Owen Jones is right wing isn’t he?
…as is Ed Balls of course.
We must understand the BBC as a pre-eminent state propagandist and censor by omission, says John Pilger.
Yet another comedian gets into politics (thanks to nofanofpoliticians for pointing this out)
The ‘Firebrand’ Owen Jones says the BBC is biased to the right…no really….though I’m pretty certain this is a leaked script from the BBC’s right of centre ‘Now’ show….
It’s the BBC’s rightwing bias that is the threat to democracy and journalism
The claim of ‘liberal bias’ is a clever fairytale that allows the right to police the corporation and set the wider political agenda
This is from a person who thinks Marx has all the answers….probably thinks Marx is right wing as well!
‘Chavs of the World Unite!!!! You have nothing to lose but your Burberry caps!!!!’
Jones is just another dodgy charlatan…..plagiarising others work…and saying nothing new…spot the difference:
Jones today:
The claim of ‘liberal bias’ is a clever fairytale that allows the right to police the corporation and set the wider political agenda
Mehdi Hasan (surprise!) in 2009:
The accusation that the BBC is left-wing and liberal is a calculated and cynical move by the right to cow the corporation into submission.
He claims the Left say nothing to defend the BBC….
‘….the left’s reticence is symptomatic of a wider phenomenon – of a right with few scruples about going on the offensive, while the left adopts a relentlessly defensive posture.’
Hasan said:
‘….it is time for liberals and the left to fight back and force the BBC to acknowledge its real bias.’
Why not just reprint Hasan’s article?….oh they did…with Jones’ name on it.
Hmmm…the BBC has so many ‘friends’ on the Left who are more than ready to leap to its defence Jones is either lying or delusional.
Leader: The need for the BBC is as great today as it has ever been
We must defend the BBC from Murdoch and death by a thousand Tory cuts
The BBC fightback begins By George Eaton – 14 November 04:01 In tomorrow’s New Statesman, BBC director of television Roger Mosey and Joan Bakewell ride to the corporation’s defence.
Did like his final flourish:
For too long, the right has got away with weaving a fairytale of BBC leftwing bias. Until the left starts complaining – and loudly too – the BBC’s agenda will be shaped by supporters of government, big business, the free market and western foreign policy. That does not just subvert honest journalism: it undermines our democracy.
That’ll be the BBC that relentlessly pounds Big Business, the Tories and Western Foreign policy…going so far as to suggest Jihadis might be justified!
Which is why Harriet Harman felt the need to say:
The BBC is a loved and trusted institution, but it has enemies waiting to pounce.
So the Right are the enemy then…not the driving force behind the BBC?
“Certainly, several media organisations would be affected by a 15 per cent cap,” it read. “But there is one for which such an insistence upon plurality would be devastating. That is the BBC.”
So the presumably left wing Labour deputy leader thinks that the ‘right wing’ BBC should be allowed to run riot…that’s very generous of her.
Signs of delusion:
When the financial system went into meltdown, BBC interviews were dominated by City voices like stockbrokers and hedge fund managers, rather than critics of a sector that had plunged the country into disaster
So no one from Occupy was ever heard on the BBC? Never mind Giles Fraser being given a job there…and let’s not forget Paul Mason….wasn’t it all over for Capitalism a while back on the BBC?
Take the privatisation of the NHS: it is barely given any coverage by the BBC.
WTF….ha ha ha……the reforms of the NHS never mentioned on the BBC in critical terms?…..Owen you are kidding….yourself, not us.
No doubt he thinks welfare doesn’t get a mention either.
Not saying Jones is ignorant, opportunistic ‘issues’ junky…but he clearly is.
The same goes for foreign issues, too. When Israel invaded Gaza in 2009 the BBC provoked uproar when it refused to give the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal any airtime.
Yep…the BBC is pro-Israel. Fairy tales?…..Owen those drugs must really be kickass.
Tory politicians favour the BBC as a useful recruitment service too. After Andy Coulson was driven from No 10, David Cameron replaced him with the then BBC news controller Craig Oliver.
Tory politicians? Cameron is no Tory….and he has long kowtowed to the BBC’s agenda not the other way round….turning the Conservative Party into a party without conviction or values. Oliver was appointed purely as a sop to the BBC…..as Coulson was News Corp. and hated by the Left.
Patten…a pro EU Tory wet, Nick Robinson..gone native…..and look who the BBC employs ”off the street’…all who have the same mindset….wet Tory Portillo, Diane Abbot, Stacey Dooley, Giles Fraser, Alistair Campbell, Jacqueline Smith….never mind all the ‘comedy’.
