Is it just me or has the BBC been going out of it’s way to ensure that Red Ed Miliband gets a rebuttal in every time the Coalition so much as opens its mouth? I was looking at this page concerning the Red One’s appearance at the Welsh Labour Party Conference today, note how they actually top and tail the item with videos of Miliband waffling in that ever so earnest but yet slightly scary wide eyed way. I don’t recall the Conservatives being granted the same frequency of coverage and rebuttal when Blair and Brown held court. Then again, if Cameron really is supporting Chris Patten as the next Chairman of the BBC, he deserves ALL he gets.
UNIVERSAL ED
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..”if Cameron really is supporting Chris Patten as the next Chairman of the BBC, he deserves ALL he gets.”
Yes, David; and as we’d agree, the British licencepayers don’t deserve this.
We can expect even more EU-centric propaganda frm Patten-BBC.
No doubt Cameron will masochistically approve a lib-lab new Director General in the near future to replace the ‘specially sensitive treatment of Islam’ Mr Thompson.
Instead, the BBC, like ‘QT’ and ‘Any Questions’ is dispensible. Put it to a referendum: ‘Do you want £145.50 a year, or the BBC?’
TBF, he seemed to be all over SKY yesterday as well.
But I am not so sure that allowing him to be heard, seen or have his words read really is such a bad thing, as he does not exactly excel in pushing the narrative.
So while the Tories deserve to be ignored for lack of backbone, and the Libdems for not facing up to the tangible consequences of their silly idealism, Labour’s leader just portrays them as totally naff.
Which might get a few pondering who out there might we more interested in representing the country and leading it back to a position of national unity and strength, as opposed to ruling over it from a position of minority PC pleasing that gets a free £4B A&P boost if ‘on message’ to a small, unrepresentative media clique.
Indeed he seems to vanish for a week or so then pop up appearing on all channels waffling about something totally unrelated to what he was last on about then vanish again. One of the papers (could have been Telegraph or the Times) claimed Milliband was a Yiddish word meaning “a long time between things happening”.
Whilst he (Ed) will naturally get an easy ride and plenty of air time over at the BBC, it seems Labour and their union associates have a far better media strategy which always gets them the maximum airtime across the MSM, way more than the Tories/Coalition get. My opinion is that it’s been that way for twenty odd years. Maybe Labour have simply succeeded in planting many more of their stooges into the media industry.
Good observations. When the Tories were in opposition, any criticism they raised was follwed the beeboid question either of what exactly would you do if in power, what exactly is your policy on this.
Fro Tory opposition they wanted hard specifics. Not a requirement under Labour.
Mind you they did a big hack job the other night on the forests policy change (slightly o/t). They did a rather clever, chopping down of the tree in the conservative logo. Clever once. The they ran it as a piece on u-turn after u-turn – probably just so they could keep throwing their little chopping gaphic in.
The red rose never got a snip under labour – although maybe it would have been a better analogy to have it keep grown by being fertilised by bullsh*t
For the life of me I can’t recall a programme on Labour U turns…they had 13 years to get one out and have managed at least a couple in the 9 months of this governemnt…and clearly we need Craig to sort out a table of how many headline rebuttals Cameron got in 5 years; I think as many as Milliband had had in the last 5 months.
In all honesty I can’t remember a Labour U-turn ever being described as a U-turn on the BBC. Usually a policy update, a change of direction or some such euphemism.
I suppose ‘Red Ed’would argue this Labour waste would be a Coalition cut too far.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358690/Ministry-Silly-Ideas-spends-thousands–walking-lessons.html
I wonder also, what his, and the BBC Ecophobia departments have to say about this cover up.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/plastic-fantastic-carrier-bags-not-ecovillains-after-all-2220129.html
When Margaret Thatcher won a landslide, the BBC declared that it had to act as the Opposition, since the Kinnochio variety didn’t amount to much; it attacked the Conservatives at every opportunity. When Blair won by a landslide, the BBC declared that it had to abide by the will of the people (it attacked the Conservatives at every opportunity).. When labour lost in 2010 (not, admittedly, by a landslide), the BBC felt no similar need to adhere to the will of the people. It attacks the Conservatives at every opportunity. (Yes, Cameron is useless, but why are we coughing up three billion quid to big up the lesser Millipede?
Odd.
Craig must have the numbers for the Interrruption Coefficients for the parties before and after the election.
Let’s be fair: it MAY be that the BBC sees it as its role to challenge the opposition party harder. That was certainly what DID happen, as the IC numbers made crystal clear, prior to the election, when the Conservatives demonstrably had more interrruptions and harder questioning than Labour speakers.
PERHAPS what has happened is that the Labour Party is being put under similar scrutiny. In which case the IC’s will have reversed. This would be good objective evidence of BBC neutrality.
Do we have any data, or is there simply an ingrained BBC bias against the Conservatives and towards Labour?
Surely the BBC must keep this sort of information. How else can it ensure it adheres to its obligation of impartiality? (No sniggering at the back, now.)
Does the Freedom of Information Act apply here? If it does, has anyone tried a Freedom of Information request?
They don’t. They don’t think they have to.
No. What’s the point?
Sorry to sound so defeatist but what really is the point…
It was a rhetorical question – it’s obvious they don’t have them. Which is why the BBC would be put in a very difficult position were the Tories to present a few statistics of their own showing BBC bias. “Our statistics show this, what do yours show? You must have some, surely?” It needn’t even be framed as a particular attack on the BBC, simply a matter for clarification, which avoids getting on the wrong side of people who think of the BBC as it used to be.
But the Tories haven’t the gumption to do it, for reasons I can only speculate. This is why I now despise them in equal measure to Labour.