Category Archives: BBC bias

Just a quick word to say I am back from my holiday and awoke to the Today programme’s relentless bias this morning. However to be fair to the BBC, although the item at 7.10am was ALL SET UP for some left wing self righteous indignation over our failure to embrace gazillions of …coughs …”refugees’ the interviewee – Catriona Jarvis who is a  retired judge of the Upper Tribunal – was unable to answer the simple question HOW MANY of them should we have then!!! Give it a listen if you missed it – her answers were truly pathetic.

Another week but the same old bias….let rip here…….

From the Mail:

BBC ‘ignored public’s views on its future and instead used paid-for-study to represent the views of the population’

The BBC Trust side-lined the views of the public from its official report on the future of the Corporation – despite lecturing everyone else that the public’s voice should be ‘heard loud and clear’.

It also skewed the results of a survey, even after telling MPs that any decisions about the future of the broadcaster should be based on ‘evidence’ rather than any preconceptions.

Rona Fairhead, chairman of the Trust, spent the summer arguing that the BBC’s future should not be dictated by ‘prejudice’.

Instead, she argued, it should be decided by the public who pay for the broadcaster, and based on firm ‘evidence’.

‘This should all happen through a proper debate in which the public’s voice is heard loud and clear. The BBC’s future is simply too important to be settled behind closed doors.’

However, it would seem that the Trust failed to listen to its own advice.

Around 40,000 people then responded to the Trust’s questionnaire about the BBC, in the belief that the governing body would then pass their views on to the Government.

But the Trust decided not to include the survey results in its official report on the future of the BBC, and relied on a much smaller, paid-for study to represent the views of the public instead.

Last night, people who filled in the survey were outraged that they took the time and effort to set down their views, only to have them dismissed in the Trust’s official report.

Caroline Levesque Bartlett, who runs a campaign to ban the licence fee, said: ‘I find it really irritating…we are allowed to share our view only once every ten years, and the BBC Trust rigs. What a sham.’ A BBC Trust source admitted that the results of the public questionnaire were not properly included in the official document, and hinted that it may have run out of time to do the analysis it wanted.

She added that some of the broad findings were ‘reflected’ in the report, and that the full analysis would be published at a later date – after the deadline for submissions to the Government’s Green Paper on the future of the BBC has already passed.

Lots to talk about …Nadiya, Mardell’s latest, the IMF praising Osborne, the EU exit campaign and of course the most important front page news….Murdoch’s latest Tweet…….over to you…

It’s getting nasty as the blame game starts…….

Scotland Yard accuses the BBC of hampering its investigations into historical child sexual abuse

Scotland Yard has accused the BBC of undermining its investigation into historical child sex abuse, claiming that the corporation’s actions risked deterring victims from coming forward.

Scotland Yard said that the BBC’s actions “could compromise the evidential chain should a case ever proceed to court”.

In a strongly worded statement it cited the example of Jimmy Savile, who was propelled to stardom by the corporation, to illustrate the dangers if potential witnesses are deterred from coming forward. Savile went unchallenged for years despite rumours of him abusing underage girls.

“Hundreds of people never came forward in part because they feared the consequences of making allegations against a powerful public figure,” said the statement.

“We are worried that this programme and other recent reporting will deter victims and witnesses from coming forward in future.”

Scotland Yard has insisted that the BBC’s handling of the investigation threatens to hamper its own criminal inquiries. .

A spokesman for the Met said: “We trust that the BBC has given due consideration to the impact of its reporting on ‘Nick’ and how it fulfils its responsibility to a witness making allegations of a sensitive and personal nature which were broadcast to millions of people.”

I’m guessing the police and the BBC won’t be teaming up again to raid a celebrity’s house on spurious, flimsy and unsubstantiated charges.

Theresa May said some sensible, measured and balanced things about immigration. The world went mad.  And the BBC gave the world a helping hand.

John Pienaar and Co told us that May used a tough tone, a hard, uncompromising message, she was deliberately setting out to polarise opinion.  Really?  Wasn’t she just saying the absolute truth about uncontrolled mass immigration, a truth that most people in this country understand?  The BBC might like to characterise that as a ‘hard message’ and ‘polarising’ but that is the BBC deliberately trying to paint May’s opinion as extreme, on the fringes and not supported by the mainstream.  Five Live told us that May once called the Tory Party the ‘nasty party’…and you know what?  She risks turning that label upon herself…says the BBC.  At least we know how the BBC views any open and honest debate about immigration….if you dare to say you want controls on it you’re basically a Fascist or as near as makes no odds.

Pienaar selected a wide range of opinion on May’s speech…or rather we heard of the ‘backlash’ from certain interested parties….the Institute of Directors, fervently pro-immigration, the Telegraph’s Kirkup. again fervently, if not rabid and dementedly pro-immigration as his frenzied attack on May illustrates, and of course not forgetting those immigration charities and NGOs (oddly the BBC’s complaints guru, Fraser Steel, is director of a company that helps immigrants).  Anyone not in favour of uncontrolled immigration?  Ermmm…no.   No inkling that the vast majority of the Public think that migration should be controlled?

