Here you go, an on-time Open Thread. If BBC bias is bothering YOU this is where to detail it.

The BBC has in times past appointed itself the ‘Official Opposition’ when it felt that Labour weren’t sufficiently rigorous in holding the Tory government to account, so the BBC took on the job itself.

It now looks like it has decided, in these straitened times of austerity, to take on the role of Judge and Jury, passing judgement on all and sundry…well, on selected targets anyway.

Here Nick Robinson tries to spin a story and create a ‘crisis’ for Cameron:

Hacking verdict: Prison for Coulson, questions for Cameron

On the day David Cameron walked up to the door of Number 10 as prime minister he was there – standing in a huddle of the staff who were about to move into new taxpayer funded jobs in Downing Street.

This story is, of course, not just about one man and the prime minister who hired him. It is about the hold the Murdoch empire had over British politics for years and the behaviour of those he hired.

Tonight a man who helped get his boss into Number 10 faces up to a new life – in prison. His former boss faces serious questions about his judgement.

Not sure why Cameron should ‘face serious questions about his judgment’ or why he should apologise for employing Coulson.  Only after extensive police investigations and a trial was Coulson judged guilty in law….all else is politically opportunist point scoring based on rumour and allegation solely intended to try and discredit Cameron…and the BBC is clearly still playing that game.

The BBC were all too ready to campaign for Islamist terrorists to get them released from Guantanamo and to make excuses for those who carry out the worst atrocities and yet harrumph loudly about Cameron employing someone who was at the time not even charged with any crime.

As for the ‘hold the Murdoch empire had over British politics‘……where are the questions from the BBC about previous incumbents of No10…or those who would like to move in there?……

All the time the Sun supported the Labour Party did the BBC raise any questions or doubts? Or ask questions about the Labour placeman at the Times, Tom Baldwin, feeding in Labour friendly stories to the paper and now a Labour communications spinner?  Does the BBC raise any questions about its own close links to the Labour Party?  Robinson describes Murdoch as ‘the most powerful media mogul in Britain.’….but that’s not true is it?  The Director General of the BBC is the most powerful media mogul in Britain…and his minions not only have the massive power and resources to influence the political narrative but are willing and able to deploy it in the service of the Labour Party.

And if the story is really about Murdoch and his hold over British politics shouldn’t the BBC be rather more rigorous and wide ranging in its investigations rather than seemingly restricting its censure to the Conservatives?  Perhaps they might like to ask why for instance Brown didn’t tackle Murdoch if he really believed his son’s medical records had been illegally accessed  and his financial records hacked as he now claims.

Robinson’s line seems remarkably similar to Miliband’s:

“I think David Cameron has very, very serious questions to answer because we now know that he brought a criminal into the heart of Downing Street. David Cameron was warned about Andy Coulson, the evidence mounted up against Andy Coulson, David Cameron must have had his suspicions about Andy Coulson, and yet he refused to act.

I believe this isn’t just a serious error of judgement, this taints David Cameron’s government because we now know that he put his relationship with Rupert Murdoch ahead of doing the right thing when it came to Andy Coulson’

It’s all about black and white. And Brown. At least through the prism of the BBC.

EastEnders has too many white cast members to be authentic, the head of the BBC’s watchdog has warned.

The popular BBC soap opera, which is set in the fictional east London neighbourhood of Walford, also has too many young actors to be properly representative, said Diane Coyle, acting chairman of the BBC Trust.

In a speech at the London School of Economics, Coyle reportedly reflected on findings from Audience Council England which found that there were “nearly twice as many white people living in fictional E20 as in real life E17.” E17 is the postcode for Walthamstow, one of the multicultural east London neighbourhoods on which the soap is based.

Can’t wait to see these changes. Hopefully we can see more Somalis, more Roma and Bulgarians, more FGM operatives and hopefully a few wannabe ISIS recruits. Good old BBC – always focused on that all important multicultural gaiety.

