I invite you to compare the treatment afforded to Justine Greening here with that given to Maria Eagle here on the topic of improving the rail network. Now I am no fan of LibDem Greening but I thought she was harried and bullied during her interview whereas the not so lovely but very left Maria was allowed to snipe and attack the Coalition in unhurried splendour. By the way, the irony of John Humphrys having a go at the Rail Network because of taxpayer provided subsidy amused me. £3.5BN a year, John, forced from everyone with a TV? Plank in your own eye…..
OFF THE RAILS
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You could easily argue that the BBC isn’t in a position to criticize anyone or anything purely because of the nature of its existence, which is by virtue of funding, by the public, through bully-boy coercion; has anyone had the ‘pleasure’ of experiencing the TV Licensing agency sending you letters and knocking on your door? It’s a disgrace!
The increasing monopoly they have in the media market is straight out of 1984; it’s ludicrous in this day and age that we are forced to fund a communist propaganda machine whether we like it or not. 99.9% of the crap the bBC churn out is awful and I refuse to bloody pay for it. What’s the strongest evidence we have of a Left-wing and tyrannical BBC? The very fact that we are forced to pay for it without any choice – North Korea must be so envious!
When I heard this covered on the BBC yesterday it was all about ‘But how are the government going to pay for it? Cuts elsewhere? More taxes? Higher fares?’ A scrutiny the broadcasting arm of the Labour party were crucially lacking when their government was in power.
She is actually a Conservative MP so naturally fair game for a low hit from the superannuated Jeremiahs on Today. Yet Maria the Bald Eagle claimed it was all a Labour project from three years ago so why wasn’t she challenged at all? Asked and answered!
The contrast in in the way the two parties are treated in interview, on ‘Today’ in particular, has always been obvious and you sum it up quite neatly.
As an example, when the Tories were in opposition it was always about ‘Of course it’s easy for you to criticise the government, but what would YOU do about it? What are the Tory policies on this?’ Once I hear the likes of Humphrys and Davis taking this line consistently with Labour, in similarly astringent tones, I for one might start to back off with accusations of bias.
In the meantime their indulgence of Andy Burnham in his criticisms of the government over social care for the elderly e.g. ‘dragging their feet’ and ‘kicking (whatever) into the long grass’, when Labour did sweet bugger all in 13 years and never get challenged for it – I’d like anybody to explain to me how that isn’t a case of clear, unambiguous bias.
The Cherry Vultures will leave that well alone for they know it to be true.
BBC 1 lunchtime introduced this story with a picture of a long obselete diesel unit. 1950s in fact and long since replaced .
Quite what the point of that was I have no idea. Probably somebody said we need a picture of a train and that was the first they could come up with.
When it comes to technology the Beeboids are prone to error.
The reporter seemed to be under the illusion that electrification was ” progressive” and by definition faster and better. The fact that the line to Swansea is being electrified to keep the Welsh happy and the line from |Sheffield to St Pancras to keep the North happy is never mentioned. Political spending( misnamed investment) as usual without serious economic justification or the faintest notion of how it is to be paid for.
Didn`t get to hear too much of the Greening stuff with Humph…its calibre ensured that I chose to go into work early to scrub the coffee cups for Probation Officers, that being far preferable to listening to the Golf Club bore that is Humphrys.
That said, even I heard Eagle being quoted by Humphrys to have a go at Greening,,,as if that cheroot chewing dumpling would have anything of worth to add to any debate. Unless it was about how to wreck and economy and a culture as quickly as possible, and evade any responsibility for that.
The likes of Greening are f***in useless….and the BBC need something or someone to tell them straight what a bunch of biased, lazy lefties they all are…and not a series of spineless chinless poltroons like the Tories put out for the Beeb to spit out.
And they puff up Stefanomics as if she actually had a track record to back her up…the Greek Euro crisis anyone?…Basically listen to Stef and act at 180 degrees to her direction of travel…and you`ll get the outcome just about right.
Actually Greening didn’t do too bad at first, but Humphrys certainly didn’t treat both interviewees in the same manner. A very simple Transactional Analysis shows this:
Interview Length: Eagle 3m 30 ; Greening 9m 30
Open Q’s Asked: 2 ; 5
Closed Q’s Asked: 4 ; 5
Interruptions (Clarifying): 4 ; 1
Interruptions (Challenging): 0 ; 12
Perhaps because she made a good fist of things early on, the interruptions eventually came thick and fast. But what was disappointing was that Humphrys didn’t challenge the hopeless Eagle, with the same robustness; on where the money was coming from, nor on her hypocrisy over fares increases.
It was her party who introduced the fares escalator in an attempt to increase the balance of fares from 50/50 passenger/taxpayer to 75% to be met by the traveller.
All of this is in the public domain. Unfortunately it seems too much to expect the BBC to remember this and apply a little balance.