Anyone watch Newsnight? Paxman interviewed Labour apologist Liam Byrne on the matter of the Conservatives £6bn savings vs Labour £15bn. Byrne just bluffed it and castigated the Tories. Probably as one would expect. But then, by way of “balance”, a businessman was in the studio to respond, It was suave Dragon’s Den star James Caan, and yes, he agreed with Labour and suggested that the Labour NIC hike next year was “no big deal”. Fair and balanced – both sides supporting Labour,
NEWSNIGHT DISGRACE
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Yes totally one sided and I will be making a formal complaint. Thing is the BBC didn’t point out Caan’s double standards.
…it easier for SME’s to operate, and are willing to actually cut taxes here. Their plan to keep NI at its current level will protect jobs in the private sector, and it will act as an incentive for business.” he said.
http://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/news.php?CID=&NID=4219&Title=James+Caan%3A+%22The+Tories+Are+Head+For+Small+Businesses%22+
The BBC must have been working flat out for days to find a businessman who supports the NI increase and the best they can come up with is James Caan who has never even run an FT quoted company and is a known Labour supporter and , of course, paid by the BBC.
In the world of business, Caan is a tiddler.
The BBC really are pathetic.
Erm.. didn’t James Caan agree with the Tories earlier today? Something fishy here.
You answered my query while I was typing it, Martin!
No doubt the BBC will come up with some lie. Paxman gave slaphead such an easy ride it was unbelievable. Why didn’t he have a go at slaphead talking bollocks the other week on the Daily politics where HE promised Brillo no tax hikes then slammed into reverse?
There’s nothing like a balanced view with critical & factual discussion. In some ways the blatant bias is doing everyone a favour; When people come back to examine this ‘balanced’ broadcasting during the election, it may take some time, but heads will roll.
I strongly believe the BBC should provide facts and educate people rather than enter into gossip. There are plenty of examples throughout the world of countries that have been through the same patten of public spending, taxes, and what happens if you cut it out. A historical documentary would be a great help and they wouldn’t even have to mention parties.
Perhaps they should invite the 60 odd company directors that signed against the increase into the studio and interview them?!
It is now over 80 senior businessmen who have stated support for the NI cut.
I agree it is essential to track the overwhelming bias being shown by the BBC – lots of stuff being recorded here and through Craig’s excellent site.
I reckon plenty enough already to be fed eg to Janet Daley – a safe pair of hands !
Don’t worry, Robert Peston will be on soon to tell you not to take it too seriously because they’re all Tories.
Or not, because he tried that already and it didn’t help his biography subject. Actually, Peston might even have noticed that Nick Robinson called BS on him (not directly, but it’s there, and good for him), and thought better of it. He attempted to play it a different way after that, but tried to have it so many angles that he ended up folding in on himself like an ustable tesseract.
Meanwhile, he’s making yet another faux-populist feint at nasty bankers. The Simpsons reference in his title is a sign of his connection to the Common Man. I’m sure there’s no connection to any of this with Mr. Brown’s recent “ordinary, middle class” spiel and those nasty rich businessmen supporting nasty rich Tories.
And the Tories just sit back and take it.
I think I’m in double figures for complaints already and we’re only on day 2!!!
Yes, they sit back and take it. Hopeless. This blatant bias of the BBC against the Conservatives is bad at any time but during the election campaign is incredible – is it legal?
Anyone see recently a newspaper reviewer at 23.20 hrs on the BBC 24 hour news that was pro- Conservative? Occasionally they have someone from the Telegraph but that’s a rarity.
Mostly anti Tory and the Tories they have are rather wet.
“The BBC’s Laura K and her chums”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100033463/the-bbcs-laura-k-and-her-chums/
To be honest, I dont think Benedict Brogan makes a very good point. As the first commenter states, SKY have this sort of problem to.
According to the BBC “News” this morning, James Caan has changed his mind, and is now supporting Labour. Turncoat.
“General Election 2010: Labour has made immigration taboo, says David Cameron”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7569201/General-Election-2010-Labour-has-made-immigration-taboo-says-David-Cameron.html
-And that suits anti-Tory BBC.
I begin to think that, electorally at least, it no longer matters. Who really listens to them these days and thinks: ‘The BBC says it, so it must be true.” That time is long dead.
Just caught R5 talking about high def TV etc. Funny that one company kept coming up, SKY, they were talking about 3D TV and high def for sport. So where is the state broadcaster in all this? Pissing MY money away on overpaid luvvies, drugs and rent boys.
Whatever you think of Sky they are a driver of innovation in TV unlike the BBC who seem to only want to drive to Hampstead Heath.
In an attempt to re-excavate Evil gaybashing Tory Chris Grayling’s weekend blunder, R5’s Colin Murray yesterday introduced with great excitement a former Tory-supporting Lesbian who had once publicly urged fellow gays to vote for Cameron. Since Grayling, he suggested, she had seen the folly of her Tory-supporting ways and recognised them for the reactionary baby-eaters that they clearly are. Alas it quickly emerged that – despite the impression given by Murray – her disillusion and subsequent abandonment of the Evil Tories had actually occurred over 18 months ago, and she was hastily ushered off the airwaves.