Curious how the BBC broadcasts a programme explaining the issues on a subject that Ed Miliband makes a policy speech about 3 days later.

In May 2013 Ipsos MORI released some research it was working on in conjunction with the left wing Demos and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on how the young view welfare:

Generations

Ipsos’s Bobby Duffy says Generation Y believes people need to take greater personal responsibility rather than looking to the state, and that this in turn reflects the fact its members have had less state support themselves than other recent generations.

The report noted that:

Our debate about welfare policy in the UK is easily muddled, because unlike most other countries we’ve lost sight of its contributory nature and confuse social security for the large majority with welfare for the poor. Older groups are net beneficiaries from welfare spending, and therefore widespread support across cohorts can only be maintained if younger generations believe that a similar contract will remain in place when they’re old. This seems likely to prove increasingly difficult, given that younger groups seem to have a much weaker perception of the contributory nature of welfare.

In June 2013 Ed Miliband made a speech on welfare and how Labour would reform it:

And, today, people’s faith in social security has been shaken when it appears that some people get something for nothing and other people get nothing for something – no reward for the years of contribution they make.

We have to tackle this too.

Overcoming worklessness, rewarding work and tackling low pay, investing in the future and recognising contribution: these are the Labour ways to reform our social security system.

Remake social security to make it work better for our country and pass on a fair and sustainable system to the next generation, with the Labour Party.

So Miliband has picked up on the need to recognise the ‘contributory nature’ of welfare and if the young pay in they should get something out in future.

One year later on the 16th of June 2014 the BBC curiously produced a programme, ‘Generation Right’, which returned to the Ipsos MORI report of May 2013 and told us that ‘Generation Y’ wanted a fairer welfare system and a link between hard work and reward.

Three days later, on the 19th of June 2014, Miliband makes another speech, essentially the same one as in 2013 in which he said there was a need for welfare to be fairer and for the ‘something for nothing’ culture  to end and to ‘ restore the link between hard work and reward.‘

He also said:

And to properly reward hard work and effort, we need contribution to be at the heart of our welfare system too.
We talk about the problem of people getting something for nothing.
And we are right to do so.
But there is a problem that politicians rarely talk about of people getting nothing for something.
How many times have I heard people say: “for years and years, I paid in and then when the time came and I needed help I got nothing out”?
Rewarding contribution was a key principle of the Beveridge Report.
And it is a key intuition of the British people.
But it is a principle that has been forgotten by governments of both parties.

In other words Miliband is once again echoing the Ipsos MORI report’s words…that the contributory nature of welfare has been forgotten and that the young must have that link restored and guaranteed for welfare system to work.

Not saying at all that the BBC produced a programme based on a year old Ipsos MORI report three days before Ed Miliband made a major policy defining speech also echoing what was in that report and that someone at the BBC intended to use that programme as a ‘warm up’ for the main event, explaining the issues and giving Miliband ‘cover’  for his new policy as he apparently makes a dramatic change of course and commits Labour to cut welfare spending on the young….‘for the first time’ as the BBC repeatedly told us.  Just pure coincidence.

Miliband made his speech at the IPPR’s release of its own policy strategy recommendations, there being close links between Ipsos MORI and IPPR:

The Condition of Britain: Strategies for social renewal
The Condition of Britain: Strategies for social renewal sets out a comprehensive new agenda for reforming the state and social policy to enable people in Britain to work together to build a stronger society in tough times.

No coincidence that this is a major component of that report as well……

FOSTERING CONTRIBUTION AND RECIPROCITY

In this chapter, we argue that the second pillar on which to build a strong society in tough times is contribution and shared endeavour. An ambitious agenda for social renewal must seek to marshal all of the resources that reside in everyday life, harnessing people’s time and talents, and drawing on the strengths and experience of civil society in all its forms. This will require steps to both promote and reward contribution across society, strengthen civic and state institutions that mobilise contribution, and embed reciprocity much more strongly in our welfare system.

