UNDERMINING EDUCATION POLICY

During the Labour years,our universities were turned into third rate academic factories as more and more young people were lured into participating in the chase for next to useless degrees. Sensibly, the Coalition has tried to tackle this problem and this was always going to provoke the ire of the BBC. On Today, 7.50am  the BBC does everything possible to get the head of UCAS to criticise government policy. The BBC idea is that there should be no cap to the numbers going to Uni, The UCAS lady does very well by maintaining her professional neutrality – something the rancid BBC could learn to do rather better.

THE MORAL COLLAPSE AT THE BBC

You just KNEW the second that David Cameron had the temerity to talk of the “moral collapse” that afflicts our society BBC knives would be getting sharpened. So when Iain Duncan Smith appears on the main prime time slot on Today this morning, the interviewers key objective was to see if he could get IDS to deny Cameron’s assertion. In the BBC world view of moral relativism one must never be judgmental (unless, of course, Rupert Murdoch, Conservatives, Sarah Palin, Christianity is involved) and so it is determined to make Cameron appear extreme because he points out the obvious – namely that after decades of toxic liberal corruption more than a few people care about the difference between right and wrong.

I Make No Comment – I Merely Report …

Kaye Adams, the BBC broadcaster, has been accused of being unfit to present a top current affairs programme after she tweeted in response to Boris Johnson’s suggestion that rioters should face tough punishments, “P*** off back to boarding school, Boris”.

Hmm.

The former presenter of Loose Women, the ITV talk show, who presents a popular Radio Scotland show, was on holiday in Tuscany when she made a series of expletive-filled Tweets about London’s mayor.

UPDATE – Adams attended St. George’s School for Girls in Edinburgh – boarding £5,800 a term!

STARKEY FOR THE NEWS QUIZ!

Is the staid cosy world of Radio 4 topical comedy really being forced into a tokenistic gesture to fend off criticism of its blatant political bias?

I don’t know how truthful that tweet is but it would be amusing to think that, after all these years, Hardy and pals suddenly found that even their smug little lefty enclave was not beyond the reach of the BBC’s Diversity Strategy with its commitment “to reflect the diversity of the nation accurately and authentically”.

If the “decree” is genuine, it will no doubt be good news for a handful of moderate centre-ground media types who are deemed acceptable enough to fill the role of “right-wing guest” each week (keep your Thursday evenings free, Hugo).

How much more fun to have somebody who really would shake things up. David Starkey, for example. I wonder what Jeremy would have to say about that?

Like most of Hardy’s material – not very original:

From fine upstanding citizen Piers Morgan to lefty R4 Front Row presenter John Wilson, people are queuing up to declare Starkey’s TV career over. A return to radio could be just the thing. The News Quiz should snap him up now. What’s more, Jeremy Hardy would probably boycott the programme. I believe that’s known as win-win.

Let the campaign begin – Starkey for the News Quiz!

Balen Report

Today’s Telegraph reports that Steven Sugar’s widow is to take on his battle with the BBC over the Balen report.

In the article a BBC spokesman is quoted as saying:

“If we are not able to pursue our journalism freely and have honest debate and analysis over how we are covering important issues, then how effectively we can serve the public will be diminished.”

I’m not entirely sure whether this argument supports or attacks the BBC for spending £270,000 worth of licence-fee money on keeping the contents of the Balen report a secret.

ACPO ATTACK OVER BRATTON

BBC running with the story that ” UK police chiefs have reacted sceptically to plans for US “supercop” Bill Bratton to advise the government. David Cameron has called for the former New York police chief to help address violence in English cities. Can you guess who is leading the charge against Cameron?

Association of Chief Police Officers’ head Sir Hugh Orde said: “I am not sure I want to learn about gangs from an area of America that has 400 of them.”

Good old Sir Hugh, so ready to attack the Coalition and so lionised by the State Broadcaster for doing so.

Quote Of The Day

Blogger Dumb Jon, commenting below on David Starkey :

I could almost put up with the whole BBC collapsing with a fit of the vapours over Starkey’s comments, except that in almost any other context these guys are desperate to tell us how ‘edgy’ they are and how much they like pushing boundaries.

Hell, if Starkey had just dropped his trousers and called for the age of consent to be abolished, they’d probably have signed him up for his own show right then and there.

Relevant to Starkeygate – this Guardian piece from 2006.

I always enjoyed him on the Moral Maze, even when I disagreed, which was often. He said what he thought. But that’s the last thing that’s wanted on the BBC. As that school sneak Owen Jones said in the Guardian : “I fear that some people will now say that David Starkey is right“.

Incidentally, don’t think that suppressio veri about the riots is restricted to national BBC news. I was in Birmingham on Tuesday night, which was quiet as could be because of the anger and threatened backlash after the deaths of three Asian men. I don’t know who was presenting the evening show on Radio WM which replaced the sports, but he kept talking about the tragedy of the men who died after “a collision” or “after a road traffic accident”! You’d think they’d hit a truck on the M42.

OPEN THREAD…

Well, we have reached Friday and it’s been another rollicking week here on Biased BBC with more and more people visiting us and more and more comments appearing!  Last night, we had our busiest EVER Question Time liveblog, with up to 300 people on-line at any given moment. A big thank you to all you folks who came along and as ever my sincere appreciation to David Mosque and All Seeing Eye for their fortitude. Thanks to everyone for your continued support and I declare this Open Thread open for business….!

RED ED ON THE COMPLEXITY


BBC keen to give Ed Miliband the prime time slot on Today this morning. 8.10am .Not only did he get the usual soft shuffle interview in which he was allowed to waffle about the “complex” reasons behind the looting riots but then he got to talk further with a special panel the BBC had invited onto the programme. Miliband repeated the inane meme that somehow Bankers are part of the problem. Evidently he has decided there are no votes for him should he robustly deal with the thieving feral scum that constitute part of his core vote in some of these areas. What struck me most is that Miliband has absolutely NOTHING to add to this debate and yet there was the BBC hanging on his every non-word! It’s the same as Question Time last night with John “Class Warrior” Prescott utraged about the behavior of…bankers. It’s as if Labour, and their broadcasting arm the BBC, live in a parallel universe. The thugs that looted and wrecked our streets did so because the enjoyed it and thought they could get away with it. The complexity is an invention by the Left, propagated by the BBC.