The Independent says that the resignation of Labour’s Stephen Doughty live on the BBC was a done deal…..
In a blog post for the BBC’s Journalism Academy – which has since been deleted – the output editor for the programme, Andrew Alexander, explained how Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg had “sealed the deal” for Mr Doughty to exclusively break his resignation live on air.
The hard left are squealing ‘fix’ and ‘bias’ and that the BBC arranged it to…
“maximise the political impact” of his resignation by doing it on television directly before PMQs.
Well probably not…to maximise the BBC’s scoop rating perhaps but not the political impact…this is the BBC that in most respects supports most of Corbyn’s policies from terrorism to arms sales to immigration and Europe, not to mention the economy and welfare.
This wasn’t bias just good old fashioned, ruthless, journalistic one-upmanship. Sky and ITV would have died for such a resignation on their screens.
One thing though…why did the BBC delete the post admitting that this was an arranged deal? Where’s the openness and accountability in that? Just the usual BBC hiding its dodgy dealings.
But there is bias at the BBC…how often have we complained about anti-Tory and especially anti-UKIP bias in the BBC’s comedy programmes? The comedy value of UKIP is apparently endless but there is no such thing as a balancing stream of anti-Labour comedy….however should you wish to tell a Labour joke apparently that has to be balanced with an anti-Cameron joke…
Barry Humphries revealed this week that he was told he could not do a planned Corbyn joke on a BBC comedy show — unless he also did one about David Cameron.
The BBC is the biggest joke of all. Not even my middle class, middle aged mum watches it very much if at all…and if the BBC have lost even the likes of her what hope do they have?
Stephen Doughty ran to his political allies at the AlBeeb to announce his resignation. His thinking must have been how best can I do damage to a party I support! He was probably thinking how best can I hurt Corbyn and his militants. It was possibly a case of you sack my mate so I’m off before you sack me too! Who knows but I’m not sure if it should be termed a major scoop given he was a only a junior minister, I watched the programme and didn’t give much of a damn at the time.
My only wish now is for the Labour party to split into two parties and dilute their vote into a complete non entity. SDP reborn maybe? Labour is now a protest party led by an ineffective student union leader. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ken Livingstone pushed Corbyn out in much the same way as he took control of the GLC. Et tu Brutus! I cannot help but think Livingstone is the puppetmaster, Corbyn’s personality is not strong enough to withstand Livingstone and his cronies of the Left. With Livingstone heading Labour’s policy on Defence it will be interesting to see if Labour go anti Trident, if so they could well decide to come out of NATO. What a mess the country will be in if Labour are ever elected again. Good time for UKIP to make a push, especially given Labour’s vulnerability and the imminent EU vote. Goodness knows the country needs a genuine opposition.
Maybe the blog was taken down because someone at a higher level than Alexander recognised that something might not be quite right, and that some heat might be coming their way.
Alternatively, (and I had not come across the BBC Journalism Academy before) maybe they considered this blog didn’t contain the best testimonial to the kind of work that journalists should be undertaking.
Obviously this is only a perception, I have no idea if this is so, but if it is the case it also demonstrates a degree of immaturity that sits in the BBC editorial world.
The guy had already handed his resignation in to Corbyn.
Methinks that Labour squealed so loud because it was done on the Daily Politics, the one even handed show in a sea of bias.
I quite like LK. She has been very scathing about the Labour party’s meltdown. It is quite obvious what happened here. Doughty rang LK to tell her the news and she invited him to join her on the DP. Alan is quite right, Sky or ITV would been cock-a-hoop to get such a scoop.