Maybe it is  all just a coincidence.  It’s a small world after all.  And there’s an election coming.

Craig at ‘Is the BBC biased?’  had a listen to the BBC’s ‘Generation Right‘ and concluded:

Right standing.

If you have the time, please take a listen to Generation Right (Radio 4, 8.00pm).

I expected the worst (and said as much), but I’ll now happily eat my words. This was an absolute pleasure to listen to from start to finish, fascinating and – especially gratifying – scrupulously fair too.

All credit then to the BBC’s Declan Harvey [who I bashed the other day for an injudicious anti-UKIP tweet], Vicky Spratt and Lewis Goodall for making such a fabulous, unbiased programme. It can be done.

Have to say that my initial concern with the programme, before hearing it, was based on the concept of it…that there is a problem because the young are more right leaning, apparently, than before.  Why would the BBC think that is a ‘problem’?

Having listend to the programme I have to disagree with Craig on this one and say it is probably one of the BBC’s more politically biased programmes and povides the listener with a completely distorted intepretation of what the young said and a false idea of what the report actually said.

But that is the subject for another post.

Another view of Diane Coyle and her application to take over from Patten:

David Keighley: Europhile quango queen and climate change warrior. No wonder Dave wants her as BBC chief

One thing is certain about Ms Coyle if she does land the chairman’s role. She won’t be pressing for any significant changes in the BBC’s journalism. She has already declared:

“I’ve always valued the BBC, not least as the best provider of news coverage in the world. Its impartiality and comprehensive coverage underpin its vital civic role.”

Given that the BBC Trustees are supposed also to be watchdogs in terms of standards, that’s a terrifying expression of complacency.

There is also this:

Her long-time BBC Trust colleague is Alison Hastings, who has decreed that the promulgation of climate change alarmism is compulsory for all BBC journalists.

Now I hadn’t seen Hastings’ comments from 2012 before but they make for interesting reading:

Trusting what you see and hear: the media’s role in covering science accurately

Climate change is 90 per cent likely to have been caused by humans. That was the conclusion of the influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007.

The BBC Trust, the body which is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the BBC’s programmes are impartial, and of which I am a member, recently asked eminent scientist Professor Steve Jones to take an independent view of the BBC’s science coverage.

Trouble is JOnes wasn’ that eminent…being comlpetely unable to get funding for nay project he admitted he was going nowhere…untitl the BBC saved him and gave him a job.

As for independent…he’s along term fanatical pro-climate change advocate.

Hardly impartial owing his living to the BBC and desperate to advance the cause.

She went on:

‘When something moves from opinion to well-established fact, viewers should be aware of this’

I’d be fascinated to hear what those well established facts are….where are the facts that prove it is man who is warming the climate?….not even the IPCC goes that far so unequivocally.

Ah here she goes:

‘A body of evidence – like that assessed by the IPCC report – changes how the BBC’s obligation to cover issues with ‘due impartiality’ is applied.’

Unfortunately the IPCC AR5 is not a body of evidence but a conflation of supposition, conjecture and wishful thinking…..

It admits it has no idea why there has been a pause in warming…you can assume from that it has no idea therefore how warming is caused.

Hastings has no doubt been suitably briefed by the relentlessly on message Roger Harrabin.

Her long-time BBC Trust colleague is Alison Hastings, who has decreed that the promulgation of climate change alarmism is compulsory for all BBC journalists.

 Alex Proud, of the Telegraph, BBC and C4 tells all:

Why I love the BBC

The BBC upholds genuine British values at home and offers great PR for our country overseas. What’s not to like, asks Alex Proud

Straightforward, intelligent coverage that we can trust.

The BBC is also one of the greatest exponents of “British values” there is – assuming that by British values you mean things like decency, fairness, humour and intelligence, rather than Humpty-Dumptyish political expedience. It’s one of the few British institutions that still seems to embrace a multicultural Great Britain and show how it can work.

