The BBC’s ability to wilfully miss the parts of news stories that do not fit in with “the narrative” is always amusing. A Biased BBC reader notes;
“We have headline stories of government cuts damaging Britain’s education by limiting foreign students …Mark Easton labelling it a ‘scathing critique’ and another story about the ‘doubling’ of student debt….and another about teenagers getting lessons in how to get a good night’s sleep…and ‘university funding falling by 12%’…..cuts, cuts, cuts.
….but nowhere can I find a report on the assessment by the OECD that Labour failed miserably to raise educational standards despite pumping in billions of pounds…and in fact conspired to hide the truth by ‘dumbing down’ exams to boost results and that it is the poorest who are suffering ever more.
…actually I nearly missed it, they do mention the OECD’s thoughts on UK education telling us the OECD said…..’Education, too, should be reformed, to focus resources more on disadvantaged children.’ And that’s it as far as I can see.
….nowhere is there a full report on the OECD’s assessment of Osborne’s austerity programme….’the respected international thinktank backed the Chancellor George Osborne’s approach to tackling the deficit.’
The OECD says the UK plans “strike the right balance” between tackling the deficit and supporting “short-term growth”….and encouraged the UK to “stay the course” on its £81 Billion austerity programme.
The BBC does tell us that the OECD says: ‘The government’s cuts are “ambitious and necessary”.’and then happily quotes Ed Balls…’However Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said he thought the OECD report was further evidence that government economic policy was on the wrong track. “In the real world the evidence is mounting that his reckless plan to cut deeper and faster than any other major economy in the world isn’t working,”‘
Certainly listening to the radio in the past few days you would be forgiven for being entirely ignorant of these views by the OECD which to my knowledge have been kept off the airwaves entirely.
And here we have a BBC reporter asking what’s the point of the Coalition….and a none too subtle call for fewer cuts? Interesting how the BBC reporters always hang on every word one of the two Eds mutter about the economy as if Gospel….
‘Hello, I’m Patrick Burns, the BBC’s Political Editor in the Midlands.
If we are to preserve what remains of our manufacturing base then we cannot afford the worrying evidence of a slow-down at the turn of the year to put our fragile recovery into reverse. That’s exactly what Labour say is made more likely by the Government’s economic policies, “cutting too far and too fast”. Ed Miliband told me during a recent visit to Wolverhampton that Mr Osborne was taking more money out of the economy than was good for private, as well as public sector employers. And he was scathing about ministers’ decision to scrap the Future Jobs Fund which he said would leave too many young people unemployed and claiming benefit instead in work and paying taxes.
The only way George Osborne can prove his critics wrong is by delivering Growth. He wants that ‘G-word’ to redefine the political agenda…
Growth, Growth, Growth not Cuts, Cuts Cuts. ….it’s Growth or Bust: if the economy doesn’t deliver the goods, more and more sceptics inside Parliament as well as outside it will be left wondering what’s been the point of this Coalition.’
Many more will wonder what is the point of the BBC!
|
The BBC’s lack of coverage of the OECD report is nothing short of blatant bias. The report attacked educational standards in the UK- ‘Despite sharply rising school spending per pupil during the last ten years, improvements in schooling outcomes have been limited in the United Kingdom.’- The veracity of exam results – ‘Official test scores and grades in England show systematically and significantly better performance than international and independent tests … The measures used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) … show significant increases in quality over time, while the measures based on cognitive tests not used for grading show declines or minimal improvements…. The share of A–level entries awarded grade A has risen continuously for 18 years… independent surveys of cognitive skills do not support this development.’
This shocking news and a damning indictment of the last Labour government, showed that educational standards have not risen and pupils are not any better taught or more intelligent than they were in the 1980s. So when teachers and government ministers said that any questioning of exam standards was disrespectful to hard working pupils, they were hiding the truth.
What is more shocking is the brazen way that the BBC decide not to report on this OECD report that shows their labour friends for whatthey were (and are).
How much of this apparent bias is down to the Tories? Had the boot been on the other foot you can bet that Labour spokesmen would have been beating down the door to the BBC and other media to proclaim how evil the Tories are.
Do the Tories do the same, and are ignored? Or do they just expect the BBC to pick up the story off their own bat. They are sufficiently useless that I suspect I know the answer.
In the light of his recent TV series, Andrew Neil shows an interest in the education section of the OECD report in his blog. Otherwise, reporting seems to be all but absent absent on the BBC. I don’t particularly blame the useless Tories here. You should not have to lobby the BBC to cover a story like this. If the OECD report was about the failings of a Tory government, would Labour need to lobby the BBC to cover it? Not at all. It would be going out at full blast on all channels. This is blatant bias and worthy of a formal complaint.
Who should we complain to?
Jeremy Hunt?
Mr EASTON’s political propaganda role continues at his publicly funded BBC-Labour blog with further advocacy for foreign students to have preferential treatment in their entry to British universities over British students.
Easton advocates maximising the number of foreign students allowed into the UK, regardless of the negative impact of large numbers of them:
1.) becoming illegal immigrants, which thety do, and thus a drain on the UK economy;
2.) crowding out British students from British universities now, when there is excess demand for admission.
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/pressArticle/84
There are overseas students who study, and those who use college enrollment as a back door into the UK. One magnet is free access NHS treatment, which “students” are entitled to, such as treatment for AIDS which is not freely available in their own country. Once enrolled at a college, diagnosed and registered for NHS treatment, housing benefits and more entitlements follow. We have an African family at the end our street – young couple, baby and grandmother all put up by the council through this wheeze. The whole business is utterly mad. The last government were supposed to be getting rid of “bogus colleges” This lot seem to have even less of a clue.
‘what’s been the point of this Coalition.’
One point selectively ignored, a lot, is that if the Coaltion proves lacking, in a few years I will be able to pass judgement via the voting booth.
Not, as far as I can gather, a measure of performance we are permitted with national broadcaster. Over many decades.
The only mention of the OECD I saw was Stephanie Flanders complaining on her blog that their economists were ultimately still too supportive of the nasty Tory plans for spending cuts, and weren’t as hard on them as they were on her ex-boyfriend.
I made a comment about it here on the previous open thread.