Category Archives: BBC bias

A contribution by Graeme Thompson who posts as ‘hippiepooter’.

“Picking up from Alan’s post here on the BBC’s (ahem) ‘under-reporting’ of recent facts emerging about the Commons appearance of the families of ‘jihadi brides’, Britain’s patron saint of counter-jihad Douglas Murray prompts further thought here.

So let’s give this another spin with all that has now emerged. The father of one of the girls who went off to do Jihad and the lawyer that represented all the families who blamed the police in the Commons are rabid Jihadists.

This sensational (though entirely unsurprising) story has had banner headlines in The Times, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Evening Standard, but if you relied on the BBC for your news you would be unaware of it.

Why is this? Could it be that the correctnick left are anti-Western allies of Jihad and control the BBC? Why else would they aid and abet the propaganda of our country’s enemies then put a news blackout on their exposure?

We use the word ‘Islamist’ to differentiate between Muslims who want to kill us and Muslims who don’t. The last thing any civilised nation wants is a pogrom against an immigrant community when atrocities are committed in the name of its religion. However, Jihad is an integral part of Islam, and a Muslim who renounces Jihad renounces Islam.

One way we can defeat Jihad and stop demographic islamisation of our nation is to de-islamisize our Muslim population. The best way we can do this is with the Koran. How could such a lying, thieving, warmongering, child molesting, Jew hating monster like Mohammed possibly be the ‘last prophet of God’?

This Satanic religion is killing our country and the BBC is helping it.”

Wow, one of those mornings where I have received numerous emails from you folks mentioning the BBC Radio 4 Today programme hatchet job on the letter in the Daily Telegraph supporting Conservative economic policies. I also see it has been picked up on the Open Thread. I did hear Robert Peston in full “Save Ed” mode and the BBC was doing everything possible to push the Labour narrative that the thoughts of 100 senior business leaders means little and anyway there are academic based economists out there who support Ed! It looks more and more that the BBC are the official opposition to the prospect of a Cameron return to Number Ten!

Thought this was rather interesting. The BBC seems to have a mea culpa moment regarding Jeremy Clarkson and is to provide him with a regular spot on their Newsnight programme. 

Here you go, on-time and ready for your completion! Detail the bias here please and keep it polite.

Now there was me complaining that the BBC were ignoring UKIP. I wish to apologise… 🙂

Election 2015: Why is UKIP off to a slow start?

This is a candidate who has to win on 7 May. If he fails to become the next MP for South Thanet he has said he will quit as leader. Yet I have seen no door-knocking. Our cameras have not been told of any public event, yet. We have had two poster-unveiling ceremonies with impromptu leader interviews. He arrives, he speaks, he answers questions, then he leaves.

Couldn’t ask fairer than that, eh?

VOTE LABOUR

The IFS, the BBC’s favourite economics thinktank……

Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.…..was at Oxford with Ed Balls…

Johnson studied PPE at Oxford University between 1985 and 1988, when his tutorial partner at Keble College was Balls. Both got firsts.

He also worked for the Labour government at the…

Department for Education and had three years at the Treasury while Gordon Brown was chancellor.

Just of interest, the BBC’s other goto think tank, the King’s Fund, is headed by Chris Ham…the man who advised Labour on their NHS reforms….so does he have a dog in the fight when he criticises the Coalition’s reforms…reforms which might suggest his own weren’t up to scratch?  I think he might….especially when he gets headlines like this from the BBC...’NHS reorganisation was disastrous, says King’s Fund.’

Never mind…Overall public satisfaction with the NHS increased to 65 per cent in 2014 – the second highest level since the British Social Attitudes survey began in 1983. Dissatisfaction with the service fell to an all-time low of 15 per cent.

Not as if Ham bigs up Labour policies now is it?...“Andy Burnham has set out an ambitious and wide-ranging vision for the NHS and social care. It throws down the gauntlet to the other parties to set out their plans ahead of the general election…His prescription for change is ambitious and his vision of delivering integrated care, co-ordinated around the needs of the individual, will be widely welcomed “

The IFS and the King’s Fund are guaranteed a favourable report from the BBC whenever they utter something but I’m not sure why….they do seem ultimately more Labour friendly than they should be, giving Labour policies far more credence than they merit whilst being highly critical of the government.

The IFS were very quick off the mark to attack the Conservatives over their claim of a £3000 tax hike by Labour and yet the IFS admits it doesn’t know what either party intends….and the figures that are available back up the Tory estimate.  The IFS can certainly say the claim is an estimate but can’t dismiss it using any actual figures…as indeed they weren’t able to merely suggesting the Tory claim was ‘unhelpful’….certainly unhelpful to Labour.