I know that US cable has produced some great box sets. But here, you are cherry-picking the very best of a market that is six times as big. And while the US does make Breaking Bad and The Wire, it also produces Fox News, talk radio and the despair-inducing sea of brain-dead commercial squalor that is American terrestrial TV.

Anyway, enough meta-economics, let’s move on to the accusations of political bias. These are easily dealt with as they’re just tosh – and endless studies prove this. The Beeb bends over backwards to be impartial and, given that it is a state broadcaster, has a rather an amazing record of attacking governments on both sides of the political fence. I just wish the BBC would call these people out a little more often – as they’re usually cheap opportunists or politicians who have enjoyed a little too much hospitality.

Actually, come to think of it, I am totally happy for politicians to be as unpleasant as they like about the BBC with one proviso. Before they say their piece, they have to list every single meeting they’ve had with the Murdochs and their minions in the previous two years.

Probably no coincidence this comes out just after IDS says the BBC is damaging democracy with its biased pro-Labour broadcasts….from a man employed by the BBC, one who hates Fox, Murdoch and has pretensions of being ‘intellectual’….’In your 40s though, cerebral pursuits are celebrated… those of us who prefer brainy stuff have been quietly putting in the spadework for 20 years. We really do know what we’re talking about.’

Nah…not so much Alex.

When not writing puffs for the BBC Alex Proud runs various enterprises including the Proud Cabaret where one recurring event is the ‘Killing Kittens Cabaret’:

Killing Kittens Cabaret
We have found ourselves under the heel of London’s most renowned sexual deviants… and we’re all too happy to be there.

In their first ever public outing – Killing Kittens will host a night of the finest burlesque on the London circuit, with a little extra something added. Prepare for a roster of the raunchiest variety performances in the capital and a window in to the exclusive world of whispers that has taken London’s vice-driven nightlife by storm.

Each table will be numbered and equipped with a telephone.

As the restaurant guests acquaint themselves with the spirit of the evening, they will be given leave to place anonymous phone calls to diners of their fancy. Through playful conversation, the night offers a window to London’s thrill seekers to the immersive world of erotic rendezvous.

Yep…it’s all about the intellect, having a good chat and some fine wine…..and a naked romp with some complete strangers….

Don’t think I’ll be lectured about the iniquities of American TV, Fox and Murdoch by someone who works for the BBC and who peddles this ‘filth’ on that crazy free market….not that I’m opposed to filth…just hypocrisy.

A break from the usual….perhaps this explains Obama’s recent comments on Scottish independence…though I’d have thought he was more likely to be on the  left wing than centre back:

Here’s one for the UKIPer’s:

chuka.umunna.mp@parliament.uk

I see that John Kerry is in Baghdad and is pushing the Obama line that the staggering success of ISIS is the creation of lack of “inclusivity” by the Maliki Government. The BBC appears to accept this opinion  and no challenge is offered back on the topic. Whilst I can understand Kerry pushing this line there is the OTHER possibility that the growth and success of ISIS is down to the Obama doctrine of leaving field of battle and then declaring this a success when in fact it is obvious that the situation was highly volatile and that ISIS have filled the void that Obama created.

I heard lots of outrage on the BBC today concerning the judgement of the Egyptian court that has sent three Al Jazeera journalists to prison for being Muslim Brotherhood enablers. One of the three, Peter Greste, is a former BBC journalist and so the comrades are enraged at this “tyrannical judgement”. However the BBC were ardent cheer leaders for  the “Arab Spring”  and all the chaos it has wrought so why are they now bitching when it doesn’t follow the trajectory that they had hoped for? And as for the “Cairo Three” the fact of the matter is that the Muslim Brotherhood ARE a wicked terrorist organisation and Egypt has a right to deal with any who enable on their behalf. Would that our Government took a similar approach to those within the BBC that have shilled for the IRA for years, never mind the dhimmis that excuse Islamofascism in the UK. Thoughts?

Better late than never, here’s a new Open thread! Detail the bias please!!