Wearying but predictable to see that the lead story on the BBC NEWS Portal this morning is one undermining the Conservatives. “Conservative Andrew Tyrie questions economic strategy”. That’s the single most important story in the world this morning. I am sure we can look forward to the BBC bringing more stories of division and conflict during the Conservative Party conference and the only guy that can expect favourable BBC coverage is Nick Boles. I am sure you can work out why.
ATTACK!
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What would Labour be if left to their own devices? They need the BBC like baby needs bottle. Any anti Tory tale is absolute paydirt for the BBC. Hold the front page….a Tory just coughed!
5 hours later and it’s still the top story on the BBC website, now under the headline ‘Tory urges coherent economic plan‘.
Looking at other news portals, Sky News is leading with other stories, and it’s top Tory story is ‘Wait and See: Osborne Cautious On Tax Cuts’. The Telegraph website is leading with the same story, ‘No tax cuts before the next election, says George Osborne’. Neither give Andrew Tyrie’s criticism any prominence. Nor does the ITV news portal, which follows Sky and the Telegraph in leading with ”No tax cuts planned‘. So George Osborne’s message is considered more newsworthy than Andrew Tyrie’s attack by these news organisations. Mail Online also makes this its top Tory/economy story rather than the BBC’s favoured story. The Independent does do a ‘Top Tory attacks governments economy plans‘ but places it well down its news agenda.
Only one other news portal shares the BBC’s priorities by leading with ‘Osborne under attack from Tories over growth plans‘. No prizes for guessing that it’s the Guardian.
What stock answer do you think you’d get if you complained about that to the beeb?
Presuming, of course, that they would actually address the complaint you made rather than pretend you were complaining about something else entirely…
Norman Smith on BBC24 did a great bit of ‘looknohandsing’ by obsessing with what Andrew Tyrie said and how much damage it has done the start of the Tory Conference and that top Tories are fuming about him about causing the wrong headlines.
Yes, nothing to do with people like you is it Mr Smith. Still, lets get things in perspective shall we? When a leading ex-Labour Cabinet Minister gave mea culpas for the wrongs of the last Labour Government, you gave it equal prominence. Well, I think you did, although for some reason I can’t remembe the name of this ex-Labour Cabinet Minister. Somehow I think the name ‘Andrew Tyrie’ will be on my lips the day I die.
‘5 hours later and it’s still the top story on the BBC website, now under the headline ‘Tory urges coherent economic plan‘.
To be fair, SKY figured for a while it couldf filla few hours of the 24/7 news maw, but it kind of fizzled in the exchnage bewteen various teleprompter readers and ‘on the spot’ buofants and totty.
“Bloke no one has heard of is critical for 15 mins of fame’ seemed to embarass even the ratings merchants.
One can see why the BBC clung on.
The BBC News Channel was a Tory free zone last week, in line with the no counter argument convention during conference season. No surprise that the convention is instantly broken today with a member of Ed Balls’ shadow team, Chris Leslie rushed in front of the cameras to join the criticism of government economic policy (the BBC doing their best to disguise the fact that Tyrie is coming from a completely different position than Leslie & co.)
Same with ‘PM’ on Radio 4 tonight. Chris Leslie popped up there too, along with a Lib Dem peer Lord Newby, to criticise George Osborne’s strategy as part of the programme’s Conservative conference preview. Last Saturday’s ‘PM’ Labour conference preview, in contrast, featured only people from the Labour Party – someone from the Fabian Society and Angela Eagle.
Ritula Shah’s questions to Francis Maude on tonight’s ‘PM’ were mostly about Andrew Tyrie’s concerns – and those of others, which she also all grouped together – but she did have time to ask him about a second ‘Tory splits’ story, mentioning the new Eurosceptic grouping and asking him if it would lead to the reopening of old divisions in the party. In other words, the same old BBC questions.
And I take it, the same old Tory responses. Failing to singularly address the disparity between the BBC’s coverage of Labour and coverage of themselves; failing to address the BBC going into propaganda overdrive for Labour to manufacture negative headlines that will be on the BBC main display shelves for days on end and barely reach bottom shelf elsewhere.
Is it really that difficult pre-conference that top Tories get together to agree a ‘grenade lobbing strategy’ to deal with this type of outrageous bias in ‘interviews’?
