Well then, it looks like “Red” Ed Miliband and Trade Union baron “Red” Len LcCluskey do enjoy dining together. Yes, the uber militant Unite Leader McCluskey and Miliband have had 8 meals together since Ed became leader – care of McCluskey and the comrades and the BBC dutifully report this. And then leave it there.
No follow up news items on Today or any other programme as to WHY the Labour leader seems to want to dine on such a frequent basis with a man who hangs a photo of Lenin on his wall. No follow up questioning as to how such meetings could be seen by even the most neutral observer as undermining Miliband’s claims that he is not a puppet of the Unions, the Unions whose activism and votes placed him in his current role.
I am sure some people may share MY view that the Labour Party under Miliband in particular is behaving simply as an extension of the hard left Trade Unions like Unite (the single biggest funder) and yet the BBC seem curiously reluctant to flag this up as an issue worthy of prime time discussion. They are, of course, delighted to question every nuance of where the Conservatives get their money, who Cameron chooses to dine with in Number Ten – and in my view rightly so BUT why the reticence when it comes to Labour? If the Labour Party is an extension of the Trade Union agenda, is the BBC simply the broadcasting wing ?
It seem to me that the lack of independence of Labour from those who fund it (Unions now hand over 90% + of cash and non cash funding) is a genuine news story – every bit as important as what Frances Maude says. But it is not something the BBC seeks to run with for reasons we can but speculate.
At least major donors to the Conservative Party to not get a block vote to elect its leaders that overrides the overwhelming desires of the actually membership of the party and representation in Parliament.
The unions get a block vote in the Labour Party and the BBC blocks proper scrutiny.
Like a train passing through the station , with no intention whatsoever of stopping to pick up any passengers…or hostages to fortune as the BeeBLaybore Coalition chooses to call them(when the mikes are off, no doubt).
Was it a bird…a plane?…no, just a story that the BBC would rather you not have known about…like Livingstone, Balen and the other steaming anchovies beginning to stink whenever we use the central heating.
This mornings Today featured Bradford Asian Yoof( Muslim Jihadists and beaten wives with bundles of postal votes for all I know?…the Beeb wouldn`t dream of looking any further than the smiling eyes behind the Yacoob).
A free Labour internal autopsy by and for the chattering classes at the BBC,,,how come the rest of us are not with the programme?…what advice does Harriet think the “way forward”?…
Let the Labour Party pay for its own post-mortems…and let`s hope whatever killed it can be caught by the BBC too…for its death is very near too!
The BBC reported it! Had they not, then perhaps you’d have a point. I posted elsewhere the grilling paxman gave Chris Leslie on links with Unite and the tanker strike. The issues arising from the labour party’s links are widely exposed on the BBC. But they are as old as the party itself and publicly known. Dog bites man and all that.
“Reporting” something isn’t the same thing as making a big deal out of it. Surely Miliband has claimed that he’s not influenced by union cash as much as Cameron has claimed that he’s not influenced by his own donors, yet one is a major story while the other is met with shrugged shoulders. And as Fred Bloggs pointed out on the “Obvious is news” thread, when the BBC has Diana Holland on, she’s introduced as Asst. General Sec. of Unite, but they leave out the fact that she’s also treasurer of the Labour Party.
Jim, you always say “The BBC reported it!”, but you do know there’s a difference between Reporting it and ‘Reporting it’.
The most obvious of this form of BBC reporting is always shown when something negative involving the Muslim community happens, such as the grooming gangs or any incidence of terrorism. Just enough information so you know something has gone on and just enough that the BBC can say they ‘reported it’.
Jim
You seem like a pretty rational person. You might be able to shed some light on these thoughts.
When the story about David Cameroon dodgy donors broke, do you not think just for one tiny moment that it might find itself as part of the greater narration regarding Mr Cameroon being a “toff” helping his “rich banker friends”?
Not so much the implied narration suggested on the Today slot, News night or the World at One, but the wider cultural narration within regarding the Tory leadership, you know the gags about the Bullingdon Club on BBC 3 “comedy shows”, the Review Show discussing “poshness”, and the endless witty remarks on the 5live Sunday morning shows regarding “Tory Toffs”?
Yet on the other hand, do you think that the son of fairly well to do Marxist historian who went to Corpus Christi College discussing with his biggest donor, and former Liverpool Militant supporter, cash donations at some swanky restaurant, is going to get the same traction with all these “edgy” comedians, regarding these two as being the Marx and Engels of their time, but without the creative writing ability? Or the ironic references on the Review Show about some “back to the future” nostalgia of early 80’s East Germany , or some witty lines from a clever panellist like Sandy Toskvig on some 5live show on a Sunday Morning on how socialism is dead, but they forgot to tell these two?
Yes I can see it now, Mark Thomas or Mark Steele laughing about the dictatorship of the proletariat, but only if you come from Haverstock Comprehensive School.
This is what I tried to reply this morning just as the B-BBC site crashed, although I felt my original words were better written than these:
Jim, the connection between Big Business donors and the Conservative Party is as old as the hills too. Whereas the BBC just report Labour’s lunches and move on, they make Conservative ones into the major news item and keep on at it for days. This is where the BBC shows double standards.
The only reason why they even report Milliband’s lunches with his major donors/puppetmasters is so some time later when an accusation that the BBC hasn’t reported it, a Jim Dandy or a Dez will dig it up and say “look, the BBC did report it”.
Yes it is there in black and white but the vast difference in the prominence the BBC accord these two very similar things is where the BBC bias is proved, red in tooth and claw.
By the way Jim Dandy frames his replies – seemingly straightforward and rational but in reality full of omissions and “smoke and mirrors” – he must work in the Beeb’s Complaints Dept.
By now there must more elephants in the news and documentary rooms of our anything but impartial state broadcaster than there is in the whole of bloody Africa!
The BBC really has become absolutely farcical and more interesting for all it DOESN’T say! It’s made taking its British viewers and listeners for fools an art form and is why more and more of them will very rightly call the sickeningly do-goody and biased as hell leftie set up the British (lol!!) Brainwashing Corporation and other names. – The end of the BBC licence fee we all scandalously have to keep legally coughing up for cannot come a day too bloody soon!
The problem here sir, is that they are managing to fool most of the people most of the time. This blog needs to find a way to get the truth to the majority. I’m sure if the majority thought they were being fed bullshit they’d be horrified, but they simply dont know yet.
I tweeted him about it but he ignored. Typical BBC not delving into it. Imagine of a Tory had met eight times with a banker
Jim is the kind of probeeber that thinks a apology is fine on page 135 below the births and deaths column at the back So therefore to Jim one item on one programme is equal coverage to the 24/7 Conservative donors stories on 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/24!