Up the workers! Mugs.
By giving a platform to climate change sceptics, the BBC is misleading the public
The BBC is colluding in the government’s attack on benefit claimants
Why is Nigel Farage on Question Time so often?
BBC will play a “short clip” of Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead
What can be done about the BBC’s raw deal for migrants?
Savile: Denialism and the “grooming the nation” delusion
Why is Andrew Neil so keen to bash the New Statesman?
As Gaza is savaged again, understanding the BBC’s role requires more than sentiment
Memo to Fleet Street: it isn’t just the BBC that makes mistakes
As was posted under the article – I’ll agree that when the BBC starts advertising for jobs mainly in the Mail and Telegraph it will have a right-wing bias.
The Mail and the Telegraph don’t have a jobs section for that industry.
Is that the BBC’s explanation for not using them? They do have a jobs section after all. Doesn’t have to be headed “Media Jobs”.
They could create one if there was any demand for it.
Or advertising them at all.
‘look who the BBC employs ”off the street’’
Along with the MP who first raised it, I still await hearing was the actual process that saw Mr. Katz’ newest hire selected and secured in place.
I don’t really care too much where the ads are placed, as any half way competent media person should be reading across all genres and tribal corners, and reading to be informed and educated across the political spectrum to enable an objective view to be arrived at.
But in the online world, why the skew is still to shunting funds to a singular dead tree source of sheeple direction, ensuring tribal bubble purity in thought and hires, is yet another unique anachronism to join the licence poll tax.
I’d suggest it is important where the ads are placed because it has been said on many occasions that the bbc is indirectly giving financial support to the Loss-Making guardian newspaper by putting all the bbc’s advertising business their way. And is it just coincidence that the guardian newspaper is the most widely read and cited journal in the bbc?
That’ll be the day when they place all the job ads in The Jewish Chronicle and The Daily Express.
The BBC should be made to publish the CV’s of all its staff so that we could see if there was an equitable spread of left and right within the workforce. If they are as impartial and open as they claim they should see this as an opportunity to show how wrong we are on this site to regularly accuse them of a strong bias to the left.
Not how impartiality works. Come on, do better.
‘Not how impartiality works. Come on, do better’
A one liner making a statement that rests for support on no more than being said, with a schoolmarm finger wave sign-off.
That’s not how debate works.
Although it is when you see it is from a new name out of the BBC Borg box with an all-too familiar style.
Please explain how impartiality works as you see it, and we’ll see how it stands up?
That’s just it though, they never come up with any evidence to prove they’re balanced or to even demonstrate the procedures in place to ensure their output is balanced. We’re just told “we get it about right”.
Yeah well, Owen Jones is more left wing than Comrade Stalin so from his perspective everyone has a right wing bias. He probably thinks The Guardian, The New Statesman and the The Socialist Worker (does that still exist btw?) are on the right.
These far left extremist types are always loony. If they were sane they wouldn’t believe what they believe.
In any case I don’t believe he actually believes what he is saying – that the BBC is biased to the right. He’s just saying that to protect the BBC from any measures to reel in its massive bias to the left.
” Socialist Worker”……….. surely a contradiction in terms?
Owen Jones a shining example of why under 18’s should not get the vote. Firebrand more like a damp squib. How long before he defects to the Liberal Democrats?
Is it true he still wets the bed?
Has he started to shave yet?
Fireplace more like. Full of dead carbon.
Owen Jones is THE future of future Lefty actions….BH yesterday did fret about who now would speak for the working class blue collar chaps( yes, blue collar…it`s as if Thatcher hadn`t destroyed the manufacturing base, as alleged)…and now we have Owen throwing his Norman Collier/Joseph Stalin/Joe Orton caps into the ring…to roll it to Grandad.
Yes-Owen is their new Benn, and Miliband their new Hugo(Boss or Chavez?…WGAF?).
Which is why the Left is currently having its collective nervous breakdown in the therapeutic wards we call BBC studios…the NHS for the political class with something to lose right now…like a license fee or a jolly to Strasbourg.
Good Times…if THAT is the intellectual dynamite under Grandads cap by way of Lefty “analysis”…then they`ll not even be able to blow their own brains out…as if they had any in the first place.
Charter Flight to Dignitas for Owen, Laura and assorted BBC Foot fetishists please…Captain Richard Reid speaking, Flight Attendant, Chelsea Manning…
‘The same goes for foreign issues, too. When Israel invaded Gaza in 2009 the BBC provoked uproar when it refused to give the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal any airtime.’
David Vance’s explanation of this at the time?
It was a clever triangulation to draw criticism away from its coverage of Operation Cast Lead.