Now those would be main display shelf headlines worth generating in the rest of the MSM.
If Craig can trundle out the facts to merit counter-bias ‘grenade lobbing’ what possible reason do the Tories have for letting the BBC cause them such damage with impunity?
Agree entirely Mr Pooter!
Any one of us could do something so simple..but the Tories don`t seem to know or care about what they were “elected” for…and that it was not ringing enough, seems now to hobble them.
Anyone knows that they ought to either get off the pot or do something …and I`ve not seen a worthier target than Labour/BBC.
They just want the berth, but don`t actually want to finish off the Liberal elite…because they`re the mauve tinge in the pastel rainbow of the same elite.
Very dangerous. They ought to get thinking, learn from history, go to Greece and see what`s coming…and cast the Liberals into the fires of hell busily being stoked by the Guardian and the BBC, but started by the Guilty Men in Labour!
Hope the BBC used the cantilever facility to find the Tyrie pinstripe up on that top shelf reserved for “Dust off a Tory in case of emergency”.
Who be this Andrew Eyrie then?…and how come he`s to be the Tory Story for the weekend?
As for where was Gordon throughout all last week?…why no Alistair darling creating divisions between Balls and any other runty squit you caree to name(not that we know any of their names yet!)…well, couldn`t go negative on those that pays our wages to talk our tarmac now could we?
Hopefully the BBC can dig up Rab Butlers bones and hold a seance…Mystic Meg thinks that he wants grammar schools back in Rhodesia, and that`s going to make it hard for Gove if they can get whizzing round in their commandeered segways and mobility scooters.
Come on Beeb! We`re all insecure if you`re not spinning like the fat spider at the centre of nobodys web!
The Hon Nick Boles MP is quoted:-
“The test is: ‘Is this an issue for the people around Britain – people that voted for us and those that didn’t – that they find crucially important in this very difficult time?’ … If it is not, let’s shut up about it”
Yes, let’s not stray from critical issues like supermarkets charging for plastic bags.
Whatever you do, dont be Real Conservatives. The BBC wont like that.
The BBC regard Andrew Tyrie as a “leading Conservative”…but surely he can`t rank alongside Shaun Woodward who would be the Tory that the BBC will be seeking to lead the revolution this week.
That the Tories have no backbone, principles or any sense of dignity is no defence of the BBC and its rabid, ludicrous bias.
The BBC would be a joke if there was anything funny on it…instead we get Marks Thomas and Steel as well as the aural tumbleweed that is Jeremy Hardy.
BBC-NUJ-TUC-NUS-UnCut joint action against Conservative Party Conference is underway:
“Cuts march in Manchester to coincide with conference”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-15127932
And, to complete its political campaigning, BBC-NUJ hypes up protest of its comrades in New York against bankers into its second main ‘story’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15140671
“Tories told: Lay off ‘feeble’ Miliband because Labour won’t win next election if he’s in charge”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2044241/Tories-told-Lay-feeble-Miliband-Labour-wont-win-election-hes-charge.html#ixzz1ZcE5ynMK
Jon Sopel’s ‘Politics Show’ featured various Conservatives on its Conservative Conference special today, including Baroness Warsi. There was, however, also a Labour spokesman, John Denham. This is acceptable because last week’s Labour conference edition featured various Labour politicians, including Liam Byrne, but also included Justine Greening for the Tories. However, John Denham also appeared for Labour on the Lib Dem conference special. So that’s Labour spokesmen on all three editions. No other party has been so lucky. Couldn’t an alternative opposition party – UKIP? The SNP? – have been invited on instead of one of the Labour interlopers for the sake of balance?
