:The Blair Years
there’s plenty of pap around the conservative conference too. All rather bland really. Doesn’t smack to me of any concerted bias. And i’m sure david attenborough would agree with me.
I think people here need to pitch cash in to sponsor a proper academic study of the bias hypothesis – although the hypothesis on this site would need to be made clearer than it is at present. A lot of what goes on here assumes party political bias (weak case i think); others a more generic liberal bias along the lines of the Marr quote (a stronger prima facie case here i think). Genuine question: is there any evidence, other than that catalogued here (not really compelling) that substantiates either hypothesis?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=5429&edition=1&ttl=20081001180522
Is it me, or was the last comment the BBC accepted about Cameron’s speech at 15:34 – barely halfway into it? Or it was 16:34, half an hour after it finished. Either way, it’s a great way for Draper’s groupies to stack up negatives all day, and then stop positive commments getting registered.
‘….that racism you said didn’t exist on this site: there’s a good example above, at 3:20’
whitewineliberal | 01.10.08 – 4:43 pm |
Do you really, really believe that that was racist?
Get a life. Go and work in Saudi Arabia if you want to know what real racism is like, or try ‘benign’ Malaysia.
Racism is the most abused epithet in the UK.
I’m now of the thought that anyone bandying about ‘racism’, whatever that really means, should be hoiked off to court to back it up.
Failure to do so should be awarded with exemplary prison sentences.
Given that the Navajo were coerced somewhat, and probably had a legitimate gripe, i’m not sure your asinine point quite holds! arguing that political parties are committed to the race replacement of white britons is not quite as racist as it is stupid; but it’s still racist.
Immediately after Cameron’s speech the only thing BBC could say about it was “Cameron has agreed to work with Brown”. I just cant believe the audacity of BBC how they can get away with this bias or labour indoctrination
Given that the Navajo were coerced somewhat, and probably had a legitimate gripe, i’m not sure your asinine point quite holds! arguing that political parties are committed to the race replacement of white britons is not quite as racist as it is stupid; but it’s still racist.
whitewineliberal | 01.10.08 – 6:14 pm | #
——————————————————————————–
What an idiot
NotaSheep | Homepage | 01.10.08 – 1:10 pm | #
David Preiser (USA) | Homepage | 01.10.08 – 5:51 pm | #
Thank you!
I was just incensed at seeing the almost complete Labour filled Politics page last week and decided to keep a record because I knew that this week the same Politics page would never be full of Conservative stories. As it turns out it’s not even half full.
I wish I had the time to monitor them better, but I do hope that there are people out there who’s job is to do just that. Someone somewhere must be recording all these instances of bias and they must have a great portfolio of examples.
Quote://Given that the Navajo were coerced somewhat, and probably had a legitimate gripe, i’m not sure your asinine point quite holds! arguing that political parties are committed to the race replacement of white britons is not quite as racist as it is stupid; but it’s still racist.//
I don’t recall being asked whether I wanted mass immigration from outside Europe. Neither do my parents…or anyone else. Oh but of course, white indigenous people don’t have a ‘legitimate gripe’ – apparently we can only have illegitimate gripes.
Conservative and Labour may not be explicitly committed to replacing the white Britons, but by condoning unlimited immigration from all over the world for several decades, including ethno-aggressive muslims – and making public dissent a criminal offence – they are well on the way to achieving this. And it’s not as if they are unaware of what is happening.
Michael Gove had a couple of well placed digs at Peter Allen on 5 Live this afternoon at around 16:45. Michael Gove first caught Peter Allen out as having not listened to the whole speech and then accused him of having sucked lemons before the interview. Nicely said Michael, please advise your colleagues to do the same in the future. I’d love to have seen the supercilious smirk wiped off Peter Allen’s face, was there a web-cam in operation?
Even after the ‘Brown Bounce’, the polls were still showing the Tories on 40%(ish) and Labour on 30%(ish), so I was interested in the Five Live and PM reports tonight from a focus group of 10 floating voters.
They had stopped floating and come down hard for Labour – 5 out of 10 were now going to vote for Gordon and only 2 out of 10 for Cameron.
Personally, I listened to the whole of both speeches and found Cameron’s hugely better (apart from the mention of Maggie, which was stupid and created a nice soundbite to be run in apparent innocence by a BBC which knows only too well how her name still plays with many people).
But then I lean towards the Conservatives, so maybe I was wrong.
But what I can’t understand is how Five Live found around 45 seconds in which to run a series of thoroughly aggressive and dismissive remarks from the new Brownites (‘Cameron was so boring’ ‘He’s trying to scare voters’) and not one gusher from the pro-Tories.
I guess it’s all just a coincidence* and I’m sure the proper polls will confirm a massive swing to Labour.
*Or maybe not. I know she doesn’t work on Five Live any more, but have a gander at the Jane Garvey quote in the right hand column of this page).
It always amazes me that the socialist elites like “whitewineliberal” swoon all over indeginous peoples in places like Scotland Wales Australia South America Africa The Artic etc. but mention the indeginous English people and thats different – we are racists and beneath contempt. Although the dissapearing people of Papua New Guinea are praised for their aversion to change.
If you hate the English that much then get out of the country – and as a commentator said before – try Saudi Arabia.