Wonder what you make of this?
Andrew Neil is stepping down as the presenter of the BBC Sunday Politics programme after five years. He will be replaced by Sarah Smith, the corporation’s Scotland editor. Smith, 49, eldest daughter of the former Labour leader John Smith, was made BBC Scotland’s first editor in 2015. While continuing in her present role, she will also host Sunday Politics when it returns on September 17 after its summer break.
So, the BBC move to allay any criticism of left wing bias by…appointing the daughter of a former Leader of the Labour Party. I see.
I suppose we can identify the next generation of highly paid undeserving BBC hacks, by looking at the children of of the ones in senior positions in the BBC, Guardian and the Labour party.
But lets hope their hopes are dashed.
Headline August 2018
Blair-brat appointed controller of news and current affairs at the BBC.
Actually, I think Andrew Neil is irreplaceable. He is the best political interviewer there has ever been on British TV, in my humble opinion. Sarah Smith? Nah. There are too many politicians who will eat her for breakfast. She has always struck me as someone who is hired for her pedigree, not her talents. I think of her and Kuennssberg and Bicker as the BBC’s Weird Sisters. They all have oral malformations of some kind – misaligned jaws, oversized tongues, parsimonious lips. Their predictions about the future though are usually wide of the mark. My prediction is that Sunday Politics is now doomed.
Z, agree Sunday Politics is probably doomed, but regarding great interviewers those of us with long memories can remember Robin Day and Brian Walden, both of whom were great interrogators. I had hopes for Andrew Rawnsley once upon a time…
Yes rawnsley well and truly swallowed the msm lucre and has been vomiting ritual Guardian sickness ever since .
Paxo became a cartoon character and now we lose Brillo with no one to step up .
The BBC in a short time will be fully staffed by blatant Labour supporters.
What can we do about this?
Nothing.
And the BBC know it.
Stop paying the licence fee. Switch off the BBC so their ratings crash.
Z, agree Sunday Politics is probably doomed, but regarding great interviewers those of us with long memories can remember Robin Day and Brian Walden, both of whom were great interrogators. I had hopes for Andrew Rawnsley once upon a time…
Deb, BBC keeps it’s ratings very quiet unless they are high. I don’t think they are available for the general public to inspect despite the licence payer paying for them. It would be nice to think that boycotting their dross would have some effect, but I wouldn’t put it past whoever calculates the figures to manipulate them.
Donbob
I am sure that diane flabbott will be able to sort out the BBC ratings figures for a large tray of custard donuts. After all diane flabott proved herself such a wizz at maths with policing costs
BBC ratings is like AGW temperature. It always go up, and requires the same treatment – lots and lots of taxpayers money.
The BBC came up in a conversation I had today about a business matter. Not raised by me and I did not know the man. His business had never been better and he said that he no longer could stand the negativity of the BBC in particular over brexit and our country. People are noticing and it is time the BBc understood this.
This new woman is another apparatchnik in the making and I have no doubt every box has been ticked and her views are hive through and through. The BBc is destroying it’s credibility daily. All we need to do is wait.
I do some of my shopping in one of the most deprived areas of my town – and even in the local shops there, the staff and customers have no time for the bias of the BBC and say so.
Yes Deborah, quite so and its firm proof of what many of us know – that the deplorable poorly educated Englishmen and women among us, so sneered at by the BBC, are in fact razor sharp in their observations and approach to life. It was infuriating to read lofty, arrogant BBC reports of the Brexit divide being the educated versus the uneducated…high time a few ‘uneducateds’ were given ruling positions at the Beeb …
I’m beginning to think the BBC is not so much a leftist organisation but a corporatist nomenclature organisation allied with others like the Labour Party , LibDims and except for the likes of JRM et al the Conservatives , together with shadowy organisations like Common Purpose , Bilderburgers , Trilateral Commision and front organisations like the CBI , trade unions , BMA , some hollowed out charities , various ” business leaders” who like the limelight like Richard Branson and others who don’t like the limelight but like to be known to those ” that matter ” .
And of course the EU .
They’re helped by the dunces in the luvvies world .
All the above think they know best , that democracy should be suffered but hopefully bent to their wishes , that people CAN earn lots of money so long as they the nomenclature get the biggest cut via taxes , profess solicitude for the poorest and weakest but try to keep them the poorest and weakest , meanwhile diverting funds to themselves and to individuals , organisations and even countries to bribe .
I no longer watch any of the Sunday shows on any channel including Andrew Neil .They are generally regurgitating what’s in the Sunday papers and they are more anti Trump, anti Brexit than the dailys . I just cannot be bothered to wind myself up over these vacuous creatures.