So that’ll be the IOD whose members are more than happy to sack British workers and replace them with cheap migrants, who indeed are more than happy to sack British workers, pack the factories up and ship them to Poland or China or India…that’ll be the IOD members who haven’t bothered to go to the effort, expense and time to train British workers preferring instead to rob other countries of their trained workers.  I don’t think I’ll be taking any lessons on ethics from the IOD whose sole concern is the bottom line.

Strange we didn’t hear the same wild accusations for the same speech from Labour’s Andy Burnham not even a week ago….

EU migration hits low paid – Andy Burnham

Free movement of workers in the EU has made life tougher for low paid workers in the UK, Andy Burnham has said.  He was making a pitch to win back Labour voters from UKIP in his first big speech as shadow home secretary.  He said it was “not true” that free movement had benefited everybody as Labour had claimed in the past.

Mr Burnham said in his speech that Labour had not “faced up” to some of the impacts of EU migration and consequently appeared “out of touch……To win back the voters we lost to UKIP, I want to reframe the debate about immigration and the way Labour approaches it”.

“For too long, we have argued that free movement across Europe benefits everyone and affects all areas equally. That’s just not true.

“In places, a free market in labour benefits private companies more than people and communities. Labour hasn’t faced up to that and that’s why we look out of touch.”

“The truth is that free movement on the current rules is widening inequality. It has built the economic power of the big cities and that is good. But it has made life harder for people in our poorest communities, where wages have been undercut and job security lost.

Curious Pienaar didn’t reference Burnham’s speech especially in relation to the IOD as Burnham spells out who benefits the most from cheap, imported labour……..’a free market in labour benefits private companies more than people and communities.’

Note he also states that this cheap labour undermines British wages and jobs lost….two things May also pointed out and yet the Telegraph’s Kirkup savages her for…and not Burnham.

Pienaar has been highlighting the extremely negative reactions to May’s speech without any balancing pro-comments, or none that I heard…..though at least Tony Livesey on 5 Live (16:14) took the IOD to task and pretty well discredited their stance…accusing them of using the same inflammatory language the IOD accuses May of using.  Livesey also raised the point that even immigrants are concerned about immigration.  I well remember a Polish builder complaining that the next wave of East Europeans who came to the UK were undercutting him…after he had undercut the natives.

I can’t say I heard the BBC making such a fuss about Burnham’s speech, certainly not in the tone they use to describe May’s (Livesey aside). Pienaar has always leant towards Labour, Miliband could do no wrong and walked on water, Labour policies were always well thought out and workable whilst Tory ones were usually dismissed as far fetched and unworkable.  If I relied on Pienaar for the news I’d think May was striding around the stage in jack boots and a tiny moustache….Max Mosley’s dream come true?

Tonight Panorama broadcasts this: The VIP Paedophile Ring: What’s the Truth?

What’s the truth?  Good question.  Will Panorama provide the answer?…We know that the BBC grandees have been panicking about this Panorama programme lest it bring into question the BBC’s own reporting of ‘Nick’ and his allegations….and judging by this trailing article for the programme by Ceri Thomas I have my doubts….search for ‘BBC’ and you’ll get one reference in the article….‘They included places where Savile had done dreadful things – the BBC and the NHS’.

So things happened at the BBC but that’s just geography?

Thomas doesn’t seem to want the BBC to get any of the blame, at least in this article…that goes to the police, the Press and the politicians….those ‘Big Institutions’….hmmm…doen’t he mean big institutions like the BBC as well?

What we’ve found while we’ve been making this Panorama is a concern that all those big institutions – the police, press and politicians – are so determined to atone for the sins of the past that they’re in danger of inventing whole new categories of mistakes. The motivation may be good, but the outcome can be awful.

And look at this….Thomas claims the police have been spreading highly damaging allegations as they are…..

….giving up on even-handed, evidence-based policing at enormous cost to the reputations of people who’ve been accused – people like Harvey Proctor, Leon Brittan, Sir Edward Heath. How much responsibility do the police bear for smoke-damage when they light the most enormous fire?

Oh and the politicians?  …Why didn’t they catch old Savile out?…..

They’d been far too cosy with the media and the police – the same police who’d failed to collar Jimmy Savile.

And the Press…..

And then there’s the press…….miserably incompetent at investigating Jimmy Savile’s crimes.

And check this out….the wild west of the internet is blamed for lynching politicians without evidence…

And so, parts of the media – particularly the online, alternative media – raced down that road, publishing wild stories without pausing to check if they were true. A lot of things have been published that should never have been.

Hang on right there…..wasn’t it the BBC that hung Lord McAlpine out to dry on utterly false allegations?

Laughably Thomas ends on this….

[Are the allegations true?] A better answer might be to say that the real problem would be if the police, politicians and the press have decided that it doesn’t matter either way.