Just read it…priceless!
Jones says he is referred to as a “leftwing firebrand”…WHAT?
I`m guessing in the way that Chukka Umma is often referred to as the British Obama,
Which is…on social media, by himself…but using another name like, say Johann Hari.
Left wing firebrand…limp dick twiglet used to clean Wedgies pipe once he`d run out of pipe cleaners more like.
Still-an interesting take on the Lefts thinking…he may well be Blair-like sincere in his views even.
We DO still give free eye tests with rose tinted lenses to the privileged, gawking Lefties don`t we?…that`s the bloody NHS for you when it has no quality control and too many mid-Staffs Saviles working secretly within….
What a funny co-incidence….
Rufus Hound, The Labour Party, BBC Radio 4 comedy, Danny Cohen (BBC Dircetor of TV)…
All singing from the same hymn sheet
http://metro.co.uk/2014/03/17/rufus-hound-male-panel-shows-should-be-a-thing-of-the-past-4575179/
‘Hound agrees with Danny Cohen, BBC’s director of TV, that men-only panel shows should be banned’
‘Shows such as The Unbelievable Truth on Radio 4 feature David Mitchell and other phenomenally funny people I really respect’
‘It’s just about growing up as a species.’
You know, Rufus, I’ve sometimes watched the news and my first thought has been – if only the human race would just grow up…
Mind you, I’ve not quite made the link to the gender balance of TV panel shows.
However, I’ve sometimes listened to overpaid so-called BBC comedians and thought – It’s just about growing up
That would be this Rufus Hound
http://order-order.com/2014/03/03/another-comedy-tax-blunder/
Tax and spend comrade, just not with my money
Why are leftwing extremists always described as ” firebrands ” whereas anyone holding right wing views is demonised as a hard far right fascist.
The same as any government hated by the lefty guardian reading chatterati is dismissed as a ” regime”.
In the same way as any idiotic , two pint bandit , actor who can’t hold his drink, is fondly described as a ” hell raiser ” , and any one else who drinks more than the pathetically small recommended alcohol units per week, is a drink sodden wife beater.
Any member of the hard left is bound that the BBC is on the right, but is merely a trick to say it, Jones can then demand it moves further to his position.
Outside of the BBC, the Guardian and some parts of the Labour Party no one listens to Owen Jones.
Besides Chav-Jones should ponder: why would a right wing media group keep inviting him onto its programmes? *
* [I know he keeps making a prat of himself but he doesn’t realise that].
Who cares what Owen Jones says. Just give him a slap and send him on his way like any other annoying schoolboy.
Not as potent as the power of the argument being made, but who is making it and where can also be informative when the ‘we’ rallying cry goes up.
“We must defend the BBC from Murdoch and death by a thousand Tory cuts”
http://www.newstatesman.com/broadcast/2012/11/we-must-defend-bbc-murdoch-and-death-thousand-tory-cuts
Also not sure the ‘BBC is too right wing’ strategy is that smart, given this who and where.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/17/bbc-leftwing-bias-non-existent-myth
‘It’s the BBC’s rightwing bias that is the threat to democracy and journalism
Totaling the ABC ratings of the Graun, News Statesman and Indy together, if those from what one presumes they consider ‘right wing’ areas of discontent simply shrug and say ‘OK, kill it off… we won’t miss it’, it may be telling where the howls demanding preservation come from.
And I’d then be interested in the explanation as to why.
To half-witted leftists like Jones the BBC is to the right of their position. That doesn’t make it right wing just to the right of them, as Lenin was to the right of Stalin for instance.
Of course it could all be a cunning plan. The more Jones is put o the box the more laughable the left looks.
Fear not. Once the BBC works out that Shouty is incapable of learning and all of the practice sessions they are giving him are wasted then he will be dropped for the next ‘voice of youth.’
Interesting the use of the word “enemies” of the BBC by its leftist defenders.
On the “Is the BBC biased” blog there was a nice item on John Humphrys and the dreaded Roger Bolton. In the transcript Bolton, commenting on Humphrys’ recent admission that the BBC had a broadly (sic) liberal bias.
Bolton : “some people would say you’re aiding its (the BBC) enemies”.
In Bolton’s world no doubt this is considered treason.
What is Owen Jones on about?
From his Guardian ramblings….
‘There are three certainties about British life: it rains on bank holidays; England’s chances at the Euros are always inflated and then disappointed; and the right claims that the BBC suffers from “leftwing bias”‘
Rainy bank holidays – I’ll give that proverbial one.
England’s chances at the Euros – does he mean England’s football team’s World Cup prospects?