Contrast that to the “coffin dodgers” comments from the Liebour scumbag in Scotland and see how the BBC have totally ignored the story, the BBC haven’t asked Sarah Brown if she’d read the comments or other senior Liebour politicians all of who have linked ot his Twitter feed.
As usual one rule for the Tories and one for the Liebour party.
There was a very similar incident on the world at one on Radio 4. They were discussign the Conservative proposal to limit public sector pay. To get a “reaction” to it they interviewed someone from the IDS who dismissed it and said it would make very little impact. Fine, so far it is quite balanced. And for a second opinion who better to go to than Polly Toynbee? And how’s this for a hard question about David Cameron’s article about it in today’s Guardian;
“So were you seduced by it?” [NB I apologise for any unpleasant mental images this may invoke]
I was expecting that she would answer “Yes, very much so, and I shall be voting Conservative on 6 May” but to my surprise she said “No, not at all” before expressing her grave concern that if you looked into the backgrounds of many Conservative candidates they were from the financial sector. You an imagine what a robust exchange Ed Stourton had with her.
I’ve never known so many open attacks on BBC bias by print journalists, and yet the Tory Party (with a few honourable exceptions) is still cravenly mute.
I did a B-BBC Digest mailing to Tory MPs and PPCs yesterday over the piece by Sanchia Berg on TODAY drawing a false parallel between David Cameron and Richard Nixon (and hat tip to ‘disdain’ I think it was in a previous thread for raising it). She claimed Nixon coined the phrase ‘the silent majority’ and compared it to Cameron’s phrase ‘the great ignored’. It was in fact De Gaulle’s Prime Minister Pompidou who coined this phrase after De Gaulle called legislative elections in the wake of the upheavals of May ’68. De Gaulle’s party became the first in the history of the French Republic to win an absolute majority. Now that’s a parallel that the BBC wish to stay well clear of. I concluded the mailing thus [next entry]:
Obviously, the more blatant BBC bias becomes the more people are aware of it, but this does not go in your favour because people have no respect for you for failing to confront it. Part of the purpose of BBC bias is to demean you. If the Conservative Party is not prepared to stand up for itself and the integrity of our democratic debate, how do you expect the British people to have confidence in you to run the country?
Has not the time now arrived for the Tory leadership to launch a broadside against the BBC for negative campaigning against the Conservative Party?
Some PCS Union rep on now saying that cutting public spending is wrong, it will be “devastating”. Unsurprisingly, his union’s estimates for how many jobs will have to be cut to get the savings is twice what the Tories predict. Instead, PCS Union guy says raising taxes and getting money back from nasty bankers is what’s needed.
May as well ask the Pope if he thinks religion needs to be reduced in society.
Beeboid reporter following Cameron to a construction company in Aberdeen first said that even Cameron has made a faux pas on air so shouldn’t be criticizing McLennan.
Then he went on, prompted by the presenter in the studio, to talk about how the housing construction industry really suffered from recession, and maybe is starting to see life again. No mention at all that the construction industry was artificially bloated for years by Mr. Brown’s PFIs, and that he cooked the books so that the spending didn’t show up in the official debt figures. So both the recession and Mr. Brown’s mismanagement as Chancellor had a direct affect on this industry, but the Beeboids want you to think only about that recession from which everyone suffers, not Mr. Brown’s fault ever.
Now some female Beeboid is encouraging doom and gloom from yet another PCS Union rep. Ooh, it’s going to hurt. BBC really trying to engender sympathy for public sector workers today. As we all know the Tories want to start cuts immediately, and Labour wants to hold off, this is just fearmongering to scare people off voting Conservatives. Somebody should keep a head count of how many PCS Union reps get air time over the next couple days.
I really have to turn off the News channel, or I’ll be grinding my teeth all day.
This is all part of Labour’s long-run aim (just like Obama’s) to increase the scale of dependency on Government among the population – dependency on public-sector jobs, dependency on welfare benefits, dependency on lax immigration policy with precious few illegals sent home ………….
Brown and Obama seek the tipping point – where massive numbers of people dare not vote for any party seeking to reduce the involvement of the public sector.
And we’ve got worse to come from the drugged up rent boy using arseholes at the BBC. This is just the start.
Laura Kuenssberg’s report on BBC News Channel seeks to find differences in the stories from Cameron & Osborne. She bleeds for the public sector employees who are awaiting clarification on what the Tory “NI” savings mean for their jobs.
It seems
a) It is only public sector jobs that matter or warrant sympathy,
& b) It is only these Tory cuts that matter & the tens of billions of pounds of cuts pencilled in by Labour for later years can be achieved without employees being affected.
From Ben Brogan (George R @7:26) “Laura Kuenssberg is a BBC and Westminster star, and we will see plenty of her from now until polling day”
She needs to pace herself & give herself enough time to get her hair washed.
Ouch !
She clearly takes her personal hygiene tips from the other greasy haired wanker on the BBC Michael Prick