The BBC ran this story with some enthusiasm today;
Boris Johnson says an email telling his senior staff to back him over the EU referendum has been withdrawn. The London mayor, who is campaigning to leave the EU, said the memo to deputy mayors and senior advisers was “a cock-up, and not something I agree with”.It told them to “either advocate the mayor’s position or otherwise not openly contradict it” when not at work. The email was sent 24 hours before Mr Johnson accused pro-EU campaigners of trying to gag opponents.
Talking of which, the BBC seems to have overlooked this story…
A senior aide to David Cameron gave a telephone dressing-down to the business chief who dared to speak out in favour of Brexit. Daniel Korski, who is paid £93,000 a year, rang John Longworth just hours before the British Chambers of Commerce sensationally suspended him from his post as director general. Friends of the businessman claim Mr Korski intervened to question why he was calling for Britain to leave the EU when the body had taken a neutral stance on the referendum.
Once again the BBC stands exposed as a key delivery mechanism for Project Fear and a far from impartial broadcaster!
The BBC are the magaphone of the Remain campaign. And a very loud and continuous megaphone at that.
The BBC. Overlooking what does not suit? The very idea!
http://bbcwatch.org/2016/03/09/bbc-news-ignores-hizballah-terror-designation-development/
Clearly there was only so much time and space available to report the totality, so BBC editorial integrity was applied in customary fashion.
Some may find such information and education lacking, however.
Boris is the big pro-Britain beast that will attract a lot of voters and the BBC looks like it is out to hunt him down…whilst Marr and Humphrys both gave Cameron an easy ride.
If you listen to the usual edited-to-death, concise to the point of irrelevance, news bulletins or the Jeremy Vines of this world you hear that ‘Boris’ gagged his workers….no context at all….such as this was advice about the legal, official, statutory, position…and that workers were free to voice their own opinions outside of work. Even that advice has been rescinded and yet the BBC is still pushing hard on this and linking to it in their discussions about the EU referendum…just as they still refer to ‘red doors’ and ‘armbands’ to illustrate how badly refugees are treated in the UK, apparently…but as David says not a word about the Mail’s story that John Longworth was ‘pushed’ by No10….no investigative journalism there from Kuenssberg for some reason despite being the bigger story….a private company boss ousted by No10 because they didn’t like his political views…….not far off something Putin would do and yet no interest from the BBC.
The intent is clearly to try and undermine Boris. Cameron’s dirty tricks as he threatened to sack ministers and then proceeded to gag them in various underhand ways, as well as the bullying, hectoring tone he adopts to attack the pro-Britain camp, seems to have gone by the by. As with Longworth the BBC gave this perfunctory attention and then kicked it into the long grass whereas, no doubt, Boris’ ‘gagging order’ will be raised night and day, on every programme, at every chance.