Neil is the best interviewer I agree but even he can’t tempt me.
If I were him I think I’d retire to my home in France and do some free lancing.
Me too. You know exactly what the theme will be and you know that it will be stuffed full of liberal left consensus politicos. No need to watch it.
Watching the BBC on a Sunday can shorten your life by years due to stress and raised blood pressure. My doctor says so.
Scronker
You can always turn the to over to itv and watch the son of a Labour Peer talk objective politics – or about his latest hair cut or some personal sob story
So, the last of the truly fair and apparently unbiased interviewers on the BBC will be replaced by the daughter of a former Labour Party leader. Quelle surprise! I now know of no-one at the BBC who will ask difficult questions of the left-wing.
If only the Tories would boycott the BBC totally. It would then become purely a talking shop for the Left. Why do the Tories go on just to be abused ? It does their cause no good at all. That is assuming they have a cause.
Grant I agree . It would certainly cause a stir and wake people up to the fact that there are massive questions to be answered by the BBC. But are Sky and ITV any less biased to the left than the BBC? Ch 4 is even worse than the BBC. How would the Tories get their message out there? We need more news and current affairs broadcasters who represent the full spectrum of political opinion . But the BBC et al have things so tightly sewn up that they will never let it happen. Look what happened when Murdoch wanted to take full control of Sky the stupid Tories firstly stipulated that it could not entail changes to Sky news and that Fox News could not increase its footprint in the UK and even after that they referred it to the monopolies commission. The timid Tories tremble at sound of the BBC.
Itv applies the same Islam filter as al beeb they’ve had the memo from the government(s) and will kowtow for an easy unreformed life. Sky goes easy to but seem happier jumping in with a breaking story before they filter it into msm speak .
Personally – I prefer RT – if only for its often unintended comedy value. Blighty needs a Fox News
DT,
I sometimes think that the BBC are the real Government in this country. The Tories are pitiful.
You are correct – you cannot rest your hopes on the Tories. Too many of them like the BBC. The majority of the are no longer conservatives, in particular their Leader May. She should move to the Labour Party, she has more in keeping with their beliefs. There are some among them who still believe in the cause to which you refer but they are a minority, the rest have moved to the Left and into PC territory.
How can any public organisation meant to be unbiased by its charter employ children of leading politicians to host political programmes? Will ofcom do anything? Will the government finally decide to do something about BBC bias? No and no.
I would guess they probably believe that only those from the liberal left and their siblings are truly intelligent enough to assess situations, make valid comments and justify their absurd remuneration.
It’s a policy that runs throughout the BBC and fails on many levels, but they’re not bright enough to realise that.
Beltane, conversely I think it’s actually that they are too thick to get a job in the real world.
BBC moves to the left so what can we do about it?
Write to your Conservative MPs and urge them to support any move to replace Treezer who won’t do bugger all about the BBC
But this presupposes that one’s Conservative MP isn’t of roughly the same political hue as the BBC. In my case, she certainly is – not to mention being a prominent remainiac. The problem is how few Conservatives are really conservative. If there were more like JRM the BBC wouldn’t be allowed to get away with being the broadcast arm of the far Left.
GCooper
I have to agree with you. I did think letting the traitors know what the public think might remind them of their conservative roots, but they are BBC grunts.
In the heyday of chivalry , the Knights only recognised other Knights . They despised the peasants and would ride through them in a battle to get to grips with Knights from the other side . The Knights transposed nationalities and recognised Knights from other countries before ordinary people from their own .
There seems to be a new elite in the world and the BBC is part of that . That’s why they like certain politicians and ignore others , as well as the general public .
Heseltine and Ken Clarke are BBC types . Of the Right but with the same disdain for Joe public . Nigel Farage obviously isn’t of their stripe and Jeremy Corbin wasn’t when he was lukewarm about the EU . They’ll warm to him though as he gets captured by the elite .
What an interesting observation! I think you’re onto something here.
It has been glaringly obvious (for some time) that many politicians were not all they purported to be. However, to suggest such a thing would have been met with scorn and derision by those still wedded to party affiliations. Public perception has finally caught up and such views are not such a ‘conspiracy theory’ anymore.
Nibor – I think it goes back further than that. I remember reading something about the ancient greeks where the biggest aristocrats of Athens, Corinth, Thebes etc would all have intermarried their sons and daughters – like in a nice cosy little EU type club. All the while fighting interminable wars amongst themselves for an extra few square miles of farmland, using the poor bloody clueless hoplite citizenry!