Even so, it’s an improvement on the previous couple of years, when Labour were allowed opposition-free editions of the show, but the Tories weren’t:
Con Conf 2010 – Baroness Warsi (C) & Nick Brown (Lab)
Lab Conf 2010 – Harriet Harman (Lab) & Ed Balls (Lab)
Con Conf 2009 – Philip Hammond (C), Dan Hannan (C), Edward McMillan Scott (ex-C, soon to be LD), Vernon Coaker (Lab)
Lab Conf 2009 – Ed Balls (Lab) & Des Browne (Lab)
* * * * *
There can be no complaints about the balance of political journalists acting as commentators on the three conference editions this year – at least in terms of balancing Left and Right – but you’ll see that one paper is favoured above all others:
Lib Dem edition
Craig Woodhouse, London Evening Standard
Zoe Williams, Guardian
Lab edition
Nick Watt, Guardian
Sam Coates, Times
Con edition
Polly Toynbee, Guardian
Benedict Brogan, Telegraph
Guardian – all three editions
Telegraph, Times, Evening Standard – one edition each
More evidence of the BBC’s Guardian fixation.
What a difference though between last week’s big interview with Labour’s Liam Byrne and this week’s with Conservative Baroness Warsi.
Last week Jon Sopel was so hands off and friendly towards Byrne I wondered if he’d just taken some sleeping pills. Just 7 interruptions from Sopel in an interview that, in total, lasted some 13 minutes. Today his introduction described his guest as “controversial” (which is true but, hey, perhaps not the thing to say just before you begin an interview with her) and he went on to ask her why ConservativeHome readers dislike her so much (which they do) – a very different tone to his good-natured interview with Liam Byrne. Plus the journalists got a second bite of the cherry, meaning that Polly Toynbee got double the opportunity that Sam Coates got to question Liam Byrne (and used them to make savage attacks on the Tories). There were 14 interruptions from Sopel in 14 minutes.
Tory splits, her personal unpopularity, more Tory splits, Andrew Tyrie, coalition splits, same old BBC questions.
The BBC are relentless (or unimaginative). During the Politics Show’s closing segment, with three Conservative MPs (including a pleasingly leggy lady), Sopel hammered away at coalition and Tory splits. It’s all he – and his programme – had on his mind, apparently.
What did you make of Andrew Marr’s interviews with the party leaders this conference season? In the past, his performances have been among the worst for bias and his programme’s guest selection for previous party conference specials (and generally) has been deeply questionable. This year, though, he has been surprisingly OK. Is my judgement right here?
Using my old interruption coefficients (dividing the number of interruptions by the length of the interview), the breakdown of the three interviews is as follows:
Clegg interview
Length of interview – 19.35
Interruptions – 24
I.C. 1.2
Newspapers reviewed by Times parliamentary sketchwriter Ann Treneman and Liberal Democat President Tim Farron.
Miliband interview
Length of interview – 24.09
Interruptions – 27
I.C 1.1
Newspapers reviewed by Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee and Times columnist Matthew Parris
Cameron interview
Length of interview – 28.25
Interruptions – 27
I.C. 1.0
Newspapers reviewed by Guardian columnist Allegra Stratton and Daily Mail columnist Andrew Pierce.
Marr even questioned David Cameron from the Right today (at times) and didn’t display much of his old hostility towards the Tory leader.
Am I right that Andrew Marr has toned down his interviewing style – and his bias – since his chastening over Injunctiongate? People rarely comment on Marr now here at B-BBC. We used to do so most weeks, vigorously – and with good reason. Has he changed for the better?
I have stopped watching him, but going by your figures I would guess it’s only a temporary reprieve and that his normal bias will crawl out as soon as he thinks he’s not being watched as much.
Keep up the good work, I admire your mental fortitude for putting up with watching this just to get proper evidence.
Thanks Demon. Got to keep watching to see if Marr regains some of his lost confidence and slips back into his bad old ways again (especially, as George R. says, as an election nears),
Perhaps BBC-NUJ-Labour’s Marr is saving himself for nearer a General Election.
Regional Beeboids are largely pro-Labour Party too.
It’s noticeable that BBC-NUJ’s political bias towards the Labour Party also extends to Beeboid regional reports.
E.g, this piece of Beeboid sycophancy is worthy of a Labour propagandist
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15117487
Little Hazel Blears…Sally of the alley (and of bespoke cheques to pay back her ripped off expenses…as any Salford lass has under `er beehive chuck!) surely a shoo-in for the next Northern Director of the BBC.
Maybe the Tories need to hold their conferences up on Hampstead Heath after dark…no Beeboids would show up unless there were expenses and airmiles…or an exclusive with George Michael.
No…on second thoughts…maybe not. Make it Stockton on Tees-they`d not like that!