David Dimbleby front’s the BBC’s EU coverage and will lead a debate to be held at Wembley Arena just two days before the referendum.
This is pure showbiz from the BBC….there’s absolutely no need to hold such a major debate at such a massive venue and at such a dramatic time. The BBC’s description of the event is possibly more truthful than they intended to let on….’The corporation’s biggest ever campaign event’.
What if, for the sake of argument, the BBC stage managed such an event and it turned out to be strongly in favour of staying in Europe? What if it nudged the vote in favour of staying? Two days before the referendum it’s a bit late to complain…if it swayed the vote it’s way too late and there would be no way to go for a steward’s enquiry…we’d be in Europe for the long haul. There are naturally other BBC debates but this looks to be purposely designed to be the eye catching spectacular.
Such a huge debate should be held long before the actual referendum to allow people to digest what was said and to allow those involved in the debate to expand on what they have said…this should be a debate that stimulates more discussion and knowledge… Dimbleby himself likes to think such debates should be ‘open, provocative in the sense that you provoke ideas and thought, where you get a cut-and-thrust of to-and-fro between individuals across a spectrum of opinion. ‘…difficult to make that work with only two days to go.
Such a ‘spectacular’ is liable to be hijacked by a sensationalist and persuasive speaker, from either side, regardless of what he/she is actually saying, winning the headlines and they hope, the votes. Only this morning on the Today programme we heard how the Scottish referendum was really ‘won’ by the silver tongued and charismatic (compared to Alistair Darling) Salmond and Sturgeon….’won’ in the sense that they won the hearts but not the minds… ‘project fear’ won the actual vote.
Will Dimbleby be rigorously impartial? The jury’s out on that….he certainly doesn’t come across as critical of Europe in any way and rather gives the impression of being in favour.
During the election he famously clashed with Nigel Farage as to whether the audience was biased…BBC CHALLENGERS’ DEBATE ‘SERIOUSLY BIASED’ AGAINST EU WITHDRAWAL CASE
Dimbleby said that the audience was hand-picked by an independent, reputable polling company and there was no bias.…a company that seems to always give the worst possible picture of UKIP.
His proud boast that the audience was hand-picked and impartial rather goes against this statement from him last year about another BBC debate programme on Europe and the value of a random audience….
We don’t select scientifically our audience for these programmes. We invite those who want to come, so it is also transparent and democratic, in that sense. Anyone who wants to come to the programme, anyone who wants to pose questions, can do so.
What is more interesting and possibly informative as to his leanings is his other comments in the same interview….
I think the British public is woefully under-informed about the structure, organisation and leadership of the European Union.
And I think that is in part the failure of the communicators, not excluding even the BBC, that tries its level-best, but doesn’t always succeed. But there is a relentless media debate, which either deliberately, sometimes, or by default, offers a distorted image of Europe.
That’s to say, it has a strong view, there are parts of the media – this does not apply to the BBC – which are strongly anti-European Union, and so they cover the European Union in ways that reflect that attitude.
How patronising is that? I imagine the British public is pretty well informed on the essential details of the EU and how it effects their lives. Dimbleby is of course talking about the Euro-sceptics and not the ‘British Public’ in general….so the Sceptics don’t like the EU because they don’t understand it or know enough about it…classic BBC.
That statement alone gives a clue as to what Dimbleby thinks about the EU, but if that weren’t enough we get a further clue in his claim that it is ‘certain parts of the media that are strongly anti-European Union’ that have misled the British Public with a distorted image of Europe.
So Euro-sceptics are only sceptical because they are being lied to and are under-informed….otherwise they would, of course, be wildly in favour of the EU if only they could see how amazing it really is. Pretty clear Dimbleby is for the EU.
He could of course have been talking about the BBC which is well known to push a pro-EU line…..as a House of Commons scrutiny committee confirmed….
We also took this opportunity to review how the BBC covers the EU scrutiny process and EU issues.
We deplore the fact that we had to repeatedly press for Lord Hall, the Director-General of the BBC and its Editor-in-Chief, as well as the previous BBC Trust Chairman Lord Patten, to appear before us.
As the nation’s public service broadcaster the BBC has very particular obligations under its Charter and Framework Agreement, both to be impartial and also to educate and inform. We do not believe this is currently being achieved in the context of the BBC’s EU coverage. Furthermore the BBC has not properly carried through its compliance with its own published aims following the serious criticisms made of the BBC by the Report by Lord Wilson of Dinton in 2005 relating to the BBC’s coverage of EU issues.
Somehow I don’t see the Wembley debate being of any real service and, as said, is more showbiz that real politics though the BBC will be hoping it can get enough pro voices on the night to project ‘fear’ into people’s hearts making them just nervous and jittery enough to stick with the devil they know.