If the priority for those institutions has become patching up their battered reputations, then victims of abuse could be vulnerable again – pawns in the game – and the reputations of the accused would be acceptable collateral damage.

The police, press and politicans guarding their reputations?  Maybe…but this is all about the BBC really…..how can Thomas manage to write an article that in essence revolves around Savile and the BBC’s reaction to that, their reaction, or lack of, as he was committing the abuse and in the fallout afterwards when it came into the open (I won’t say ‘discovered’ because the BBC knew about it long before it was common knowledge) and the BBC ducked for cover.

For the BBC this has always been about guarding their reputation not about the truth, protecting themselves much as they, and those ‘big institutions’ protected the abusers in Rotherham and Rochdale, covering up for them in order for the pretence of ‘social cohesion’ in a wonderfully diverse and yet magically integrated society to be kept up…never mind the hundreds and hundreds of young, white girls that were sacrificed on that PC altar.

Perhaps the actual programme mentions the BBC’s role in all this.  If so why not in this article that seems to be deliberately and very carefully worded to avoid any blame going to the BBC?

Time for a fresh open thread……a Tory conference in full swing, mass Muslim immigration, a war in the Middle East with the Turks and Russians curiously bombing everyone except the one target they should be hitting…the Islamic State, Europe in turmoil and Peston’s hair….the BBC newsroom must be working full-steam ahead, all hands to the pumps, to keep up with all that and shape it into a narrative that pleases the left-wing sensibilities….

John Whittingdale confirms that the BBC is to lose its power to judge whether the BBC is biased.  Good.  About time.

From the Guardian:

John Whittingdale, the UK culture secretary, has confirmed that the BBC will be stripped of its power to adjudicate on allegations of political bias in its coverage. 

Speaking at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, he said the public should have confidence that complaints are examined independently and carefully. He said it must no longer be the case “that if you make a complaint against the BBC, the decision on whether it is justified is taken by the BBC”.

Whittingdale first signalled such a move in an interview with the Telegraph in June, in which he said he wanted to think about the way questions of impartiality were judged by the BBC Trust.

In his address to Tory conference, Whittingdale said the BBC was the finest broadcaster in the world at its best, but claimed many people feel it had “not always been as fair and impartial as it should [be]”. He said this was one of the key issues being considered in his review of the future of the corporation, which has already had 80,000 responses.

In a green paper published in July, Whittingdale’s department said the BBC Trust model needed to be reformed, with its regulatory functions given either to a unitary board, a new standalone oversight body, or a third party regulatory body such as Ofcom.

It is of interest that there are 80,000 or so responses to the Charter Review from the Public so far…..the BBC and its hangers on constantly claim that the Review Panel is anti-BBC (it is definitely not that….some worked for the BBC and one is from the the Voice of the Listeners and Viewers group of which David Attenborough is a supporter…”If you want to help ensure its quality, please join me in supporting VLV which is doing so much to protect the principle of public service in broadcasting”  and which has many ex-BBC types on its board).  So apart from much support on the Review Panel itself, the BBC and BBC Trust have a huge voice in the Review along with many, many other interested parties….and here we see evidence that the Public also get a chance to voice their opinions.

The BBC has been extremely dishonest in attacking the Review Panel and trying to suggest the Panel is anything but impartial and that it is the sole arbiter of what happens to the BBC when that is far, far from the truth.

It is interesting also to note that the BBC’s seeming biggest fan, Tory Lord Fowler, who is one of those who maligned the Review Panel so mendaciously, pops up in the Sunday Times letters page to attack the Government’s proposal to subject the BBC Charter to review every five years instead of ten…this he says will increase the control of government.  He doesn’t like the Royal Charter in itself saying it is ‘a cover for political meddling…..thoroughly undemocratic and hands power to whatever government is in power at the time’….paradoxically suggesting that the answer might be that huge changes to the BBC should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and  approval….not sure how that isn’t a BBC still under a level of political control.  Not sure though how he thinks the current review process is undemocratic and unaccountable as it seems open to anyone to have a say and for Parliament to speak up for or against as the members wish.  Lord Fowler’s ability to comment doesn’t seem to be too constrained by the ‘undemocratic process’.  It’s not as if the BBC itself isn’t political, apart from its proven left-wing bias, it wields enormous power of its own over politicians…as Fowler admitted in 2012…’Surely the corporation has a massive political influence, for why else would cabinet and shadow cabinet ministers queue up to be interviewed on Today or Andrew Marr’s Sunday programme?’

No link to the Times article but essentially Fowler only repeated what he said in the Lords last month…

The Government, in their consultation on the BBC royal charter, skirt around the most basic question, the 20th question: do we need a royal charter at all? The noble Baroness touched on that. It all sounds very grand. It sounds as if it is a defensive mechanism against political interference—the kind of recognition that should be given to an organisation as important and venerable as the BBC. In fact, the royal charter means that the BBC is the plaything of any Government who happen to be in power as the 10-year renewal comes around. It is not just Conservative Governments, but Labour Governments as well.