Another woman-why? Is she really the only availble candidate? Of course not but as has been pointed out Sarah Smith is as her father a Labour supporter and therefore easily controlled to carry out for the most leftist operation in broadcasting-wonder if she will be found drinking in the Langham Hotel? A favourite haunt since I don’t know when for the employees of the BBC. Out TV is becoming or has become as per USA TV, just dam awful most of the time. Mostly unwatchable rubbish aimed at the enslaved those where BBC multicultural propaganda has instilled its dilibating tenticles. Without seeming to be predjudice where have all the white people gone from the screen?
the bBC will see this as positive in terms of Sarah being on-side and on message.
There could be a slightly longer term angle.
The SNP was cleverly described in the Scottish Mail( Mr Daisley) as a ” caravan of grievance” and failing in all critical areas (Brexit/Education/Health the Scottish Economy) heading for the ravine.
What will replace the SNP though………….and that’s where Sarah might be seen as useful in the lead up to the next election.
The first interview with Krankie should be interesting .
The latest report ( GERS) released in Scotland paints a really bad picture and shows that had the Scottish electorate accepted
the independence ” Liar’s Charter” dreamt up by Salmond and Sturgeon we would be battling the Greeks for bail out dosh.
s.t,
I think the SNP are in trouble and Labour are not really gaining much. The last GE saw an upsurge in Tory support. Possibly because many people are sick of the SNP and Labour. As for the Lib Dems, 7.5 % share of the vote.
Grant
At least all the loose talk about how difficult it is to disentangle the UK from the EU after 40 years of “nudging” towards the Superstate must hole the SNP case for independence below the waterline. How much more difficult must it be to reverse 300 years of common history as a single state.
Krankie just had a go at Aunty for not getting wimmin up to pay parity fast enough.
That should ensure she is on VD, Newsnight, DP duty all month.
I have not noticed anyone commenting on how it was the BBC that almost “won it” for JC (aka Dave Spart): Prior to the election the BBC were not at all keen on JC and were as happy as anyone else to mock his antics. (Since he was perceived as being off message on Brexit and not likely to win power so needed to be replaced by a more electable leader) However as soon as the snap election was called the BBC with no other option went into overdrive in their support. The BBC Election Web page had a banner daily with JC looking as statesmanlike as he could manage with a red party conference background usually with “vote Labour” somewhere on it.
I have not noticed anyone commenting on how it was the BBC that almost “won it” for JC (aka Dave Spart): Prior to the election the BBC were not at all keen on JC and were as happy as anyone else to mock his antics. (Since he was perceived as being off message on Brexit and not likely to win power so needed to be replaced by a more electable leader) However as soon as the snap election was called the BBC with no other option went into overdrive in their support. The BBC Election Web page had a banner daily with JC looking as statesmanlike as he could manage with a red party conference background usually with “vote Labour” somewhere on it.
I wonder if Andrew Neil will still be doing ‘This Week’ ?
It is rather vague whether Neil is leaving voluntarily or not, although he remains on other progs. I agree he is a superb interviewer. Although on radio, I always thought Jimmy Young was good. He would listen to what his subjects had to say and then go back over their words and claims rather than hectoring and shouting them down. it’s interesting how John Smith has been airbrushed out of Labour’s history. Probably because he was a man of integrity.
miker22
Given what came before John Smith in the labour party the truely dire kinnock [who at lest had the sense not to give the garden gnome corbyn any high level job] and after John Smith in the labour party the utterly vile tony “teflon” blair is it any wonder the labour party is trying to airbrush John Smith out. PS a John Smith led labour party would have been a vast improvement over the slease and incompetence of blair and brown
I am not part of the ” Scottish Mafia ” but John Smith was a man of integrity. Many years ago I was sitting next to him on a shuttle flight Heathrow- Edinburgh . It was a friday evening and he was clearly on an extended lunch. The main thing I remember is that, even though he realised I was from a different political viewpoint , he was very polite. Also , great sense of humour. Labour lost a great leader. There is no way he would have made the mistakes that Blair made.
I always liked Smith too (in my lefty days) He did seem to possess that one thing that most mainstream politicians today do not seem to value an more – integrity.
After his death with Blair ascendant, style replaced substance. Otherwise known as wankerism
I shall always relish his humiliation of Abbott over her remark about ‘black’ mothers….seeing Portillo trying to sink into the sofa, crushed into one corner by the sweating, heaving mass alongside, he was plainly thinking..’ bloody hell Andrew, bit strong’….and then the behemoth herself…rolling eyes, clearly taken aback by the grilling, wonderful…’ Andwew, i have nothwing to sway’….she’s dead right there, racist bullying bitch…..