One BBC correspondent tells us that ‘The Office of National Statistics (ONS) released two important sets of data today. The headlines have been grabbed by the better-than-expected GDP numbers and I have no doubt that growth will feature heavily in the political battle of the next few weeks.’

The rising GDP figures did make the headlines….here’s the Telegraph’s...‘UK economy grew at fastest rate for nine years in 2014’  and its opening paragraph…

Quarterly expansion came in at 0.6pc in the last three months of 2014, leading to overall yearly growth reaching the same levels as before the financial crisis in 2006.

 

The BBC saying ‘Yep, incomes are up….but oh so minisculely….only 0.2% more than in 2010’. …or as Robert Peston says….‘Now let’s be clear about this. That is basically a sneeze higher. It is trivial. It’s loose change at the bottom of your purse. But it is higher.’  It takes the BBC half the report before they get to the eyecatching GDP figures and then this was the sole comment…‘It came as figures for economic growth in 2014 were revised upwards to 2.8% and separate indicators suggested economic confidence was at a 12-year high.‘

That’s it, no more to see here, move along says the BBC…..no mention of the economy growing the fastest it has for over 9 years…might be important when talking about ‘living standards’ perhaps.

It’s interesting the BBC starts the report by saying ‘The Conservatives and Lib Dems have heralded pre-election figures‘ rather than reporting that ‘The Office of National Statistics says…..’...kind of makes it look like the BBC is trying to say the Coalition is hyping the figures.

Peston also says...’It has been a recovery much slower than in any recession since 1945, but it is now reasonable to say that living standards are back to where they were at the time of the last election.’

He does the usual BBC thing as another BBC correspondent does...’taking five years to recover standards of living is a very slow recovery’  missing out the very important context for that…..from the BBC’s favourite economics guru, Paul Johnson of the IFS…..

In fairness we should remind ourselves of the scale of the task the Government took on. The deficit (that is, the amount the Government spends in a year minus the amount it raises) reached £157 billion in 2009/10 as a result of the deepest recession in around 100 years. It is still hovering around £100 billion this year.

Yes…..hard to forget ‘the deepest recession in around 100 years’ surely?  Maybe that’s why it took so much more time to get over it.  Important no?…especially when they quote Balls saying …‘ speaking at a campaign event in Swindon, said Conservatives were “telling people you have never had it so good” despite it being the “slowest recovery for 100 years”.’

Why quote one and not the other?  They are linked.

Peston goes on to say…‘The politically resonant number published today is that real household disposable income per head on 31 December 2014 was 0.19% higher than it was at the end of May 2010.’

So the ‘politically resonant figure’ is…‘household disposable income’.…why then does the BBC continue to quote Labour’s £1600 fall  in income figure rather than the Tory £900 rise in income….it is the Tory figure that is based upon disposable income after all…or as the BBC dismissively puts it…‘Mr Osborne’s favourite measure of standards of living: Real Household Disposable Income (RHDI) per capita.’   Labour base their figure on ‘real wages’ that doesn’t take into account how much cash actually ends up in a person’s hand at the end of the week including all income from other sources such as tax credits and welfare and is therefore not a true indicator of people’s income and not an indicator of their living standards.

The BBC trying its best to downplay any ‘good news’ that might make the Government’s economic policies look successful….whilst neglecting to challenge Labour claims in the same ‘ridiculous’ way.

Each morning, just after 6.30am, the Today programme trails the political agenda for the rest of the day. I notice that this seems to be restricted to the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats. Given the UKIP are showing a poll rating double that of the LibDems, don’t you think this is unfair? It’s as if the BBC want to cut off any oxygen of supply to Farage and his colleagues.

I enjoyed this.

It’s the BBC’s rightwing bias that is the threat to democracy and journalism

So says the BBC’s much loved “pundit” Owen Jones, aged 13 and three quarters.

You would need a heart of stone not to laugh.

The UK’s economy grew at a faster pace than initially estimated last year, revised official figures show. The economy grew by 0.6% in the final three months of 2014, up from the previous estimate of 0.5%, the Office for National Statistics said. The unexpected increase meant growth for the year was 2.8%, higher than the earlier estimate of 2.6%.

Then this…

But shadow chancellor Ed Balls, speaking at a campaign event in Swindon, said Conservatives were “telling people you have never had it so good” despite it being the “slowest recovery for 100 years”. “This is a government which has presided over five years when wages have not kept pace with rising prices and family bills,” he said.

Just like Balls, the BBC is desperate to thrown as much cold water on the good economic news. It has the power to impose its own narrative and I suggest that without the BBC, Miliband would be languishing in the polls.