I’ve received several email from B-BBC readers today picking up on the way in which the BBC has been putting the boot into Cameron’s first bout of electioneering. This is what one reader had to say earlier…
“Radio 5 presents Yougov’s Peter Kellner as a neutral”Radio Five just interviewed YouGov’s Peter Kellner on the election – specifically his opinion on Cameron and the Tories. Q. Why were Tories not doing better in the polls considering Labour’s unpopularity? Obviously the real answer is Cameron’s position on European Union and Global Warming. Kellner’s ‘analysis’ was that the Tories were still suffering from Major era, while Cameron remained very popular. A few sentences later he smeared Cameron. BBC did not mention that Peter Kellner is married to a Labour Minister. How can BBC interview someone so biased on the election and keep the bias from the listener?
Well the answer to that is very simple – the BBC has no shame. I heard Nick Robinson earlier doing a similar assassination job on the Conservatives. The election is ON and between now and polling day the BBC will do everything possible to ameliorate any Conservative advantage. I am no fan of David Cameron but I can see how unfairly he and his party will be treated by the State Broadcaster. It amazes me that he is so meek and mild as to how he will treat the BBC when he gets into power. I know what I would do, wouldn’t you?
Kevin McGuire was on News 24 at 12:30, no mention of his political bias either.
However, with Camerloon promising to bankrupt the country by keeping NHS spending at double the rate of the Mrs T/Major era who cares? The idiots in Blulabour have given up their principles to kowtow to the BBC/Guardian, it’s all irrelevant.
I’m afraid you are right. None of them have any intention of telling us the truth, particularly about the coming depression. We are in for a never ending diet of triviality. No need for the BBC to be biased they are all state loving believers in the unreal. It is merely a matter of degree. Cameron or Brown?
I really no longer care.
Our public life has been taken over by zombies.
“It amazes me that he is so meek and mild as to how he will treat the BBC when he gets into power”
I often think the same. But there must be more to Cameron than meets the eye. He surely knows this, and is probably biding his time concerning the BBC. For him to come out and openly lambast the BBC at this time would be folly.
Don’t forget he has already in the past attacked the bloated pay of its executives, criticized it for harming local newspapers, and complained that there is no completely independent body for dealing with BBC complaints.
I think if elected he would do something about the BBCs crushing of commercial competitors online and in publishing. He will also have an £800 billion public debt to contend with, so I’m sure he will consider freezing the licence fee along with other bloated quangocracies.
The tories have threatened to do what you would do, and I do believe they will cut but not abolish the licence fee, or perhaps make some changes internally to the bbc so that the price level can come down? What ever about that they did indeed do – or try to do – a demolotion job on Cameron and his crew. However Alistair the eyebrows darling does have a point when he says their sums do not add up which is the reason for conservative dithering. They should make up their mind as to whether or not giving married couples a tax break is affordable or not, and if a promise is made they should keep it. (As Paisley always boasted about keeping promises to the electorate – until lately? Anyhow it got him success in his hey day.) Keeping your word is important Mr Cameron.
The problem with Cameron is that he doesn’t have a very strong pull with crowds, he puts the work in but can’t really rouse the rabble factor. Anyhow the election will be a major no show for most people, who are turned off by it, and an awful lot of people will actually fail to turn out and vote. By the time the election rolls around people will have had it up to their necks, so the disengagement factor could be huge unless its made attractive to the ordinary person in the street.
Yes the glee with which Toenails attacked the Tories was stunning. Compare that to the coverage from both ITV and Sky which was far more balanced.
What is the biggest joke though is how the one eyed Scottish mong in allowed to refuse to use the word ‘cuts’ in any questions about how Liebour are going to get the economy back on track, unless of course mongy is talking about ‘Tory cuts’.
McMong is allowed to spout total shite on the BBC and no beeboid ever picks him up about his refusal to admit to having to make huge public spending cuts himself (contrast this with Sky and ITV who point this out on a regular basis)
“But there must be more to Cameron than meets the eye.”
There isn’t. Seriously, that ‘s it. Cameron has no intention of reducing the power of the BBC and, because his policies on the real issues (immigration, EU, global warming etc) are the same as Labour’s then he will be wanting to work with the BBC because that’s the agenda the BBC pushes too. ‘Cast Iron’ Dave even wanted to follow Labour’s squandering plans until money ran out a few months ago.
If Cameron thinks wooing the BBC is going to mean they will go soft on him then he really is a prat.
Many people wonder why the Tory lead has been cut in the last few months, well it had to do with Cameron backing down over his promise to have a referendum on Lisbon.
What also gets me is how the Tories seem to fall for the BBC’s traps every time. The one today about the marriage tax break was a shambles and the Tories must have known the drug using rent boy addicts would be all over it whilst Alistair Darling is given such an easy ride for talking about ‘the Tory black hole’ when he and the one eyed mong have driven the UK to bankruptcy. At least the bloke on ITV had the bottle to ask Darling about HIS refusal to explain Labour spending plans. Prick Robinson? Nothing.
“Baroness Ashton’s husband Peter Kellner wooed by KGB”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6945940.ece
Yesterday we heard that Cameron would be launching the Tory election platform today.
But from very early today, all the hourly Radio 4 news carried was an attack by Darling who was speculating about what the Tory financial plans might be. Unquestioned – just Darling slagging off the Tories.
Whilst the 180 billion pound debt be know about is ignored. In fact it’s not 180 billion, it’s more like 1.5 trillion. It’s 180 billion a year.
But hey Alistair is a really good guy.
Had to hold my nose while writing that. I think Cameron in power will be the worst of all options!
A thought: perhaps the BBC were being neutral because the neutrals are seen as radicals?
What if they had called in a really neutral commentator: one that would have mentioned Cameron U-turned on a referendum for the Lisbon Treaty and UKIP as a reason for their stalled poll numbers.
Result: Cameron overboard, but Labour also holed. ‘Neutral’, at the BBC, doesn’t mean someone who will provide disinterested analysis of all parties – such an individual is very dangerous as he could bring down the system.
A neutral is someone who won’t rock the boat. BBC is in that boat and so at the GE they’ll close off debate and we’ll probably end with a hung Parliament.
A lot of people want to believe Cameron has hidden depths, or that he will suddenly come out as a Conservative once elected. The problem with this is that, if he does show these currently well hidden depths, or if he shows his true colours (or if he simply grows a pair) after the election, he will have no more mandate than Blair/Brown have ever had. In theory that should be no more problem for him than it was for them, but to clean up the mess they created he is going to have to do some very unpleasant things because you don’t save £800 Bn to £1 Tn or more with efficiency savings and by cutting waste; there are things the government does today that it is going to have to stop doing (this is a good thing, but some are so firmly attached to the public teat they will complain, and we will see a repeat of the poll tax riots from those who resent paying for the services they use). Cutting services, adding 1 million (or more, please) redundant civil “servants” to the dole queues just as unemployment peaks and increasing interest rates to fend off the inflation being set up by QE will be even more difficult for a government with a mandate to only think about possibly giving a little consideration to maybe looking at potential strategies for ending the recession.