Grim,
I just watched it now on YouTube. Andrew totally exposes Abbott for the total hypocrite and racist that she is.
Wasn’t that when she left This Week ?
Has this woman ever held down a real job in her life ?
Who the hell votes for her ?
Why does the BBC hold her in esteem ?
The mind boggles.
The Tories’ record on policing and crime is abysmal – please read & RT my @timesredbox piece {Diane Abbott jul2017 twitter}
Better get 10,000 new “Police men and women” and pay them £8,000 a year each.
Labours record on most things is abysmal. They have produced some of the worst MPs ever. Including yourself
Like how labour was tough on child grooming…Rotherham, Rochdale, Newcastle so on
Whereas labour’s view on crime is that if it includes mass rape of children, they (the children) should shut their mouths? Is that it?
Why dont you give us ethnic breakdowns of criminality and tell us how many are warzone migrants you bring into UK & put before Brits ?
But u have been open in ur criticism of all bodies of security in fact critical & open in support of criminals destroying Hackney recently.
i will believe you when you learn to count.
Maybe because of all the criminals labour let into this country. Muslims make 7% of our population. 14% of our prison population.
So is your math skills remember? Or have you conveniently forgot,must be the type 2 diabetes clouding your memory.
All we need to do is recruit 20,000 at a cost of £80 million! What a bargain!
Corbyn protects muslims raping our white children for cheap votes he should go
While I’m no fan of The Tories, If you and your abysmal party ever get in to power, we are all doomed !!!
UK officials ignored muslim grooming rape gangs for fear of being branded racist bigots
Wow….did you write that all by yourself? Prob not.too lazy to tweet yourself
Please give us worth re-tweeting about!
But at least they cab count. 20,000 extra police for £80 million. Give up! You have not got a clue!
Why does it not surprise me that you’re a liberal that is so open your brain has fallen out! You deserve ALL the karma you get!
Some would say the same about your use of a calculator
No thanks, not sure i trust you to deliver the facts
No comment on the muslim grooming gangs from Dianne.Thats because she has her agenda and priorities.We have to keep labour out!!!
black lives matter so much they kill each other, this country is being destroyed by muslims blacks eastern europeans
Is this a parody account? The worlds gone mad.
I assume Sarah Smith will be paid exactly the same amount as Andrew Neil, in keeeping with the Beeb’s recent comments about sexual dicrimination and pay . I’d like to find this out. Talent in the Beeb is irrelevant, just ask Gary Lineker.
At the fag end summer The Westminster Hour – the upmarket shipping forecast was “hosted” by one Ellie Price – obviously some senior beeboids favourite for a try out for a better job . I like to be able to reference people I listen too so ms Price Cv via wiki is school- uni Bsc Politics – dip Politics journo – job at PA 3 years job with itv for couple of years then a full beeboid .
The tiny size of the gene pool from which they recruit is a major part of the problem we face with the BBC.
There’s a sort of reverse Darwinism going on within the BBC and the Left, a type of intellectual (sic) inbreeding. Which is why their utterances sound like the verbal equivalent of the Dueling Banjos tune.
1) It would be against UK employment legislation to discriminate against anyone in employment based upon who their father was.
2) There’s absolutely no reason to think that someone shares their politics with another family member.
3) Anyone who becomes a political journalist, almost certainly has an interest in politics, which almost certainly means they have political views. Most people do. Their political views are not a basis on which to employ them or not, an are irrelevant to their job.
Oh Blackwell – that is just so sweet. It’s nice to read of someone who supports the incestuous bubble of politics and journalism .
I’m sure this young lady got such a key job because of her wide experience .
Maybe we should keep an open mind and wait to see how fairly she treats every one – including the labour politicians who went to her fathers’ funeral .,
And it’s so refreshing to have a beeboid supporter on this site. I’m aaware of the discrimination issue. I’m aware that you cannot punish someone because their dad was a head lefty . But like so many other things – it’s how it looks . Plus the fact that she worked for Channel 4 news so might as well be a card carrying Marxist .
Time will tell if Sarah Smith produces a a good programme or not. My own opinion is that it will try to start off strong and unbiased and them slip into the normal routine. Time will tell.
The only grilling left of centre guests on Sunday Politics will soon have to worry about is how they want their bacon done that morning.
Whoops. Have I been somethingist mentioning bacon?