The “Euros” ??
Surely he doesn’t mean the Eurovision Song Contest.
I think he must be referring to football – but why not the World Cup?
Man of the people Owen Jones is a tad early for this….
‘The 2016 UEFA European Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2016, will be the 15th European Championship for men’s national football teams organised by UEFA. It is scheduled to be held in France from 10 June to 10 July 2016.’
No one is talking about that – are they?
And a tad late for this…
‘The 2012 UEFA European Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2012, was the 14th European Championship for men’s national football teams organised by UEFA’
Is he regurgitating an old article?
Oddly Euro-centric?
or is he simply out of touch?
No it is just an example of his usual word salad. This tribune of the working man (and woman and lesbian and homosexual) is sadly out of touch when it comes to popular idioms. He couldn’t write a shopping list.
Owen Jones is leading the vanguard of the coming Communist revolution in this country.
Owen Jones is living proof that Corporal Punishment in schools should never have been abolished.
Personally, I would have had him thrashed in front of the whole school daily at assembly, for being such a shit, and to remind les autres the consequences of being an arsehole.
And think of the effect it would have on the school attendance record. What kid in their right mind would want to miss such an entertaining sight every morning? – attendance would be 100%.
And think of the morale boosting effect on the teachers who win the chance of administering the thrashings – Hey, I think we’re on to something here!
They could have drawn lots.
England in the Euro’s ? May be Owen was just trying to “get down” with his football loving heterosexual homies. And made a prick of himself !
Didn’t tory blair try to establish his ordinary bloke credentials be feigning an interest in association football, only to be found out as fraud?
Its interesting that the bourgeois left found football at about the same time it started to lose its traditional working class following.
Oh yes. However I cannot recall if he was a Man Utd supporter or a Newcastle Utd supporter (or both).
He supported the team closest to the locality he happened to be in at the time!
Can anyone on the Left or Right provide examples of the BBC’s so-called right wing bias? It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.
I would love to see a list of names of those working for or associated with the BBC. Left hand column to contain those who have come out and openly supported or admitted to being members of the Labour party or have encouraged us to vote Labour. Right hand column to contain the Tory ones. Then just compare the length of the two columns. If published, it should silence the lefty/pro-BBC crowd in a second.
That well known impartial observer of all things political, Alastair Campbell, I believe has detected right wing bias though the actual proof is still eagerly awaited.
It might be possibly be due to the appointment of Lord Chris Patten (no don’t laugh), Nick (I was once a Tory when I was at university – just like Chris Bryant) Robinson and Andrew Neill (that one I’ll concede – and he’s the best political interviewer around – no one gets an easy ride).
So there you go. Must be right wing.
How about even an impartial tweet? One that doesn’t take a position on something?
So they must want to punish the BBC for being right-wing, by abolishing the licence fee, so that the poor people who vote Labour, do not have to go to the food bank so that they can afford to pay the right-wing BBC poll tax.
OK by me.
Yep, good catch!
The usual suspects claim the BBC is a hot bed of neo-Thatcherism, so they’re desperate to block any reform whatsoever…
….say what?
If they love the ‘right wing’ BBC why don’t they feel the same way about the ‘right wing’ Daily Mail?
Just another sign the BBC is in big trouble. Internal strife no doubt. What is next. Secret show trials of hive bees who go rogue and think for themselves. Just a matter of time now. The real killer for the BBC is technology.
My son showed me his latest gadget. The whole music catalogue, and I mean the whole, available instantly and relayed anywhere in the house wirelessly.
Cd’s redundant at a stroke. Radio music shows as well.
Technology will put an end to the BBC. Bring it on chaps.
Which is why I’d like the BBC to campaign for an extension of the BBC Tax to the new technology. I think it would highlight this grossly outdated idea amongst people who do not take kindly to having to pay for anything, and fail miserably.
I heard R4 briefly on three separate occasions yesterday, each when I wandered into the kitchen where Mrs jtf had it on in the background.
1st occasion: Blah blah blah ‘working classes’ blah blah blah
2nd occasion: Blah blah blah ‘homosexuality’ blah blah blah
3rd occasion: Blah blah blah ‘Tony Benn’ blah blah blah.
Tsk, relentless right wing agenda.
Socialist ‘logic’ alert: most people on the right want the TV license fee to be abolished and the BBC to be broken up, therefore the BBC must have a right wing bias.
Jones works for Britain’s most unpopular newspaper and has left-wing views so unrepresentative that he would poll fewer votes than the Monster Raving Loony candidate if he ever stood for election. Perhaps he should have the modesty to stop and wonder why he is never off the bloody BBC.