Here is Richard Littlejohn:
‘Kevin Bakhurst has deemed it impossible not to mention the Conservative ties of the Tax Payer’s Alliance
The BBC has decided it has a duty to ‘out’ those dangerous headbangers at the Taxpayers’ Alliance.
We may think the alliance is an independent body devoted to exposing the widespread waste of public money. But according to Kevin Bakhurst, controller of the BBC News Channel and the News at One: ‘They have close links with the Conservatives and share many prominent members and financial backers.’
In an internal email, he writes: ‘I don’t think we can carry on without any on-air nod to their political allegiances.’ Gavin Allen, editor of BBC Political News and executive editor of Question Time, replied that similar treatment should be given to outfits such as the Countryside Alliance and ‘Right-leaning’ think tanks such as Civitas.’
Biased BBC contributor Alan asks
Red hammer and sickle on a pink background maybe?
The BBC often tells us of the opinions of trade unions ‘without any on-air nod to their political allegiances.’
Or the big cash donations they make to support them.
That’d be very useful when these trade unions are opposing all sorts of Conservative proposals.
It’d also have been useful to have been told of them much more often while these same trade unions eagerly accepted all the money thrown at their members in the publiic services under the Blair/Brown spendfest of taxpayers money.
Having read in the Telegraph that the NT is stopping their permit for a shooting syndicate because they are co-managing the estate with the RSPB I think both organisations when mentioned by the BBC should have their Labour leaning political links mentioned.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9081958/National-Trust-accused-of-turning-estate-into-Disney-theme-park-after-banning-latest-shoot.html
I am sure there will be some Labour MPs that are members of the RSPB and I think the BBC should share this with us when they report the latest RSPB findings (as they frequently do – as though they were gospel).
In today’s Telegraph in a report concerning Osborne’s rather laid-back (as I heard it anyway – he didn’t seem particularly indignant) attack on the BBC, we are told that “Government ministers regularly complain privately about what they believe is “biased” coverage by the BBC, but it is rare for concerns to be aired publicly. If this is true then it’s obvious (to me anyway) that “quiet” complaints are completely useless. The BBC’s bias is getting worse and even more overt: Bakhurst’s suggestion is just another symptom of the BBC disease.
Maybe somebody should be contacting a few top Tories and see about getting anonymous “sources close to the situation say” quotes if they want to vent and put the pressure on.
As they say, these BBC producers lean so far to the left their ear fills with water when it rains.
Let me see, Brendan Barber always given the last word on Tory policies. From the TUC. Is that a “left-leaning” organisation? Or a seething mass of Stalinists and Trotskyite organisers. Can we expect degrees of left-leaningness, as we have with “far right”. “Far left, Maoist-tendancy” please?
Well it’s been on this blog for years, I don’t care anymore, the Tories are dumb asses, they let the BBC get away with this bias. More fool them.
as somone else pointed out
the tories are just liebore without the union contributions
…and so in the interests of fairness, it is our duty to reveal links between BBC types and the organisations to which they belong. The climate chnage stuff over the last few months has been invaluable. Keep up the good work on other fronts.
And links between the BBC and the EU , which gives the BBC soft loans .
EU funds FoE and WWF too, which support rotary halal abbatoirs (wind farms). Mention this please beeb.
…and so in the interests of fairness, it is our duty to reveal links between BBC types..
Especially senior editor types.
Black, Peston, Mason, Falnders… all glowing examples of the rich diversity of politcal hue the BBC attracts..
Green, genetic Labour, so left he has almost come full circle, slept with most of Shadow Cabinet…
Those are just affliation indicators.
Now, professionally, just this week, we have Nick Robinson writing a piece bigging up Ed Balls based on not reading a report, Richard Black now ‘forgetting’ all about wtertight oversight. Mason & Flanders in some serious denial on economic reality vis a vis Greece & the EU, Robert Lustig laying all ME woes at Israel’s door…
At least there is still Mr. Mardell for total objectivity on matters US… well.. President Obama vs. the evil empire.
I absolutely agree we should flag up ‘green’ organisations when relevant; too often (some might say inevitably) the BBC carries some bogus ‘report’ (aka: lobbying paper) from one of these NGOs claiming something typically hysterical, sans empirical evidence (a point they are never, ever pressed upon), without coming clean about the massive taxpayer funding they obtain via grants (usually via the EU: all the better to hide the money trail).
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam…the list of these serial offenders is pretty large. The BBC, in its usual obsequious manner, entertains any number of ‘spokepersons’ from these charlatan outfits, without ever divulging what their real agenda is (almost always it involves a massive wealth transfer from developed nations to less developed nations).
Of course, it will never happen. ‘Green’ zealots have very successfully infiltrated every strata of the BBC, from the Director General (very much an ‘on-message’ climate zealot himself) all the way down to the proles in the backroom editing suites and on the studio floors.
I have no doubt the regular cronies on the Today Programme, Newsnight and Panorama see themselves, rather vainly, and not a little comically, as ‘principled journalists’. I suppose when, daily, you get your big, fat ego stroked and purred over by clueless minions it kinda works that way. Meanwhile, the rest of us (who are forced to pay their ridiculous wages under threat of prison for refusal) can see them for the cowardly, disingenuous frauds they are.
Every time that the BBC quotes charities , they should inform us if these are real charities , relying on voluntary donations , or false charities -like the RSPB – which rely to a greater or lesser amont on government support (in the case of the RSPB it relies on the government for 90% of its money , and gives damn good surveys , reports and “findings” to help government policy ) .
Mr. Backhurst is a Newswatch favourite moody fella in a blaza, perfecting la Boaden’s ‘we get it about right’ pitch perfect.
There is this fly in t’ointment, only just now…
http://order-order.com/2012/02/15/the-eu-is-getting-value-for-money-from-ippr/
Bungs from the EU to sweeten financially any support given for ideology?
The very idea.
If the Tories had any brains (they don’t) they’d do a proper audit of the BBC output (like Craig does) to monitor for bias and balance.
Any proper organised audit would tear the BBC apart. We know the BBC don’t keep records or monitor their output for balance, they lie when they say they do.
This just reinforces my rule of thumb: if the BBC doesn’t label someone, they’re of the Left, and most likely an advocate for the specific cause the’re brought in to comment on.
The most recent example I noticed was the other day when a News Channel report on the arrests of those Sun journos was the independent “media lawyer” they featured, saying this was correct was because the police were merley following the evidence, which led to the Sun. That media lawyer was Mark Lewis, the lawyer for Millie Dowler’s family and others who sued News of the World.
Say, anyone think the BBC’s new-found enthusiasm for full disclosure will extend to this:
http://order-order.com/2012/02/15/gp-playing-politics/#comments
Anyone?
Ah, so Islamic terror merchants are not extremists and no judgemental comment should be passed upon them, but the Taxpayer’s Alliance is juddged to be dubious conspiracy. I used to be of the opinion that the Beeb could be reformed, but clearly the rot of doublethink has gone too far.
I hope that once the fuss dies down Murdoch sets some real journalists loose to expose the Beeb’s connections, motives and methods. A real stand up gloves off fight. That will be fun.
I think this is an excellent precedent. 9 out of 10 interviewees on the news will have to have a sign saying they are affiliated to the Labur party. That will bring the bias into the open!!
They might label them as right-of-centre because the Labour mainstream is well to the right of the BBC.